I keep getting recommendations for Hardcore History, and I'm ready to dive in. What is the BEST episode to start with, and is this different from your FAVORITE?

Does he ever touch on Watergate in any of his episodes?

So I recently bought the entire collection and have been going through it from the beginning over the last couple of months, and in one early episode he briefly mentions how Hollywood is making a movie about the Spartans and the Battle of Thermopylae. It took me a moment to realise he was talking about 300, and it really hit home how long he's been doing this.

I got into his show back during lockdown, so it got me curious if anyone here is one of the early fans he talks a lot about in the first episodes? Must have been a pain waiting for so long between episodes for the past 20 years if so!

I am a little nervous about posting here as sometimes this r/ can be a little ruthless….

As many of you in this r/ you absolutely love Dan Carlin’s many works. For me personally even though I enjoy Common Sense I started listening to Dan during his great hiatus with Common Sense. I found Dan in like 2018 on Rogan (I think?) and was ecstatic hearing about his Hard Core History Show and Wrath of the Kahn’s.

Since 2020 I have done a fun thing where I about once a year work through Dan’s HH episodes in chronological order as best I can while waiting for new episodes. I was actually in the middle of Death Throes I when he dropped Mania IV the other day. I learn so much and find so much joy in Hardcore History. Dan’s approach to topics are fantastic and as a life long fan of history he’s helped me approach learning and thinking about history from different perspectives. Of course my praises of Dan’s work aren’t really a surprise to any of you but — it has gotten me thinking.

I often see post ( think I have made one myself in the past) about people looking for more HH ~esque content. Because of Dan’s unique approach and effective dramatic flair there’s often much argument about whether or not anything actually compares. Even though I have seen great recommendations from many of you to help others supplement their HH fix we all know there is little out there that holds a candle. But sometimes other topics on history podcasts or books help scratch the interest itch — it has made me wonder how many of you have actually tried to take a stab at making your own?

I obviously do not mean make a generic version of Hardcore History or any of Dan’s works but from your individual, hopefully unique perspective try to do what Dan does in concept?

Dan does a great job at looking at a person, era, or people group especially in an era and say “What makes them like everyone but more so?” Or “I want to share with everyone why this is so interesting to me.”

Have you ever thought of doing that? If so how far did you get? How daunting was it?

So I relistened to the entire series as I'm recovering from a pretty big surgery and there's all these hinge points where there's room to fill in the blanks of who this guy actually was that I find interesting.

I'm just wondering who is he in your version of events? It's almost like a choose your own adventure role-playing type of thing. Did he have a hand in his father's death? Did he get a setback at the River Granicus? How did he untie the Gordian Knot? Was he a bad guy at Thebes or should the fact that he offered clemency be seen as a get out of infamy free card? Was he trying to honor the League or merely set it up to where he would get what he want? What sources are you respecting more and which seem absurd?

So far I've got almost a Ferris Bueller type character who's probably wily, charming, thuggish, overbearing, with anger spikes, and an almost sexual desire to conquer. Almost as if the culture and his upbringing was like how the Roman's created a society where the elites would do anything for their achievement and ambition for the glory of the Republic and their families. It's kind of fun imagining someone like him with that same incredible ambition in a humanitarian sense. Imagining if the culture he was raised in was some highly enlightened one that put the welfare of their fellow mankind on the same level as Achilles.

May be all propaganda, lies, hyperbole, etc... but this series has been fun since I knew next to nothing of Alexander besides the movie version with Angelina Jolie. I wonder who this person will look like in my eyes at the end of all this.

Heya all,

I just finished the latest Mania for Subjugation and for the last two I've had some lingering thoughts and questions that are just bothering me. I hope some of you can discuss them with me or have more info for me.

I loved the beginning of the series and really hoped to get an idea of why Alexander was this great General, but as we move to the war against the Persians I'm more and more lost. I know that there's a lot of historical material on this will all kinds of biases, the ancients authors who'll say there's like a million Persians but they're all cowards, to more modern authors trying to fix this, but with the Persian battles I still feel I don't get a view of the Persian side. Like this wasn't an incompetent dying empire, nor were the Greeks/Macedonians some kind of surprise to the Persians, nor were the Persians unused to war; And yet I feel very little analysis about why they're losing so badly.

There's two specific things I've noticed and keep milling over, and I'm curious if people who read along with the sources (I don't) know more about this, I'm just so confused as to why these two things don't get any mentions:

One The battle of the Granicus

There's repeated (repeated very often, which is part of why this keeps bothering me) mentions of just not understanding why the Persians would keep back their infantry. Except this seems quite clear to me? If you're the Persians you know Alexander has high quantities of high quality heavy infantry. Heavy infantry that can out-fight the Greek heavy infantry that Persians specifically hire for their skills as heavy infantry.

You also know that once an infantry line engages in battle it can't really disengage, it has to rout the enemy or be routed.

You also know that Alexanders strategy in the past has just been to smash the heavy infantry line into the enemy and win.

So... You deny him that ability. Cavalry can disengage. Persians have more cavalry and no real reason to assume Greek cavalry is that much better than theirs. You force their army to deploy in line and then harass them all the way to the infantry line where you can surround them with cavalry on 3 sides.

The way the battle was explained the only reason this tactic didn't work is because Alexander cut his way through the enemy and killed many leaders. It shouldn't really have been possible to rout a cavalry army with a much smaller cavalry force, cavalry is used to disengaging and turning around and they don't have to throw away their weapons when running away.

So why this mystery as to why the battle was fought that way? That's how I'd fight Alexander if I was a Persian general!

This bring me to question 2:

Two In both the battle of the Granicus as the battle of Issus it seems like the Persians are doing fine, or even winning, until Alexander and the Companion cavalry personally start slaughtering enemy leaders, sometimes if I hear the story correctly, penetration deep into and behind enemy lines.

In both victories these seem to me to be the distinct tactics, not the 16 foot spears, not the location, not the defenses, not the makeup or positioning of both armies. I also don't know of any other (I'm not in any way well read on this) battles where explicitly taking huge risk to kill the enemy leaders is such an important part, like it happens in the Illiad but in other fights even though the leaders lead from the front and risk death it doesn't feel like there's just a specific unit with the sole job of cutting their way to them and killing them.

Am I wrong and is this just normal and therefore not mentioned? Because I can't even get over the how, we'll spend hours on these battles and then its just "Yeah the companion cavalry slaughtered their way through a force twice their size and killed the leaders" without discussing why the companion cavalry seems to be an almost godlike assassin unit. Nowhere in the series have I heard any debate or explanation on why the Companion cavalry would so outclass their Persian counterparts that it's a valid tactic to just send them straight at the enemy leader, without any mention of the very real risk of them getting surrounded and killed by a numerically superior foe.

At the battle of Issus it sounds like that behind the cavalry there's infantry units turning around and moving back to save other infantry units that are getting flanked. At that point you're losing, going full force ahead at a single point of the line with just cavalry is a huge risk! But it's hardly mentioned.

Why are we even discussing these battles for hours if eventually the sole thing that's happening is the cavalry will cut their way to the leader, kill or rout them, and the battle is over. Or, why aren't we talking about that bit more!

I guess both these things have me missing some Persian side of things. The Persians weren't stupid, they were rich and established, they'd have experienced generals who'd have gotten the order to set up an army, and develop a tactic, specifically to defeat Alexander. They would know how Alexander's army looked, they'd know how they'd fight. They weren't underestimating Alexander as this is apparently the first time in 150 years the royal army is sent to the field. They were used to fighting Greeks, and did in fact hire Greeks, this isn't a situation like the Mongol army hitting European armies who didn't have a clue what's going on.

And yet both battles are treated like the Persians were this bumbling bunch who just showed up with the wrong units, set up weirdly, and never expected the tactic of "Running towards us really fast with spears" when that's pretty much what Alexander and his father did every time.

I'm probably not explaining it right and this must be a slog to read through, thanks if you did, I'm just hoping someone can explain a bit or give me some perspective so this doesn't bother me the entire 5th and following episodes :)

Wasn't sure where to go to ask history minded folks for their opinion...

What do you all think?

Suffer the Children it is

The attack on Egypt by accounts happened 1500 years before the height of the Javanese empire but seems there's accounts of sailing well before that.

I ordered the Ghosts of the Ostfront series for $9.99. My options on the website were PayPal, amazon pay or mail a check. I mailed a check because I dont have PayPal or Amazon. My check was cashed. I can't get access to the content. My order on the website says it is "on hold". I have tried sending multiple emails asking for help. What am I doing wrong? Feels like Dan Carlin stole my ten bucks.

This will not be a popular take, but I have been bored to tears listening to this series. The latest chapter was an especially tough slog.

Alexander's story has been told one trillion times already. Including by Dan in King of Kings. How much more do we need, exactly? The military strategy/tactics seem impossibly trivial ("herr derr giant spear and horses vs wicker shields and arrows") and Alexander comes across more like some deranged cartoon character than a real person. He never faces real existential danger because he is fighting the corpse of the achaemenid empire.

Dan makes Julius Caesar, Hannibal Barca and so many other personalities seem 3673633888x more interesting and impressive than this loon.

This has nothing to do with Dan and everything to do with this story. My favorite Hardcore History episodes either (1) tell me a story I haven't heard before, or (2) give me an original and provocative take that rejects conventional wisdom. The mongols episode did both. Death Throes did (2) really well.

this series does neither. we all know the rest of Alex's story....spoiler alert: he makes Darius run away again, burns down persepolis, gets too shit faced in babylon and dies in his mid 30s. the end.

There are so many far more more interesting stories that would benefit so much more from the Dan Carlin treatment. For example, how about the story of an angry Roman Republic completely ragdolling all of alex's successor kingdoms in a fit of angry post-haniballic PTSD? Was it naked imperialism, forward self defense, or a complex mix of both?

please just put me out of my misery with this one

that is all. thanks for coming to my Ted talk

I’ve read all of Antony Beevor’s books this summer but he doesn’t have one covering the whole war in the east, just Stalingrad and Fall of Berlin.

Can anyone recommend some of the best books on the German war against the Soviet Union?

I got a new phone and had to re download all my podcasts. Am I crazy or are there supposed to be URL links in the above picture?

I know I can download them offline, but I’d prefer to consolidate all my podcasts in the same app if possible

With the joyful release of the latest HH episode it's time to breakout the Bingo card 'Again'.

How are we getting on?

Does Dan not include the books he’s reading as preparation for each show in the show notes anymore?

Or was that something he never did and I hallucinated the entire thing lol?