clockworktardis
How would you rate this podcast, as something to listen to for education or entertainment?
Personally, I really quite like it! It’s very much of the genre of ‘30/40-something white guy provides informative lecture’ for the vast majority of episodes, but Wyman is an actual trained historian, and he’s usually fairly good about laying out different major theories when he’s discussing something contentious (there’s also occasional interview episodes with specialists. The recent one about early agriculture and settlement in China was really very good). He also actually goes into quite a bit of detail on social history, which I’ve always really appreciated, going into detail about like how trade and finance and recruitment of armies in a given context actually worked. (He also, like, specifically uses composite/hypothetical examples to explore how the Black Death would be experienced by a mildly prosperous family of English peasants, or the final collapse of Roman authority by a manor house in southern France, or using the perspectives of a Barbary pirate and a Knight of St. John to explore what a life spent raiding in the leadup to Lepento would look like, or similar)
There’s three major, call them periods of the show. Originally he focused on the collapse of the western Roman empire/late antiquity (you may be unsurprised to learn it was originally the ‘Fall of Rome’ podcast), then the transition between medieval and early modern period and rise of the financial-military state and modern world (roughly 1250-1550, or so?), and now he’s doing prehistory/early humanity.
So, uh, yeah, if any of that sounds interesting, would recommend giving it a try and at least seeing if you hate his voice or style (though do be ready to skip over a few ad breaks every episode, I’m afraid).
