A while ago, the YouTube algorithm suggested an episode of the Fall of Civilizations podcast. Not exactly sure why, because I rarely watch history topics online. (I do sometimes read up on history topics on Wikipedia, so maybe that’s why? Although I cannot see any obvious 3rd-party tracking code on Wikipedia.) Even more rarely do I follow overly random YouTube suggestions, but this time I clicked the video and started watching. Here’s the trailer:
And somehow I got hooked. By now, I’ve watched all 12 episodes that are available today. Some of them are several hours long and more episodes are in the making. Here’s my top 5 so far:
- The Bronze Age Collapse
Hell yeah, “sea peoples”. Also see this talk by some other guy. - The Sumerians
I like my history ancient and this is about as ancient as it gets. - Byzantium
A.k.a. the Eastern Roman Empire, definitely a big one – I wonder if there will be an episode about the collapse of the western part? - The Aztecs
And also The Inca and The Mayans. Sorry, for lumping them together. The non-European perspective is often marginalized where I live. - Easter Island
I’m fascinated by the history of Polynesia, maybe because I lived there for a while. Well, that was New Zealand, one of the other corners of that huge triangle.
(This episode got featured on Fefe’s Blog recently, which is also very random.)
Not sure why I like that shit so much. Back in school I was never particularly keen on history. And frankly, a fair portion of my history knowledge comes from the first two Age of Empires games — Wololo! — not just the re-enacted battles, but also the background info for the campaigns. Well that, and Wikipedia, and having visited a fair amount of historic places.