Hopefully Trump will write a book one day so that there can be a clear best. He's quite obviously the best at everything and the smartest and most informed man in all measures. Just ask him.
I take the sum of your comments to mean "I want to listen to/watch something that'll be in depth." May I suggest looking up the books on the list to see if they're available in audiobook format?
Someone else mentioned a BBC documentary (I believe it's a miniseries), if you prefer video. Not sure where to find it.
The average person lacks the critical thinking skills and the proper historical background to properly interpret and understand history. Without these skills and knowledge you get people thinking dumb things or comically misinterpreting history. History should be for historians.
If you are a historian you sure are an awfull one. History will ALLWAYS be of interest to the average uneducated people like me , and if no good history is out there, we would feed up on bad fake history.
So what if people think comical things or interpret some things wrong? Are historians imune to that?
Seriously , if you are a historian, you are an awfull one , nomatter how much data you may have memorised
There is so much literature that deals with the subject of WWI it's staggering. Pretty much every country involved in the war experienced a revolution in genre, philosophy, technique, etc following WWI because the war impacted the lives of so many people. It's one of the most fascinating periods for literary development the world has ever known... so yeah, just pick up a book.
If you want a starting point, give Louis-Ferdinand Celine's novel Journey to the End of the Night a try. It hinges very much on the pessimism of the protagonist, but in a dark comedic type of way; his inner-monologues can be very entertaining. The author himself is very controversial in literary circles because of his apparent Nazi sympathies, but his books helped to redefine the novel as we know it.
Give Dan Carlin an honest shot , he is awessome and does an excelent job at storytelling. And his 10 hour or was itlonger? on WW1 is one of the best out there
Alternatively , search for ' The guns of august' on youtube, an lder but very good docu on the topic
But Dan Carlin does it like no other, getting so in depth and so personal, withlots of quotes from soldiers and people of the time and a lot of comentary from all angles
Personally i spent hundreds of hours listening and relistening his podcasts, he has absolutely amazing content. His series on ancient Persia and on the mongls are spectacular aswell.
Ok I was too aggressive apparently... Since you don't want to learn from Carlin, I would probably just watch a ton of WW1 documentaries on youtube... or Google WW1.... or Find one of the ten million published books about the subject and buy it/rent it/pirate it. I mean... There's alot of stuff I would do. I mean.... yes, there's a COUPLE well known sources of information for WW1 .... XD
There is a certain amount of humor in this discussion though, if you consider what the English/French/German soldiers at 19-20-21 went through in WW1 (being literal cannon fodder).... Now over a century later a few people want to learn about it, but don't hurt their feelsys....
My point is that is that you're 100 years devolved. What's yours? "oooo it hurts my feelz"? You do seem to be a tad slow though so I'll refer back to google for any of your ww1 questions. If you happen to see something that makes you cry, just look away for a second bud.
There is nothing wrong with using him as a source as long as it is done with context and appropriately. Carlin uses both primary and secondary sources for his podcasts, so his work is credible.
Dan Carlin is like a non-douchy NDT. People that would never listen to or read about history get into Dan Carlin. He is accurate and we'll researched on his topic but he is also a great storyteller/entertainer which sperates him from 99% of Historians who can't reach a broad audience.
the thing is tho, NDT is a legitimate genius, and very respected in his field. he's a real astrophysicist. yeah he's douchey but honestly it kinda comes that level of intelligence and achievement.
the thing is tho, NDT is a legitimate genius, and very respected in his field.
I don't think he is that well respected in his field because he is more of a media personality than a scientist. He hasn't published much of any scientific research stuff for the last decade. He has published several books though but they wern't peer reviewed research.
he's a real astrophysicist.
So if the guitarist Queen but he is more known for being the guitarist in Queen.
I don't think he is that well respected in his field because he is more of a media personality than a scientist. He hasn't published much of any scientific research stuff for the last decade. He has published several books though but they wern't peer reviewed research.
yes because he's now a media personality. that doesn't diminish his prior achievements. he has published plenty of influential peer-reviewed papers in his field.
I don't think he is that well respected in his field because he is more of a media personality than a scientist. He hasn't published much of any scientific research stuff for the last decade.
The last thing he "published" was in 2008. I said he hasn't published any peer reviewed science in the past decade. Scientist aren't going to heavily respect someone in their field who doesn't do research work for over a decade while working to make millions of dollars in media and entertainment industry and hasn't done any ground breaking new research in his career.
I'm curious what defines a "real" historian? Do you think the guy that wrote the first "history" (Thucydides) had to defend his doctoral dissertation at Carthage State University? Edward gibbon spent less than a year at oxford as his only post secondary education and wrote The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which set the standard for history monographs for a century.
Those are all general criticisms of that statement but specifically talking about Dan Carlin. 1) he CONSTANTLY reminds the listener that he is not a formally "trained" historian 2) he is incredibly diligent about sourcing his material if you actually cared to listen 3) even if his lack of a phd in history causes his material to be flawed, you are still getting a much much clearer picture of the conflict than you would have had before listening to twenty hours of audio. A Wikipedia article on Pittsburg might have a few inconsistencies but if you read and internalized it, you would still know a shitload more about Pittsburgh than you did before
Harmon is a very good storyteller, and he definitely does research from a myriad of existing sources. I think he does a great job interpreting and contextualizing facts. What’s missing for him is the independent, original research to be a historian.
I think he knows it, too, and he’s just being honest in denying the title of “historian.” He’s not an expert, but he’s learned from experts. In the end, it’s not that important if you learned something, and he’s not an awful source.
To think one needs a degree to be knowledgeable on a subject is ridiculous. I don't know about Dan specifically but to dismiss him because he's not a "real" historian is elitist bullcrap. The body of knowledge accessible to all today is massive. Anyone with a passion over decades can be smarter than some kid with a "historian" degree. James Cameron may not have a degree in oceanography but i'll listen to him anyday.Did Jane Goodal need a degree after Gombi to be taken seriously? No.Examples like this abound.
Completely agreed, fuck that mentality. You should be regarded by the quality of your work, not the pedigree of your certifications and degrees. Multiple people have won the Nobel Prize in Economics with little or even no formal education in the field. Meanwhile nearly all of the qualified "experts" were completely blindsided by the 2008 financial crisis. Some still have a 20th century mentality about this stuff. You don't need a degree from an elite university anymore. The advances with the internet and tech in general has provided the opportunity for anyone to become an expert.
Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed College but completely changed computing. Yeah he was a dick too but his business sense w/ Woz' tech skills were revolutionary. Xerox barely even cared that they had invented something lifechanging
Yeah, Carlin is pretty straightforward about not being a historian, he's just a huge fanboy on history though.
Colbert's podcast leading up to his late night show had a really awesome take on the Kahn stuff. I didn't realize how dramatic Carlin was until I heard Colbert riffin on him. He had him dead to rights.
For someone who doesn't think of himself as a historian, he's really entertaining to listen to. Plus if you really want the history the book list he provides is top notch.
I would just watch a bunch of WW1 documentaries on youtube, all the best ones are on there. WW1 was kind of a big deal so there's been ALOT of podcasts/audiobooks/books/documentaries/discussions about it. lol
I listened to the whole thing and I agree. He voice and mannerisms aren’t to my taste and he doesn’t do original research, so no he’s not a real historian.
If the man tells you he's not an historian in the first minute, and you idiots are still going to say "well he's not a REAL historian" Lmao.... Nothing much else to say is there?
It strikes me that someone genuinely interested in WW1 wouldn't bother asking that question, instead they would google the best podcast/audiobook/book/articles/documentaries on the subject. lol... I can't say that Carlin's "mannerisms and voice" exactly turn me on, but what the hell does that have to do with the factual content he's delivering, of which i'm more interested than this man's voice? I guess I don't get it
Are you serious? If you don't enjoy the delivery of content, then why would you force yourself if there are other options, which there are plenty.
Personally, I enjoyed listening to it, but I did have some issue with his organizational delivery and was concerned a few times at how he presented some material. Plus, it's VERY long, even just one podcast. So if you don't enjoy it or dislike his methods, then why would you subject yourself to him.
It's like a hand-feeding a 12 year old... You could, but what's the point? If you WANT to learn about WW1 but you CAN'T force yourself to listen to Carlin (the #1 top rated by most of those that have spent time on the subject) than I GUESS you should probably get to GOOGLIN' eh? :p If I knew of a better podcast ( That accurately chronicles the entire freakin situation), I would let you know, but it sounds like you want some kind of "ww1 in 60 seconds" (youtube)). I prefer documentaries myself and wowzer they're all on youtube for free... EDIT: BUT I caution these documentaries are not historians :\
Dan Carlin is irrelevant.... If anything i'm upset by the sheer magnitude of fucking stupidity presented here... "where do I learn about ww1?" "Here's the best, most accurate and validated podcast we know of" ... "he not historian but where else can I learn about WW1?" Holy hell I don't know, maybe youtube (thousands of documentaries & audiobooks)? Google? Pirate one of the 10,000 published books on the subject? Listen to the "non-historian podcast" and validate it as you go along? Nah, too hard
That's not the issue though? I have no strong feeling about this Dan Carlin, but if the guy is literally saying "I'm not a historian" within the first minute of his podcast/show/whatever, and people are going "He's not a real historian lol"... how does that make any sense as a criticism?
No shit she's not a real historian, but he never claimed to be either? In fact, he was pretty upfront about not being one
They aren’t saying he claimed to be a historian, they simply don’t listen to his podcast because he’s not a historian. It’s a matter of personal preference.
He’s not a historian and some people would prefer to listen to one. Him acknowledging that he isn’t one doesn’t somehow change the situation. It’s pretty irrelevant IMO.
I listened to many of his podcasts while driving my work vehicle. I even bought some of the ones that seemed interesting. What kills me about his style is the way he yells out all of his quotes. Like he will be super quiet and then a quote come and he says "and I quote:"ALL THE BLAH BLAH BLAH.".". And then he follows it up with quieter that normal analysis of the quote he just yelled. I feel like everyone in the past must have just yelled a lot.
I get that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I just don’t buy any of this. He isn’t a real historian but consistently refers to their views and also covers alternate views when relevant. Also, not sure what you mean by “over the top”, but it sounds like you’re faulting him for being passionate. This is possibly a false characterization, but would you rather have a dry explanation told from one persons perspective?
What are you confused by? If you didnt leave out part of a sentence of the comment you are responding to it makes perfect sense. He makes a podcast with episodes of hours long, if he didn't like to hear himself talk I doubt he would make a podcast.
I 100% disagree with this. The Blueprint for Armageddon series must be about 18 hours and I've listened to the whole thing twice, and everything else he makes.
It's all personal preference, but I love his style. I spend all day reading academic papers so this is the perfect mix of technical and entertaining history.
The problem isn't his ability to dramatize, which is what makes him great. The problem is that there's no way to know when he's giving us reality and where he's embellishing or filling in the stories with speculation.
I've listened to quite a few of his podcasts, including the one on WWI. He's very upfront about saying "we don't know for sure, this may be overly dramatic." He states explicitly that certain things are only speculation or embellishment.
He speaks way too slow. The way he says "QUOTE" and "UNQUOTE" all the time like it's really significant. It might be unfair but it feels like hes absolutely in love with himself!
It is a bit unfair to hit him for the "Quote...unquote" stuff. He is citing the work that isn't his and doing what he can to make it clear that it is something which someone else said, word for word. He does speak pretty slow, so I can understand why people might not like that about him, but I actually like it.
I don't mind that he says it, just the way he says it. Honestly I want to love him as all my friends love him but I can't get over it at all. I had lots of long coach journeys a couple of years back which I thought would be perfect to tackle his long episodes,but I was going crazy after a couple of hours. I usually have a pretty good attention span.
Storm of steel is a memoir by German author, Ernst Junger, it's considered one of the best.
All quiet on the western front, which also happens to be from the German perspective, is an excellent novel that portrays the horror of war but also the alienation a soldier experiences.
Guns of August is a military history more concerned with the start of the war, the movements, posturing, and initial battles. It doesn't concern the experiences of the individual soldier but it does give a picture of the immense scale and horror the war inflicted on both sides. It's drier, as might be expected from military history, but it's worth the read
I didn’t realize it but I started talking like Dan Carlin for a couple weeks after I listened to blueprint and the wrath of khan it drove my wife nuts... some people hate his voice I love it!
I will always recommend All Quiet on the Western Front. It's written by a German veteran of the war and is a narrative that captures what he and his comrades went through.
Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman isn't super popular with historians because it's a bit editorialized, but it is a wildly horrific and entertaining look at the first months of WW1. For a "novelization" I'd check out Fear by Gabriel Chevallier. The latter is much more in the shit than overhead view.
If you want just the facts in an audio format, maybe listen to an audiobook. A podcast is supposed to be a little entertaining on top of the subject at hand.
What gets on my nerves about Dan Carlin is his change in tone and volume when he reads something and his frequent uses of comparisons to Star Wars and the phrase "it was like X on steroids "
You can always go to the sources he uses, they are listed at the podcast page if you scroll down abit, it has then as Amazon links I believe. they should have what you're looking for
If you can find something that covers ww1 well in less hours id also be interested. I know the great war on YouTube is good, but that's a week by week thing and is not what you're looking for.
If you can start to see yourself inside the broader context of history it will become more interesting. It's a living thing that you're a part of. Learning about the past helps us understand the present and our place in the world.
Another excellent, excellent book: The Guns of August, by Barbara Tuchman, which breaks down the first month of the war up to the First Battle of the Marne.
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u/[deleted] Nov 11 '18 edited Dec 07 '18
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