Started: September 26, 2021
Finished: Finished the first listening on October 4, 2021
Finished the second listening on October 18, 2021
Finished the third listening on November 1, 2021
Finished the second listening on October 18, 2021
Finished the third listening on November 1, 2021
Finished the fourth listening on November 8, 2021
(This review is written using my new format for reviews.)
Background Information
I'm counting this as its own series, but this is actually just episodes 56, 57 and 58 of Dan Carlin's ongoing Hardcore History podcast (W). (Also, Dan Carlin labels each episode separately as "King of Kings", "King of Kings II" and King of Kings III", but I'm referring to the whole thing as just "King of Kings"). This came out on 2015. It's a history of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, from its founding by Cyrus the Great to its destruction by Alexander the Great. As is usual for Dan Carlin, the episodes are very long--3 hrs 33 min for the first episode, 4 hrs 16 min for the second episode, and a whopping 5hrs for the final episode. So there's close to 13 hours of content here in total.
Much of Hardcore History is behind a paywall, but some of it is freely available, and these episodes are part of the free stuff. You can go listen to it right now on Youtube, or just search "Dan Carlin's Hardcore History 56 Kings of Kings" to start episode one on your favorite podcast player.
Why I'm Listening to This
Back in 2015, when this first came out, a friend and co-worker of mine was listening to this, and telling me how fascinating it was. I had never heard of Dan Carlin before then, but I was vaguely intrigued by the idea of a history of the Persian Empire. I learned about the Persian Empire in my youth when studying the Old Testament, and its always seemed mysterious and exotic, and I was interested to learn more about it.
This same friend gave me a copy of Death Throes of the Republic by Dan Carlin. I listened to it, and found it absolutely fascinating. (I reviewed it positively on this blog.)
I listened to the first bit of King of Kings, but it didn't really grab me. I suspected that that was because I wasn't allowing myself to immerse myself in it, and that if I might enjoy it more if I made it a dedicated listening project.
However, just from dipping into the King of Kings, I realized that Dan Carlin was referencing Herodotus a lot. It turns out that the Persians didn't leave us a lot of their own histories, so we're reliant on Greek historian Herodotus for much of the history of the early Persian Empire. Dan Carlin was talking about not only what was in Herodotus, but also speculating on why Herodotus's histories had the style and format it did. I thought to myself, "If I ever get around to reading Herodotus, then this would make the perfect podcast to listen to alongside Herodotus."
Well, I've started Herodotus now. And I also finally finished (and reviewed) The History of Rome podcast, which opened up a slot for something new to listen to. So I started King of Kings.
Summary of Content
We start (after some digressions on the character of the Spartans) with the Assyrian Empire, and then move quickly through the Empire of the Medes, and then to Cyrus the Great and the founding of the Persian Empire. And then we run into the Greco-Persian wars. All of this is based mostly on Herodotus, but Dan Carlin tries to bring in other materials as well when he can.
In addition to the narrative, Dan Carlin is fascinated by the psychology of the ancients and the psychology of ancient battle. He spends about an hour at the end of episode 2 pondering how it was that men back in that era could face the horror of hand to hand combat without psychological damage.
After this long digression, we get back to the narrative and continue with the Greco-Persian Wars in episode 3. Then, the primary source for all of this, Herodotus, comes to an end, and Dan Carlin admits there aren't much surviving sources left to cover the rest of the Persian Kings. So we go quickly through the rest of them, until we get to the story of Alexander the Great, and the destruction of the Achaemenid Persian Empire.
Dan Carlin knows the conflict between the Persians and the Greeks is always told from the Greek side, and he wants to try to tell the story from the Persian side, but he's hampered by the fact that most of the sources are Greek. He does his best to try to balance things, but his "History of the Persian Empire" feels at times like a history of Greece
Evaluation
Perhaps it's fitting that Herodotus is being used as a basis for much of this series, because Herodotus is famous for his many digressions and taking forever to get to the point. And Dan Carlin is taking a similar tack , and going off on all sorts of tangents, and taking forever to get to the point.
But, then for readers of Herodotus, all the wonderful digressions are supposed to be part of the enjoyment. And I suppose the same must be true for loyal Dan Carlin listeners. Or at least the ideal listener. (He does, after all, have a big fan base.) But if you're not ready for a lot of digressions, better pass this one by.
I'd previously classified Dan Carlin's Death Throes of the Republic as a narrative history, but King of Kings has so much digression and so much pondering that I can't really call it narrative history.
In particular, there's a very long digression at the end of episode 2 that goes on for about an hour in which Dan Carlin talks about what it must have been like to fight hand-to-hand in ancient warfare, and notes that this is so completely foreign to anything in modern experience, and questions how human nature could deal with the horrors of up-close hand-to-hand fighting. He talks about it for an hour. He just goes on and on and on, and I kept wanting him to get back to the narrative.
I don't know. On the one hand, Dan Carlin is correct in that this is the big question of history. These kinds of questions are why people read history in the first place--what is the difference between the ancient and modern psychology, and what is human nature anyway?
But on the other hand, I feel like every 10 year old boy reading about ancient battles is already thinking about these questions anyway, so it's a question that is already being pondered. Dan Carlin, to his credit, is well read on the issue and brings in the opinions of a lot of learned historians, but after talking in circles around the issue, he doesn't really come to a firm conclusion about anything. (It seems like the learned historians themselves can only speculate about what ancient battle must have been like for the human psyche.)
The Listening Experience
I found my enjoyment of this podcast depended on my mood. There were times when I was in the mood to just get the information, and was frustrated by Dan Carlin's roundabout style of storytelling. But then there were times when I was in a more relaxed mood, and was happy just to listen to Dan Carlin ramble, and follow his train of thought wherever it wandered.
The episodes were so long (5 hours for the last one!) that I had issues with losing my place sometimes, especially when I was playing them on my phone. Sometimes I would resort to writing down the time markers when I would know where to start up again.
As for Dan Carlin's style itself, well, I feel like I gave my thoughts on this the last time I reviewed Dan Carlin. So I'll just repeat myself from before:
He's not a professional historian--he's a broadcaster by trade. But he's obviously a huge history nerd (You can really hear his love for the subject material come through in the podcasts) and he and his team do their research.He's got an A.M. radio type voice. His voice, tone, and cadence all remind me of Rush Limbaugh. (I'm speaking only of his voice here. None of his politics resemble Rush's).He's primarily a narrative history story teller, which I like, but his podcasts aren't always exactly like a novel. Rather, here again is more of the style and format of an A.M. radio DJ. He sounds like a talk show radio host who is giving out the daily news. He tells a bit of the story, then he stops to comment on its importance, or to say why he thinks it's remarkable.
Connections With Other Things I've Read or Listened To
* Obviously this overlaps heavily with Introduction to Ancient Greek History by Donald Kagan.
* Also, the last hour of the podcast is all about Alexander the Great, so see all the books I've reviewed on Alexander the Great: HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.
* A point that Dan Carlin makes is that in the history of Western Civilization, the Greeks are usually portrayed as the saviors of Western Civilization, and the Persian Empire is usually portrayed as the evil empire. Dan Carlin contrasts this with the positive write-up that the Persians get in the Old Testament. The Old Testament prophets were overjoyed that the Persians allowed them to rebuild the Temple, and so they praise the King of Persia very highly. (I think Donald Kagan also makes this point in his lectures.)
Some of the praise in the Old Testament that Christians would later interpret as being about Jesus was actually in the original context meant to be about the King of Persia. Robin Lane Fox and Christine Hayes both make this same point. (The title of this podcast, King of Kings, is itself a reference to how some of the appellations for the Persian King in the Old Testament ended up getting transferred to Jesus, although Dan Carlin never explicitly makes the connection.)
* And, of course, this overlaps heavily with Herodotus, which I haven't finished yet, but which I'm currently reading.
I found it interesting to read Herodotus while listening to this podcast. It was interesting to hear Dan Carlin talk about the stories in Herodotus, and then read those stories myself.
Video Review (Playlist HERE)
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