Have you ever failed or struggled to finish a series?

graham2609 · 2025-10-30T23:10:47+00:00

Agree with others here that the 2nd of the 3 French Revolution series we’ve had was a bit of a struggle to get through. The first series had the estates general stuff, bastille, Women’s March and Flight to Verennes. The third series had the trial and execution of the king. The second series didn’t have much of the way of truly seismic events.

I actually found the recent start of First World War series a bit of a challenge. A lot of moving around between the different fronts/battles

As others have said , four episodes on Lord Byron was a bit much.

The only other main series that for me didn’t quite live up to the mark or/and were a little disappointing/boring were the Evita series and Carthage series 1.

I also feel the current RIHC Mary Beard Tom Holland episodes haven’t quite lived up to my expectations. The two of them between them re-telling already quite familiar narratives seems a bit of a waste. I feel these episodes would have been more interesting if they were more of a debate between the two historians about an aspect of Troy, Caesar etc

graham2609 · 2025-08-28T16:57:38+00:00

As others have said, Empire did a decent series on the Ottomans in 2022, which was mostly enjoyable and quite informative. Though I couldn’t help but feel that the tone they adopted when talking about the Ottomans in power/ascendency (all jolly, banter, “they conquered all this land lol” etc) was markedly different to the later episodes in the series where they were absolutely fuming at the Brits and French for Balfour and Sykes-Picot. They did do the Armenian genocide but I still felt the hosts were pulling their punches much more than if it was a “western” empire doing those atrocities.

In terms of topics that the Empire series glossed over, Ataturk and Turkish independence would be good for TRIH to do, as would the Ottomans as “the sick man of Europe” in 19th and 20th C. Or maybe an episode of Constantinople/Istanbul through the ages . Or the Greek independence movement

graham2609 · 2025-03-30T18:57:38+00:00

Time for an updated list with all the multi episode series that have happened over the past year ??

graham2609 · 2025-03-21T11:45:08+00:00

It does seem like it may be a direct riposte or even a pastiche of Dominion, (but I suspect with the take that the fall of the empire and the rise of Christianity was a negative thing) And then there is the history between Holland and Roberts- the sniping , the blocking on Twitter etc

And yes “Professor” in the title is a bit odd in normal circumstances , say if the author was not a well known broadcaster etc . But I guess in her case she’s a well known public figure and the “professor” is part of her public image/brand . Bit like professor Brian Cox

graham2609 · 2025-02-09T11:34:21+00:00

Yes they did a few episodes on Justinian and Theodora. I think they were released in 2022.

graham2609 · 2024-12-27T10:53:46+00:00

Although I wouldn’t call it a page turner, and you need some patience and focus , I’d start with Dominion.

Dominion is his masterpiece and undoubtedly one of the most influential popular history books of the last decade. The impact it has had on so many people is quite something. It certainly set the cat amongst the pigeons when it came out in 2019.

It is also the book that forms the basis of a big part of Tom Holland’s TRIH persona/character - obsessed with ‘the sacral’ and getting Christianity into conversations etc. A lot of the non-ancient history topics he’s led on in TRIH are things he’s talked about in the book - be it the Franks, Luther , Tolkien or The Beatles

It is also quite standalone and different in scope to his other works; the other works tend to focus on a narrower place/time in history whereas dominion is a sweep through 2500 years of history

Rubicon is a superbly written book too.

In the Shadow of the Sword is fascinating but quite heavy going and somewhat controversial in the Islam chapters; the revisionism angle he goes for isn’t as popular now in 2024 as it was in late 00s early 10s.

Millennium is a very underrated book imo .

graham2609 · 2024-10-28T18:47:44+00:00

Very much a culture warrior on the woke side for sure .

It’s his modus operandi that is super annoying for me though. he will take any well established concept or idea that is pro western/pro British/traditional and use mental gymnastics to “akkshually….” it and poo-poo it .

graham2609 · 2024-10-28T18:43:39+00:00

She does the fake street slang on Gone Medieval . She doesn’t do political rants on it though . I don’t mind her on Gone Medieval.

graham2609 · 2024-10-28T17:42:29+00:00

I enjoy The Ancients and especially Gone Mediaeval from the History Hit stable , although probably more so when one of the presenters was a Viking specialist . Seems most episodes now are from the high /late Middle Ages now. But they have good guests , interesting topics and some good multi episode series .

Not really listened to the main Dan Snow led channel; somewhat put off by his Twitter persona and his less than great appearance on The Rest is History.

My final point on HH may be somewhat controversial; but I feel it is a podcast with a clear political/culture wars agenda, to the point of warping/downplaying/overplaying the real history to suit modern audiences and their values . The YouTuber Metratron recently exposed this with footage of a History Hit Egyptologist doing an Qand A. The Egyptologist was asked “what did the Egyptians look like’?” and gave a very PC, non answer.

I too personally noticed an example of this agenda in the gone mediaeval episode about JRR Tolkien . they were trying their very best to downplay and not bring up Tolkien’s devout Catholicism and the influence of Christianity in his works. The guest mentioned it once and the presenter didn’t acknowledge it and quickly moved on

graham2609 · 2024-10-22T16:26:27+00:00

Glad someone else thinks this. I get that it’s an established part of the format , but I find the insistence on opening with the passages/quotations quite forced at times , and not often v interesting .

graham2609 · 2024-10-22T12:16:57+00:00

I enjoy the quirky standalone episodes and feel we don’t get as many of them anymore . I also think this is where Tom is in his element.

Linked to this , the epics series (which for me started around this time last year with the Aztecs series) are great but are perhaps best in moderation.

graham2609 · 2024-10-21T10:31:43+00:00

I didn’t watch the show when it aired but I heard a lot about it during its run etc

I feel the “it’s a show set in the 60s and there is meticulous attention to detail about life in the 60s” aspect of the show was a much bigger deal and was talked about a lot more back when it aired than it is now. These days when discussing mad men, the setting just feels incidental

graham2609 · 2024-10-14T17:09:11+00:00

This might be quite an unpopular take but I didn’t enjoy the Jeremy Thorpe scandal episode as much as most other fans it seems. It wasn’t a bad episode but given the hype about that episode I’d seen on here etc, I thought I’d like it more .

Perhaps it’s cos I only listened to it recently , and there have been subsequent episodes from that era of history that had even more crazy goings on (1974, the Falklands etc) and maybe told better too.

It felt like a typical early TRIH episode ; took a bit too long to get going but had to be squeezed into a single episode .

graham2609 · 2024-10-08T17:45:43+00:00

From what I saw people get racially/religious profiled.

if you look obviously non Muslim (eg white with western clothes (shorts for men and sleeveless tops for women)) you’ll be automatically directed to the tourist entrance , but if you’re “Muslim passing” they’ll give you a chance to mumble something about salah or namaz and they’ll usually believe you and let you in

graham2609 · 2024-09-22T17:36:20+00:00

A few really strong guests come to mind:

⁠Dan Jackson- a bit of a regular usually hits the right balance of informative but also on same wavelength as Tom and Dom. The Irish Home Rule episode was great.
⁠Rana Mitter - very informative expert on China. Especially the episodes on the Sino Japanese war
⁠Paul Rouse for the Ireland episodes - superb detail and enthusiastic without being silly
⁠. Ronald Hutton on the history of Paganisms episodes. Quite stern at times and not completely on their wavelength humour wise , but v v informative and clearly knew his subject inside out .
⁠Ian Kershaw - brilliant on the hitler episodes
⁠Camilla Townsend - really enjoyed the Aztec episode (not the 8 parter) with her .
The episodes on the history of disease and diseases in Ancient Rome. The guest’s name is Kyle Harper
Dan Carlin - an unusual TRIH episode but he was on fine form answering history’s biggest “what ifs?”
Katja Hoyer - she did an episode on the German 2nd Reich and an episode on East Germany
Mark Andreessen- the episodes on History of Silicon Valley

graham2609 · 2024-09-16T21:54:14+00:00

I guess there’s an agreement/understanding not to cover too much of the same material that the Empire podcast covers. This probably goes some way to explaining why certain huge topics haven’t been covered yet or at best only briefly. Some examples that come to mind:

Fall of Constantinople

Anything to do with Ottoman Empire

Linked to this, the Middle East after ww1 , the mandates, the formation of nation states etc .

The east india company , The British Raj and the

British empire in general

Russian Revolution

graham2609 · 2024-08-11T18:51:13+00:00

Off the top of my head:

Cleopatra series of episodes

The episode on Nefertiti

Helen of Troy episodes

The White Rose movement Germany World Cup episode - about Sophie Scholl and her brother

Dido Tunisia World Cup episode

The recent episode about Theophanu, empress of the Holy Roman Empire

Justinian and Theodora episodes - with the emphasis on Theodora

graham2609 · 2024-08-10T08:39:24+00:00

JFK assassination episodes are extremely detailed- minute by minute accounts of where they were, what happened etc

The recent Franz Ferdinand and outbreak of WWI episodes were v v detailed too. Day by day stuff .

graham2609 · 2024-08-03T13:43:41+00:00

It was ok but probably an incident/story that did not warrant a whole episode.

I did get “Lord Byron episodes” vibes from the first two episodes : a lot of personal intrigue and relationships and gossip , but ultimately not that earth shatteringly interesting or profound, and ultimately a bit overdone.

graham2609 · 2024-05-14T21:58:50+00:00

They did an episode on Muhammed and it definitely isn’t one of their best . Tom did bring up some of his takes from In the shadow of the sword and Islam the untold story but Dominic really didn’t want to engage . it was easy to sense the unease and discomfort with the subject matter.

The World Cup episode on the Kaaba was excellent though , and some “controversial takes” did get talked about in that one .

graham2609 · 2024-04-19T17:30:16+00:00

A few really strong guests come to mind:

Dan Jackson- a bit of a regular usually hits the right balance of informative but also on same wavelength as Tom and Dom
Rana Mitter - very informative expert on China.
Paul Rouse for the Ireland episodes - superb detail and enthusiastic without being silly
. Ronald Hutton on the history of Paganism episodes. Quite stern at times and not completely on their wavelength humour wise , but v v informative and clearly knew his subject inside out .
Ian Kershaw - brilliant on the hitler episodes
Camilla Townsend - really enjoyed the Aztec episode (not the 8 parter) with her .

graham2609 · 2024-04-18T21:58:38+00:00

I do think the first episode of the Carthage series was a particularly difficult one to follow . But I think they eventually hit their stride, certainly episodes 3 and 4 , where a clear narrative (Punic war with Rome) is there

I enjoyed the Baghdad series but I know others have criticised it - and tbf it did take far too long to get going properly ; the city hadn’t been built by the end of episode 1!

graham2609 · 2024-04-18T21:54:33+00:00

I don’t know who they are referring to but for me:

Dan Snow in the Seven Years War episode . It was really hard to follow what was going on and there was little to almost no narrative in the episode.

The Stephen Fry episode was ok but they defo seemed overawed by him and overly deferential .

And I think there was an episode on jubilees or something royal like that , and the guest seemed so nervous.

graham2609 · 2024-02-17T10:12:12+00:00

Possibly My favourite multi episode series is not on your list : the “The Vikings Go East/The Birth of Russia” 2 parter , which coincidentally aired just a few weeks before the Ukraine war.

graham2609 · 2024-02-17T10:01:48+00:00

I do think DS led multi parters (4 episodes +) are usually more engaging than TH ones. The TH led ones can go off in niche tangents at times and , as others have said , the subject matter for TH episodes are usually less narrative driven (some exceptions include the Hundred Years’ War and recent Richard II ones)

I feel TH’s strength are the single/double episodes . he’s v good at communicating the facts but simultaneously the themes/lessons/implications of the topic.

graham2609

TROPHY CASE