Here's a Podcast for Hardcore History Buffs

Part of a series of interviews with the makers of our favorite history podcasts.

Taking a Ken Burns approach to history podcasts, Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History is just that: hardcore. Not for those seeking a quick history fix, this podcast delves into the most minute details of well-known histories to create narratives that total 20+ hours. And though that many hours of anything might sound painful, Carlin’s masterful storytelling paints such a world that you actually feel like you’re living the history of each 2-3 hour episode.

Instead of the summarized “brute” treatment Genghis Khan gets in most high school history classes, you find out that his armies wore capes fashioned from the tiny skins of many mice. And that World War I was started by a group of young Serbs in a bar. Carlin doesn’t shy away from the granular and thus transforms the mundanity of history books into epic sagas.

We spoke with Carlin on the behind the scenes of his podcast and inquired about the mundanity of his own podcast history.

The Creators Project: What's your background in history and what were you doing before you started the Hardcore History podcast?

Dan Carlin: I am a lifelong history fanatic. Even as a young child I was obsessed with the subject, so it seemed natural to make it my major area of study in college. I graduated the University of Colorado (Boulder) with a B.A. in history and then got into the television news profession (only to find out that "journalism being the first draft of history" was a popular degree amongst "hard" news reporters).

Before doing the HH podcast, I was already doing my other podcast (Common Sense, which debuted in 2005) which focuses on current events and which was akin to the talk radio work I had been doing for about a dozen years prior to moving from terrestrial radio to the internet. I have always used history as a way to provide context and help make sense of things. It was always a large focus of my radio and podcasting discussions even before we started a show specifically dealing with the past.

How did Hardcore History begin?

My mother-in-law, who was continually being bombarded with my history tales over meals suggested to me one day 'Why don't you do a podcast about THIS?' To which I replied 'Oh no, you'd need to be a historian to do that.' She said, 'I didn't realize you needed to have a PhD to tell stories.' That turned on a light bulb in my head and sort of framed the idea in a way I'd never considered. I could do a program for people who were like me… Other history fanatics.

The level of detail and lengthy duration of your podcast episodes is pretty unique, some 3-4 hours long, with series that can total up to 20 hours all telling one story. How did you develop that style?

The first HH show we did was about 15 minutes long. That was about how long we initially thought we would make each episode. They evolved over time and grew longer as we began to explore events in more detail. Audience feedback played a large role. The design eventually evolved to include a mix of story narration, dramatic elements and what we call "twists" (my own weird Twilight Zone-style thoughts on things). But I can't take credit for having this vision in advance. Things evolved organically, and audience feedback was key. For example, it was the listeners who encouraged us to make the shows as long as they needed to be to handle the subject matter. I never would have had the guts to go much more over an hour in length if listeners hadn't pointed out to me that a podcast can be any length at all… as long as it can stay interesting.

How do you choose your topics? What to you constitutes an attractive historical narrative?

Well, first I have to know something about the potential subject already. Even though each show takes a long time to create, it still isn't long enough to begin trying to research a subject from scratch. So my choice in topics is usually constrained at the outset to a rather narrow set of things I have already studied at one time or another. It's also a good thing to vary the periods the episodes deal with and the types of subjects. It's nice for the audience to see a wealth of show/subject choices when they check out your podcast feed.

I tend to be interested in the extremes of the human experience (hence the "hardcore" in the show's title). Human beings are amazing creatures and they are often put into crazy situations that are almost impossible to imagine. I think that people with an innate interest in history have a tiny bit more of an ability than most people to imagine themselves in the situations they are reading or hearing about and empathize with the participants while wondering "How would I have dealt with that?"

Talk to me about the creative process behind each episode. Do you use a script?

I won't lie to you, it's a lot of work! Any podcaster can tell you that podcasting itself is more time-consuming than most non-podcasters realize. I can work a whole day on something, and yet often not end up with anything that I like enough to use in the final show.

In terms of creating a show, I do a lot of reading, make notes of the unusual ideas I get while researching, and then spend some time just thinking about the subject matter. The thinking part seems like an excuse for laziness, but it's pretty much the most crucial stage. I have to live with the subject matter for a while and then my whole brain starts deconstructing the subject and viewing it from unusual angles and that's usually where I can get ideas for approaches that are novel and that are interesting to me.

There are no scripts at all. It wouldn't sound the way it does if there were scripts. It is improvised, but we may improvise it several times before we get the take we want to use.

On average, how long does each episode take to produce from the conceptual stage to the finished product?

Longer and longer is the most accurate answer. We are always trying to make a better show than the previous one, so more attention to detail, more pickiness, trying to be more accurate—use more sources—so it always seems to be taking us longer.

A large part of the success behind Hardcore History is your masterful storytelling and vocal intonation, changing for direct quotes versus exposition and maintaining a forward momentum. How did you develop that manner of speaking?

Not sure how much credit I can claim for that. That's how I have always spoken. I think doing radio probably made me more aware of what I was doing with my voice, and taught me to better utilize it.

At this point you have covered, in great detail, many time periods and significant moments in world history. What has this taught you about the nature of humanity and society in general?

That Shakespeare line about "All the world's a stage and all the people merely players" seems to sound so right after you encounter the people and situations of the past. I think what makes history so valuable is the stuff it teaches about us as a species. We are not fundamentally different from our forbears…morally, in terms of individual innate cleverness or our capacity for good or evil. Take any of us at birth and transport us using a time machine to another time period and by the time we grow up we will fit into that other era just perfectly. It's what really makes history intriguing; it's a research experiment where humans are the lab rats…and we can see how our kind reacts in a multitude of given situations. When we see how people responded in truly unusual circumstances in the past we are likely looking at how we'd react too. The costumes and stage design changes over the eras, but the human actors are remarkably unchanged over time.

You can download recent episodes of Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History for free on iTunes, and to learn more about Dan Carlin, himself, click here.

Related:

New York City History Is Alive in 'The Bowery Boys' Podcast

'On Broadway' Is a Stunning, Data-Driven Portrait of Life in New York City

Realist Art Returns to the Spotlight in New York

How a Freewheeling Skater Became an Art Historian