Yeah I think this nails it. The series is easily worth the money. I’ve listened to death throes like 10 times lol. Caesar was just such a fucking insane human being you gotta stand in awe. While obviously a murderous asshole, who wasn’t back then, he was also pretty progressive politically and took on the oligarchs and owned the shit out of them. I think a lot of it kinda reflects our current situation which is why I find it so interesting.
Supernova in the east is pretty good and free right now, but some people don’t love it. Celtic Holocaust is pretty solid and more Caesar but just his generalship, not so much politics.
It’s a decent size time investment. I think the best standalone ep is probably Prophets of Doom, but even that is pretty long. It has some somewhat graphic torture stuff towards the end, not too disturbing though. I’m mildly sensitive to that stuff and coped fine.
If you’re willing to try a multi-part series, I think Ghosts of the Ostfront is pretty clearly the best. I liked Wrath of the Khans and Punic Nightmares as well, those are three very different eras so pick whatever interests you. The intro of Ghosts is likely to grab you I think.
Edit, “The Siege of Munster episode” mentioned by smrk is Prophets of Doom.
If it’s not clear by the way, people generally like the show for the multi-part series, they are like audiobook-podcast hybrids, book length but presented in a more conversational tone. Dan is an ex talk radio guy and likes his dramatic tone at times.
One other thing, I’d say pick something you don’t know much about, like if you already know a ton about the Eastern Front in WW2 then do something other than Ghosts.
I’m going to relisten the fuck out of Prophets of Doom real soon. I found the torture stuff pretty disturbing/memorable. I’ve obv googled the cages that still hang outside of wherever, a church in Munster I guess, lol?
The problem with Kings for me was that the sources for that period are so thin on the ground, I felt like I was just listening to Herodotus-penned fanfic a lot of the time.
It was good. Probably got it at #4 behind the ones mentioned. I found it a bit overlong, also one thing I like about HH is the way Carlin zooms out to the big picture, then in to what it was like to be a random dude living at that time. Death Throes was more big picture all the time - which was by design, but I preferred Punic Nightmares for the zooms in to what it was like being a Roman soldier at war.
They’re spot on. It fills a huge hole in mainstream legal analysis by making what is intentionally impenetrable easy to understand. Conservative legal theories are all complete horseshit but you need quite a bit of knowledge to be able to explain why efficiently. The lead guy is probably the single best media analyst of con law, anywhere.
Yeah, I’d be on board with saying something like given Dan’s style and the lack of sources, he should have picked a different topic for a series, but there was some good stuff in there about the Assyrians, I enjoyed it.
Speaking of Prophets of Dooom, Christoph Waltz played Jan van Leyden in:
The guy in 5-4 is quite good but he does sometimes gallop a bit and doesn’t get all the way into the weeds. That said, he calls out bullshit and doesn’t waste time both-sidesing issues and often provides historical context. I think Opening Arguments goes into the legalistic details of issues better. Strict Scrutiny podcast and lawfare are more down the middle and scholarly but accept some BS conservative premises. Eli Mystal of the Nation and zoomin Toobin are very good with legal analysis, with Toobin being a bit more establishment-ish.
Which guy? There is peter and michael. I got a bit of a man crush on peter aka lawboy, but all of them are awesome. I know Michael was an election lawyer which gives him a lot of insight into our current bullshit.
Recent 5-4 with Ro Khanna kinda dampened my hope for court packing. One of the more progressive house members coming out mostly against court packing is very meh. He left it on the table that if the supreme court starts striking down popular legislation then we can consider it, but obviously the court will be political when dems have a senate majority and just rule super conservative on shit that doesn’t get a ton of publicity like voter rights and gerrymandering but not fuck up shit like the ACA/Roe V Wade, and then do it when republicans take the senate back which they are sure to do without voting rights.
Maybe he’s just being political prior to the election but was pretty lame. He’s all aboard the bi-partisan court reforms and even has his stupid term limit bill that is probably unconstitutional in the first place and does nothing.
lol there will be no bipartisan court reform unless the democrats start packing the fuck out of the court. otherwise the GOP play is to act like they’re interested and just get the process mired in the mud forever.
the ONLY way to fix stuff is to start massively overpacking the courts, admit tons of new states, etc, and force the GOP to agree to some constitutional reforms (get rid of the electoral college or massively overhaul it, weaken the senate, 18 year terms for SCOTUS and other federal judges, etc). There is NO way the GOP agrees to anything unless the democrats make the alternative much, much worse for them.
Matt’s analysis of state GOP legislators was bizarre. He somehow thinks they are less insane than the GOP Congress psychos? The opposite is true. They’re down for any amount of riggage.
I’m binging 5-4 at the recommendation of this thread and am really enjoying it so far. (Certainly more interesting than the work I should be doing right now.)
It’s a great explanation of why conservative judicial philosophy is bullshit but presented in a way that non-lawyer idiots like myself can understand. Thanks, all.
