With the annoyance of my co-workers smacking on gum and incessantly gabbing about the most inane things you could ever dream up, I'm constantly on the lookout for ways to ignore them. For the longest time I have been listening to the top 500 rock and roll albums from a list published by Rolling Stone magazine.
However, the other day I heard an interview on the radio with Dan Carlin, who hosts the Hardcore History Podcast and the amount of praise being delivered to Carlin's show was worth checking out. Well, after listening to only a handful of episodes I can safely say that I will be devouring anything Carlin releases in regard to the Hardcore History podcast. It is an incredible, in-depth look at all sorts of topics from history.
The few podcasts I've heard have been interviews with historians and authors James Burke, Gwynne Dyer, and Victor Davis Hanson, so I haven't even really listened to a typical Hardcore History podcast that features only Carlin speaking about a topic. Yet, the depth of his Q&A with the featured guests is proof of the passion he has for history and I can't wait to hear more of his insight on specific topics, which range from ancient emperors and kings who ruled in Biblical times to the 20th century World Wars.
A specific example of an intellectual nugget from the Q&A episodes was when Burke stated that "history doesn't repeat itself, people do." We've all heard the old adage that history repeats itself. It is a pretty common quote that is used when wanting to make a point of trying to show the parallels between two historical moments several years apart or as a warning of not repeating a catastrophic event again. However, we hardly think about the quote itself and Burke is absolutely correct. It isn't history repeating itself. History can't repeat itself. History isn't a living organism with thoughts and actions. It is the people who make history and it is the people who repeat their mistakes that results in history repeating itself.
This isn't earth-shattering insight from Carlin or Burke, but it certainly is a way of looking at history that I hadn't done before. And that is what I like about this podcast. It makes me re-examine the events I learned about so long ago and consider them in context and delve a little deeper in what was going on rather than just memorize the names, dates, and places of history.
Another example from the Burke interview was that he claims the Dark Ages is a misnomer. That is a pretty bold statement considering everyone knows the term Dark Ages and has a rough idea of the time period it is referring. However, Burke believes that the Dark Ages weren't necessarily as terrible as they have been made out to be and that there are perfectly acceptable reasons for why things were the way they were.
A specific case in point Burke used was the disuse of roadways. It is conventional wisdom that the roads of Europe became plagued with bandits and thieves, resulting in less travel and the roadways went into disrepair (as much as a pathway in a grass field can fall into disrepair). However, it is Burke's belief that the real reason roadways went by the wayside was due to the fact that once the Roman marketplace was no longer a desired destination point there was no need to travel there, resulting in the roads being less and less traveled. That makes a lot of sense and I haven't really considered that to be a proper reason for the roadways of Europe to go unused. I just assumed it was the bandit theory that held the most weight.
The next episode of Hardcore History I intend to listen to will be the first that is simply Carlin speaking about a specific topic. It is titled "Prophets of Doom" and it takes a look at the millennial preachers and prophets who cropped up following Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation movement. I'm really looking forward to it and hopefully it stirs the same level of interest in history that these past episodes have done.
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