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The End is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses
The creator of the wildly popular award-winning podcast Hardcore History looks at some of the apocalyptic moments from the past as a way to frame the challenges of the future.
Do tough times create tougher people? Can humanity handle the power of its weapons without destroying itself? Will human technology or capabilities ever peak or regress? No one knows the answers to such questions, but no one asks them in a more interesting way than Dan Carlin.
In The End is Always Near, Dan Carlin looks at questions and historical events that force us to consider what sounds like fantasy; that we might suffer the same fate that all previous eras did. Will our world ever become a ruin for future archaeologists to dig up and explore? The questions themselves are both philosophical and like something out of The Twilight Zone.
Combining his trademark mix of storytelling, history and weirdness Dan Carlin connects the past and future in fascinating and colorful ways. At the same time the questions he asks us to consider involve the most important issue imaginable: human survival. From the collapse of the Bronze Age to the challenges of the nuclear era the issue has hung over humanity like a persistent Sword of Damocles.
Inspired by his podcast, The End is Always Near challenges the way we look at the past and ourselves. In this absorbing compendium, Carlin embarks on a whole new set of stories and major cliffhangers that will keep readers enthralled. Idiosyncratic and erudite, offbeat yet profound, The End is Always Near examines issues that are rarely presented, and makes the past immediately relevant to our very turbulent present.
Do tough times create tougher people? Can humanity handle the power of its weapons without destroying itself? Will human technology or capabilities ever peak or regress? No one knows the answers to such questions, but no one asks them in a more interesting way than Dan Carlin.
In The End is Always Near, Dan Carlin looks at questions and historical events that force us to consider what sounds like fantasy; that we might suffer the same fate that all previous eras did. Will our world ever become a ruin for future archaeologists to dig up and explore? The questions themselves are both philosophical and like something out of The Twilight Zone.
Combining his trademark mix of storytelling, history and weirdness Dan Carlin connects the past and future in fascinating and colorful ways. At the same time the questions he asks us to consider involve the most important issue imaginable: human survival. From the collapse of the Bronze Age to the challenges of the nuclear era the issue has hung over humanity like a persistent Sword of Damocles.
Inspired by his podcast, The End is Always Near challenges the way we look at the past and ourselves. In this absorbing compendium, Carlin embarks on a whole new set of stories and major cliffhangers that will keep readers enthralled. Idiosyncratic and erudite, offbeat yet profound, The End is Always Near examines issues that are rarely presented, and makes the past immediately relevant to our very turbulent present.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published October 29, 2019
About the author
Dan Carlin
83 books1,343 followersDan Carlin is an American political commentator, amateur historian, and podcaster. Once a professional radio host, Carlin eventually took his show to the Internet, and he now hosts two popular independent podcasts: Common Sense and Hardcore History. Carlin broke into the television news business in Los Angeles in the late 1980s. He has worked as a television news reporter, an author, a columnist, and for the last dozen years, a radio talk show host. No longer broadcasting on terrestrial radio, Carlin has achieved recognition in internet radio, podcasting, and the blogosphere. Currently, he hosts two popular podcasts, both of which are frequently among the highest-ranked podcasts on review sites such as Podcastalley and iTunes.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,217 reviews
October 1, 2022
Moi ulubiony rozdział był o bombach atomowych, ale poza tym, reszta treści była na bardzo podstawowym poziomie
November 30, 2019
Unlike many of the other reviewers here, I have actually listened to the podcast. I’ve been a fan of Hardcore History and Dan Carlin’s unique and chatty approach to the subject for years. I’ve noticed that every chapter in this book is essentially a reworked past episode of the podcast. I’m not complaining. Stringing them together into a book with a common theme is brilliant. A number of the other episodes that weren’t covered in this book, the epically long ones, would also make great books.
It was fun to go back and revisit these topics. Hardcore History is the most entertaining and thought-provoking podcast on the Internet, in my opinion. My only complaint here is that by reworking the episodes into print form and then reading them back in the audiobook, (I’m an Audible fan) these accounts lose something when compared to the podcast. I’m glad to have it all packaged together like this in one place, but I’m also glad I listened to the podcast. At least with the audiobook, we get Dan Carlin’s voice and inflection. I can only imagine that it might lose even more in the text format. To those of you who read the text version and didn’t much care for it, try listening to an episode of the podcast and see if you feel the same way. If you’re the sort to turn up your nose at the audio format altogether, there’s nothing I can do for you.
All in all, this is an interesting take on the cycles of history and how we never seem to get away from doomsday just around the corner. This book takes you into the extremes of human experience in a way that few other history books ever do. It also explores the choices we’ve made as a species and how they looked from the point of view of the decision-makers. Unlike most professional historians (The author is not one), Dan Carlin freely speculates about the thought processes of these people without being encumbered by the need for academic rigor. If you bear that in mind, I don’t think it’s a problem. This is as much about thinking about history as it is about chronicling it.
Whether you’re a fan of the podcast or not, this book is well worth your time.
It was fun to go back and revisit these topics. Hardcore History is the most entertaining and thought-provoking podcast on the Internet, in my opinion. My only complaint here is that by reworking the episodes into print form and then reading them back in the audiobook, (I’m an Audible fan) these accounts lose something when compared to the podcast. I’m glad to have it all packaged together like this in one place, but I’m also glad I listened to the podcast. At least with the audiobook, we get Dan Carlin’s voice and inflection. I can only imagine that it might lose even more in the text format. To those of you who read the text version and didn’t much care for it, try listening to an episode of the podcast and see if you feel the same way. If you’re the sort to turn up your nose at the audio format altogether, there’s nothing I can do for you.
All in all, this is an interesting take on the cycles of history and how we never seem to get away from doomsday just around the corner. This book takes you into the extremes of human experience in a way that few other history books ever do. It also explores the choices we’ve made as a species and how they looked from the point of view of the decision-makers. Unlike most professional historians (The author is not one), Dan Carlin freely speculates about the thought processes of these people without being encumbered by the need for academic rigor. If you bear that in mind, I don’t think it’s a problem. This is as much about thinking about history as it is about chronicling it.
Whether you’re a fan of the podcast or not, this book is well worth your time.
May 1, 2023
In an effort to revitalize certain reviews that have languished far too long in algorithmic obscurity, I have gone back and grafted unto them, appendages of ghastly proportions, serving no real function other than to push against character limits like an impacted wisdom tooth. I do so primarily out of spite. With the image of every avuncular professor of letters who milked the teet of their hepatic duct with their thumb and forefinger, (while maintaining right angles with their digitus minimus manus), in order to produce bile which, with alarming ubiquity, dawns the gross morphology of a sensible notion, and attempted to piss this physiological aqueous solution consisting of salts, phospholipids, cholesterol, conjugated bilirubin, electrolytes, and water into the nerve endings of my audio equipment while verbally masquerading as,
“Young lady. The puerile manner of your craft entertains infrequently, edifies less, and touches upon shared human experience none. Your locutions are grotesquely muscular. What we have here is the kind of clinical insecurity which results in bodybuilders injecting themselves with synthol. This is a bicep gratuitously inflated with sarcoplasmic growth and exogenous compounds. You remind me of those young men who are so obsessed with hiding their natural paunch that they bind themselves in corsets of Saran Wrap and engage in the postural affectations of a gorilla attempting burlesque. *and here he leans in conspiratorially to whisper with emphasis* let me tell you - Jen - no one gives a FIG about your ludicrous gun show. Similarly, you’re annoying those of us who love language.” And I reply to him then, as I reply to you now. Mounting the ramparts of his desk and shouting, “I CANNOT BE CAGED! I CANNOT BE CONTROLLED! before tipping sideways and kicking the desk out from under me like a suicide bucket, and in a massive contortion of physical laws, shattering my iliac crest into untold multitudes of calcified arrowheads, while the whiplash of my spine disarticulating against the ground launches my feet skyward with such violence that my shoe slides frictionless from my foot at the apogee of centripetal trajectories necessary to blast a hole through a fiberglass partition manufactured by Armstrong Ceiling Solutions and get sucked into an intake fan within the bowels of the faculty bathroom, causing it to screech and emit black smoke. Which did indeed end the tenure of this crotchety sage by causing the fatally congested turbine to then explode and push the boundaries of his delicate sensory envelope well over the edge, thus sending him into the briny depths of cardiac arrest with the sounds of mechanical failure filling his ears and tenebrous smoke cradling his dying body like an otherworldly gurney. And all the while I writhe on the ground, screaming, “MY FUCKING ILIAC CRESSSSSSSTTTTTTTTTTTT!
Later, while finding myself in the unenviable position of eulogizing a grammarian inquisitor who I had essentially murdered with my penchant for exploring the limits of representation within realms verbal, it is with some shame that I tell you I could not help but take a jab at the turkey necked bastard by ending my heartfelt poem with the following words: “Concision is weakness. Verbosity is strength. Amen.” Causing his bereaved widow to storm the pulpit in asthmatic fury before being handily restrained by a pair of cherubic gingers who cast silent aspersions my way as they led the hysterical woman into fresh air. Ah the folly of youth.
I'll never forget the day this book came into my life. As I took a nasty header, (and not for the fuuuuuuuuu (or(or(or(or(or(or(or(or(I am who(or(I(or(is explained by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj as an abstraction in the mind of the Stateless State, of the Absolute, or the Supreme Reality, called Parabrahman: it is pure awareness, prior to thoughts, free from perceptions, associations, memories.) am)’ehye ’ăšer ’ehye) אֶהְיֶה)fifth)fourth)third)second)first)time) down a grimy vestibule outside makeshift lodgings constructed from the partially digested remains of shrews struck dead by lift and drag coefficients attached to remarkably big peepers (ie. a nocturnal predator without equal by the name of Doctor Hoo) terminating in great, rodent rending claws of volcanic glass which it uses to administer a fatal “Good game!” To the scurrying Mus musculus’s furry, rapidly undulating posterior as it tries to get the fuck out of the proverbial Dodge (ie. An allusion to Dodge City, Kansas, a busy cattle town in the late 19th century notorious for gunfighters, gambling, brothels and saloons which one must scram from forthwith least they incur truncations to their fiscal and/or life expectancies), reaggravating previous traumas inflicted on, (but not limited to), my iliac crest and exploding a parcel of packing peanuts with the hard kernel of a bōc (ie. bōk) (ie. Cognate to ‘beech’) (ie. буква bukva) (ie. Codex) buried within. I then lay immobile for days, scorched by the sun and weathering the insults of inclement weather while wondering whether [insert display of contrition and total disavowal of frivolous verbal synthol] (ie. Re-enunciation (sp)) my entire pelvic girdle had sustained damages irreparable. At long last I slid between these pages for succor, only to discover a collection of vulnerabilities in our most social of fabrics.
Are you someone who is concerned that, due to your sheltered upbringing, you’ve inherited an optimism bias which makes it difficult to conceive of bad things happening to you? Do you feel as if this extends more broadly to the idea that people in affluent parts of the world have lost the tragic sense of history? That, for them, history is something to read about, but never live through? This book may just blast you in the chest with the force of a frozen turkey fired from a howitzer. Have you ever, while smeared temporally and spatially by the ingestion of DMT, heard frantic voices rise in a parabolic arc and whistle down on you with a deadly warning? To which you stopped and shouted: “It’s NOT paranoia! The embedding is very subtle, it’s probably been overlooked!” Only to realize, much too late, that you’d blundered into an open field used for turkey launching competitions? Well, you might’ve lived through the national Punkin Chunkin event, but a cold brick of snood and concentrated tryptophan makes for far deadlier ordnance. See you on the other side, sister.
This book is by Dan Carlin, who, while not carrying the official talisman of a historian, has a knack for sharing his passion for the subject on the Hardcore History Podcast. If you have a thing for history, and you haven’t confessed your feelings for it yet, take your sorry ass and get on it before I slap knots on your head faster than you can rub ‘em. If you’re already a loyal concubine, you will find that this book is basically a compressed version of prior episodes, massaged into a thematically connected reflection on the collapse of empires, and the cyclic historical forces which lurk below the untroubled surface of our conditioned complacency like the narcoleptic Old One himself. Carlin’s perspective on history is that of a Xenomorph, with it’s prehensile tale ending in a barbed spear and ever eager to penetrate the soft guts of your local android and cause it to leak suspiciously coom-like fluid from every USB-Z port (lets all pour out a used condom for our boy Bishop - those who know - know well the gruesome fate the master of Five Finger Fillet met at the end of the Queen’s girthy stinger).
Alternatively, and by his own admission, he adopts the perspective of a Martian (far less interesting if you ask me, but, whatever), or what others might refer to as Big History, meaning he parses the interminable interactions of beans most human in chronological heapings foreign to your average historian and portion control enthusiast. Through this lens, progress which we take to be inevitable and immovable, appears precarious. Patterns of collective behavior emerge which render this optimism quaint. This complacency, arrogant. The arc of history, on these timescales, does not bend so much as present the teeth of advancement and regression.
Carlin captures this phenomena by noting: we are hardwired to “Think in terms of continuous improvement and modernization because it broadly reflects how things have been for many centuries.” But then presents the question: “The advent of nuclear weapons has bestowed on humans the capability to reorient the world (or destroy it) in mere minutes, either with direct intended strikes on enemies or with a miscalculation of a rival’s maneuvers. Has our capacity to be citizens of the world and possess these weapons responsibly grown with our increased technology? Or are we the same creatures on a collision course with disaster, once again the victims of our own hubris? On the precarious nature of a world littered with nuclear weapons, Carlin lets his pessimism show by quoting the philosopher Bertrand Russell – “you may reasonably expect a man to walk a tightrope safely for ten minutes; it would be unreasonable to do so without accident for two hundred years.”
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
The Bronze Age, the Assyrians, the Romans, and Atlantis all receive some treatment, though the chapter on Rome receives special, if general, attention, while Atlantis is nowhere to be found. We’re left to infer its presence from its absence. We’re then given a brief reprieve from this ruinous rumination, as our spirits are made to soar on the wings of the Spanish Flu, and experience the panoramic grandeur of the Black Plague, before finally allowing the twin angels of biological warfare and nuclear annihilation to sing us to our rest.
We in parts of the developed world have experienced an unprecedented level of peace and prosperity. Most of the time we’re oblivious to the fact that the sum of all sword swings, shot arrows, calvary charges, grapeshots, blunderbusses, muskets, canons, artillery and spitballs, have had their collective energy amplified by unspeakable orders of magnitude, packaged for delivery, and equipped with amazon alpha-prime. The kinetic has become potential. Lucky for us that our wisdom has increased at a rate commensurate with our technological progress. And that our highly capable, global leaders, have only our best interests in mind.
Fucking iliac crest lol.
“Young lady. The puerile manner of your craft entertains infrequently, edifies less, and touches upon shared human experience none. Your locutions are grotesquely muscular. What we have here is the kind of clinical insecurity which results in bodybuilders injecting themselves with synthol. This is a bicep gratuitously inflated with sarcoplasmic growth and exogenous compounds. You remind me of those young men who are so obsessed with hiding their natural paunch that they bind themselves in corsets of Saran Wrap and engage in the postural affectations of a gorilla attempting burlesque. *and here he leans in conspiratorially to whisper with emphasis* let me tell you - Jen - no one gives a FIG about your ludicrous gun show. Similarly, you’re annoying those of us who love language.” And I reply to him then, as I reply to you now. Mounting the ramparts of his desk and shouting, “I CANNOT BE CAGED! I CANNOT BE CONTROLLED! before tipping sideways and kicking the desk out from under me like a suicide bucket, and in a massive contortion of physical laws, shattering my iliac crest into untold multitudes of calcified arrowheads, while the whiplash of my spine disarticulating against the ground launches my feet skyward with such violence that my shoe slides frictionless from my foot at the apogee of centripetal trajectories necessary to blast a hole through a fiberglass partition manufactured by Armstrong Ceiling Solutions and get sucked into an intake fan within the bowels of the faculty bathroom, causing it to screech and emit black smoke. Which did indeed end the tenure of this crotchety sage by causing the fatally congested turbine to then explode and push the boundaries of his delicate sensory envelope well over the edge, thus sending him into the briny depths of cardiac arrest with the sounds of mechanical failure filling his ears and tenebrous smoke cradling his dying body like an otherworldly gurney. And all the while I writhe on the ground, screaming, “MY FUCKING ILIAC CRESSSSSSSTTTTTTTTTTTT!
Later, while finding myself in the unenviable position of eulogizing a grammarian inquisitor who I had essentially murdered with my penchant for exploring the limits of representation within realms verbal, it is with some shame that I tell you I could not help but take a jab at the turkey necked bastard by ending my heartfelt poem with the following words: “Concision is weakness. Verbosity is strength. Amen.” Causing his bereaved widow to storm the pulpit in asthmatic fury before being handily restrained by a pair of cherubic gingers who cast silent aspersions my way as they led the hysterical woman into fresh air. Ah the folly of youth.
I'll never forget the day this book came into my life. As I took a nasty header, (and not for the fuuuuuuuuu (or(or(or(or(or(or(or(or(I am who(or(I(or(is explained by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj as an abstraction in the mind of the Stateless State, of the Absolute, or the Supreme Reality, called Parabrahman: it is pure awareness, prior to thoughts, free from perceptions, associations, memories.) am)’ehye ’ăšer ’ehye) אֶהְיֶה)fifth)fourth)third)second)first)time) down a grimy vestibule outside makeshift lodgings constructed from the partially digested remains of shrews struck dead by lift and drag coefficients attached to remarkably big peepers (ie. a nocturnal predator without equal by the name of Doctor Hoo) terminating in great, rodent rending claws of volcanic glass which it uses to administer a fatal “Good game!” To the scurrying Mus musculus’s furry, rapidly undulating posterior as it tries to get the fuck out of the proverbial Dodge (ie. An allusion to Dodge City, Kansas, a busy cattle town in the late 19th century notorious for gunfighters, gambling, brothels and saloons which one must scram from forthwith least they incur truncations to their fiscal and/or life expectancies), reaggravating previous traumas inflicted on, (but not limited to), my iliac crest and exploding a parcel of packing peanuts with the hard kernel of a bōc (ie. bōk) (ie. Cognate to ‘beech’) (ie. буква bukva) (ie. Codex) buried within. I then lay immobile for days, scorched by the sun and weathering the insults of inclement weather while wondering whether [insert display of contrition and total disavowal of frivolous verbal synthol] (ie. Re-enunciation (sp)) my entire pelvic girdle had sustained damages irreparable. At long last I slid between these pages for succor, only to discover a collection of vulnerabilities in our most social of fabrics.
Are you someone who is concerned that, due to your sheltered upbringing, you’ve inherited an optimism bias which makes it difficult to conceive of bad things happening to you? Do you feel as if this extends more broadly to the idea that people in affluent parts of the world have lost the tragic sense of history? That, for them, history is something to read about, but never live through? This book may just blast you in the chest with the force of a frozen turkey fired from a howitzer. Have you ever, while smeared temporally and spatially by the ingestion of DMT, heard frantic voices rise in a parabolic arc and whistle down on you with a deadly warning? To which you stopped and shouted: “It’s NOT paranoia! The embedding is very subtle, it’s probably been overlooked!” Only to realize, much too late, that you’d blundered into an open field used for turkey launching competitions? Well, you might’ve lived through the national Punkin Chunkin event, but a cold brick of snood and concentrated tryptophan makes for far deadlier ordnance. See you on the other side, sister.
This book is by Dan Carlin, who, while not carrying the official talisman of a historian, has a knack for sharing his passion for the subject on the Hardcore History Podcast. If you have a thing for history, and you haven’t confessed your feelings for it yet, take your sorry ass and get on it before I slap knots on your head faster than you can rub ‘em. If you’re already a loyal concubine, you will find that this book is basically a compressed version of prior episodes, massaged into a thematically connected reflection on the collapse of empires, and the cyclic historical forces which lurk below the untroubled surface of our conditioned complacency like the narcoleptic Old One himself. Carlin’s perspective on history is that of a Xenomorph, with it’s prehensile tale ending in a barbed spear and ever eager to penetrate the soft guts of your local android and cause it to leak suspiciously coom-like fluid from every USB-Z port (lets all pour out a used condom for our boy Bishop - those who know - know well the gruesome fate the master of Five Finger Fillet met at the end of the Queen’s girthy stinger).
Alternatively, and by his own admission, he adopts the perspective of a Martian (far less interesting if you ask me, but, whatever), or what others might refer to as Big History, meaning he parses the interminable interactions of beans most human in chronological heapings foreign to your average historian and portion control enthusiast. Through this lens, progress which we take to be inevitable and immovable, appears precarious. Patterns of collective behavior emerge which render this optimism quaint. This complacency, arrogant. The arc of history, on these timescales, does not bend so much as present the teeth of advancement and regression.
Carlin captures this phenomena by noting: we are hardwired to “Think in terms of continuous improvement and modernization because it broadly reflects how things have been for many centuries.” But then presents the question: “The advent of nuclear weapons has bestowed on humans the capability to reorient the world (or destroy it) in mere minutes, either with direct intended strikes on enemies or with a miscalculation of a rival’s maneuvers. Has our capacity to be citizens of the world and possess these weapons responsibly grown with our increased technology? Or are we the same creatures on a collision course with disaster, once again the victims of our own hubris? On the precarious nature of a world littered with nuclear weapons, Carlin lets his pessimism show by quoting the philosopher Bertrand Russell – “you may reasonably expect a man to walk a tightrope safely for ten minutes; it would be unreasonable to do so without accident for two hundred years.”
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
The Bronze Age, the Assyrians, the Romans, and Atlantis all receive some treatment, though the chapter on Rome receives special, if general, attention, while Atlantis is nowhere to be found. We’re left to infer its presence from its absence. We’re then given a brief reprieve from this ruinous rumination, as our spirits are made to soar on the wings of the Spanish Flu, and experience the panoramic grandeur of the Black Plague, before finally allowing the twin angels of biological warfare and nuclear annihilation to sing us to our rest.
We in parts of the developed world have experienced an unprecedented level of peace and prosperity. Most of the time we’re oblivious to the fact that the sum of all sword swings, shot arrows, calvary charges, grapeshots, blunderbusses, muskets, canons, artillery and spitballs, have had their collective energy amplified by unspeakable orders of magnitude, packaged for delivery, and equipped with amazon alpha-prime. The kinetic has become potential. Lucky for us that our wisdom has increased at a rate commensurate with our technological progress. And that our highly capable, global leaders, have only our best interests in mind.
Fucking iliac crest lol.
March 26, 2020
A hundred years ago, humankind went through one of the worst phases in their history. A world war, a global pandemic and then another world war. We survived. After that, a lot of measures were put into place to ensure we don’t have to go through such devastation again. World War 3 is something we dread whenever the slightest international diplomacy failure happens. And it has worked, to an extent. We haven’t had to face a World War again. However, we haven’t been as vigilant about Global Pandemics. And today, we seem to be in the grip of something as dangerous as any – COVID -19. The Spanish Flu though overshadowed by the World Wars, was perhaps as big a disaster as either of the wars. We need to mobilize our nations today, as we would for a major war. Bill Gates had made a global call for this back in 2015.
We did not heed it. Today, we go to work and talk about deadlines and other stuff as if a global war is not waging on humanity. We need to take severe war-like action today. Before it is too late.
Perhaps it would be a good time to look back on the 100-year-old pandemic that almost sunk us. The Four Riders of the Apocalypse rode together a hundred years ago, and it would serve us well to remember that the horsemen always meet each other and reap together, even if one might arrive before others occasionally.
In 1918, during a century just like ours, in which the most modern of societies thought such epidemics were a thing of the past, people got a reminder that even seemingly routine illnesses can be potentially civilization threatening under the right conditions. A malady that would be dubbed the Spanish Flu struck while the devastating First World War was raging, and soon its death toll greatly surpassed that of the war’s.
Perhaps one of the most astonishing things about this flu was that at the time it hit, humanity had made great strides in medicine. But when American service personnel started showing symptoms, the experts were stumped. The author John Barry describes in The Great Influenza how sailors mysteriously began bleeding from their noses and ears, while others coughed blood. “Some coughed so hard the autopsies would later show they had torn apart abdominal muscles and rib cartilage,” Barry writes. Many were delirious or complained of severe headaches “as if someone were hammering a wedge into their skulls just behind the eyes” or “body aches so intense they felt like bones breaking.” Some of the men’s skin turned strange colors, from “just a tinge of blue around their lips or fingertips” to skin “so dark one could not tell easily if they were Caucasian or Negro.”
A couple of months before the appearance of these extraordinary symptoms, autopsies of crewmen from a British ship who had died after experiencing similar trials showed “their lungs had resembled those of men who had died from poison gas or pneumonic plague.”
More alarming was the speed and scope of the spreading, Barry writes, despite efforts to isolate and contain those who hadn’t even shown symptoms but had merely been exposed: “Four days after that Boston detachment arrived, nineteen sailors in Philadelphia were hospitalized. . . . Despite their immediate isolation and that of everyone with whom they had had contact, eighty-seven sailors were hospitalized the next day . . . two days later, six hundred more were hospitalized with this strange disease. The hospital ran out of empty beds, and hospital staff began falling ill.” As the sick overwhelmed the facility, officials began sending new patients to civilian hospitals, while military personnel continued moving among bases around the country, exposing ever more people.
What began in Philadelphia—at least in its most dangerous form—quickly advanced. In his new book, The End is Always Near, Dan Carlin writes, there was still an international war on, and modern transportation had made great strides, so the virus could get from place to place at a far greater pace than any previous pandemic could. The collision of this outbreak with this first period of true globalization was devastating. At its height, whole cities in the United States were virtually shut down, as areas, where human beings congregated, were closed to prevent people from transmitting the illness. People stayed home from school and work rather than risk exposure, and the gears of society in some places seemed imperiled by the justifiable fear of getting sick. By the time it receded in 1920, modern epidemiologists estimate that the flu had killed somewhere between fifty and one hundred million people; “roughly half of those who died were young men and women in the prime of their life, in their twenties and thirties,” Barry writes. “If the upper estimate of the death toll is true, as many as 8 to 10 percent of young adults then living may have been killed by the virus.”
The disease wasn’t just remarkable for the number of its victims, but also for the compressed nature of its devastating labors. Although it took two years to come and go, “perhaps two-thirds of the deaths occurred in a period of twenty-four weeks, and more than half of those deaths occurred in even less time, from mid-September to early December 1918.” That amount of damage in that short a period of time is disorienting and potentially destabilizing for a society.
All this happened in an age when we understood a lot about biomedicine. We understood that germs spread disease; we understood how you prevented contact to limit exposure. Indeed, doctors quickly figured out that what was killing sailors in Philadelphia was a strain of influenza, but it was unlike any they had seen before, and nothing they did could contain it. As much as a fifth of the entire population of the planet contracted it, and as much as 5 percent died from it. In sheer numbers, it was the deadliest pandemic to hit humankind, but as a percentage of the human population alive at the time, it wasn’t nearly as bad as the Black Death that hit western Europe in the mid-fourteenth century. So, humankind didn’t exactly dodge a bullet—the damage was severe and widespread—but it could have been much, much worse.
It still can be, Dan Carlin assures us, in a book that talks about enough civilizational collapses to give one ennui. And as an aside, it should be mentioned that this book would add almost nothing of note to a regular of the podcasts - Carlin just elaborates on themes he explores in great detail in the podcasts as well. The same sense of hubris affects us today as affected the generation that was blindsided by the Spanish Influenza. It’s hard to imagine a human society acting rationally or humanely if mortality levels began reaching catastrophic levels, Dan Carlin says. In the past, societies have been reshaped and at times have nearly crumbled under the weight of a pandemic. It’s possible that, facing mortality rates of 50, 60, or 70 percent—as people who lived through the Black Death did—we might do as they did: turn to religion, change the social structure, blame unpopular minorities and groups, or abandon previous belief systems. We can learn from how people in other eras responded to a catastrophic situation, and we can ask ourselves: With all our modern technology and science and medical knowledge, how do we respond?
What’s the likelihood that humanity has already experienced the worst plague it will ever encounter? In the famous science fiction classic The War of the Worlds, author H. G. Wells has the alien would-be conquerors defeated ultimately by Earth’s pathogens. Let’s hope those same planetary defense mechanisms don’t get us first. Those who regularly work with infectious diseases and see the Black Death–like damage that something like Ebola or Marburg virus can have on a small scale in isolated communities are all too aware of how a hemorrhagic fever virus in one global region, or an avian flu mutation somewhere else, could remind us that, just like the Titanic, our civilization is not unsinkable.
We did not heed it. Today, we go to work and talk about deadlines and other stuff as if a global war is not waging on humanity. We need to take severe war-like action today. Before it is too late.
Perhaps it would be a good time to look back on the 100-year-old pandemic that almost sunk us. The Four Riders of the Apocalypse rode together a hundred years ago, and it would serve us well to remember that the horsemen always meet each other and reap together, even if one might arrive before others occasionally.
In 1918, during a century just like ours, in which the most modern of societies thought such epidemics were a thing of the past, people got a reminder that even seemingly routine illnesses can be potentially civilization threatening under the right conditions. A malady that would be dubbed the Spanish Flu struck while the devastating First World War was raging, and soon its death toll greatly surpassed that of the war’s.
Perhaps one of the most astonishing things about this flu was that at the time it hit, humanity had made great strides in medicine. But when American service personnel started showing symptoms, the experts were stumped. The author John Barry describes in The Great Influenza how sailors mysteriously began bleeding from their noses and ears, while others coughed blood. “Some coughed so hard the autopsies would later show they had torn apart abdominal muscles and rib cartilage,” Barry writes. Many were delirious or complained of severe headaches “as if someone were hammering a wedge into their skulls just behind the eyes” or “body aches so intense they felt like bones breaking.” Some of the men’s skin turned strange colors, from “just a tinge of blue around their lips or fingertips” to skin “so dark one could not tell easily if they were Caucasian or Negro.”
A couple of months before the appearance of these extraordinary symptoms, autopsies of crewmen from a British ship who had died after experiencing similar trials showed “their lungs had resembled those of men who had died from poison gas or pneumonic plague.”
More alarming was the speed and scope of the spreading, Barry writes, despite efforts to isolate and contain those who hadn’t even shown symptoms but had merely been exposed: “Four days after that Boston detachment arrived, nineteen sailors in Philadelphia were hospitalized. . . . Despite their immediate isolation and that of everyone with whom they had had contact, eighty-seven sailors were hospitalized the next day . . . two days later, six hundred more were hospitalized with this strange disease. The hospital ran out of empty beds, and hospital staff began falling ill.” As the sick overwhelmed the facility, officials began sending new patients to civilian hospitals, while military personnel continued moving among bases around the country, exposing ever more people.
What began in Philadelphia—at least in its most dangerous form—quickly advanced. In his new book, The End is Always Near, Dan Carlin writes, there was still an international war on, and modern transportation had made great strides, so the virus could get from place to place at a far greater pace than any previous pandemic could. The collision of this outbreak with this first period of true globalization was devastating. At its height, whole cities in the United States were virtually shut down, as areas, where human beings congregated, were closed to prevent people from transmitting the illness. People stayed home from school and work rather than risk exposure, and the gears of society in some places seemed imperiled by the justifiable fear of getting sick. By the time it receded in 1920, modern epidemiologists estimate that the flu had killed somewhere between fifty and one hundred million people; “roughly half of those who died were young men and women in the prime of their life, in their twenties and thirties,” Barry writes. “If the upper estimate of the death toll is true, as many as 8 to 10 percent of young adults then living may have been killed by the virus.”
The disease wasn’t just remarkable for the number of its victims, but also for the compressed nature of its devastating labors. Although it took two years to come and go, “perhaps two-thirds of the deaths occurred in a period of twenty-four weeks, and more than half of those deaths occurred in even less time, from mid-September to early December 1918.” That amount of damage in that short a period of time is disorienting and potentially destabilizing for a society.
All this happened in an age when we understood a lot about biomedicine. We understood that germs spread disease; we understood how you prevented contact to limit exposure. Indeed, doctors quickly figured out that what was killing sailors in Philadelphia was a strain of influenza, but it was unlike any they had seen before, and nothing they did could contain it. As much as a fifth of the entire population of the planet contracted it, and as much as 5 percent died from it. In sheer numbers, it was the deadliest pandemic to hit humankind, but as a percentage of the human population alive at the time, it wasn’t nearly as bad as the Black Death that hit western Europe in the mid-fourteenth century. So, humankind didn’t exactly dodge a bullet—the damage was severe and widespread—but it could have been much, much worse.
It still can be, Dan Carlin assures us, in a book that talks about enough civilizational collapses to give one ennui. And as an aside, it should be mentioned that this book would add almost nothing of note to a regular of the podcasts - Carlin just elaborates on themes he explores in great detail in the podcasts as well. The same sense of hubris affects us today as affected the generation that was blindsided by the Spanish Influenza. It’s hard to imagine a human society acting rationally or humanely if mortality levels began reaching catastrophic levels, Dan Carlin says. In the past, societies have been reshaped and at times have nearly crumbled under the weight of a pandemic. It’s possible that, facing mortality rates of 50, 60, or 70 percent—as people who lived through the Black Death did—we might do as they did: turn to religion, change the social structure, blame unpopular minorities and groups, or abandon previous belief systems. We can learn from how people in other eras responded to a catastrophic situation, and we can ask ourselves: With all our modern technology and science and medical knowledge, how do we respond?
What’s the likelihood that humanity has already experienced the worst plague it will ever encounter? In the famous science fiction classic The War of the Worlds, author H. G. Wells has the alien would-be conquerors defeated ultimately by Earth’s pathogens. Let’s hope those same planetary defense mechanisms don’t get us first. Those who regularly work with infectious diseases and see the Black Death–like damage that something like Ebola or Marburg virus can have on a small scale in isolated communities are all too aware of how a hemorrhagic fever virus in one global region, or an avian flu mutation somewhere else, could remind us that, just like the Titanic, our civilization is not unsinkable.
November 5, 2019
Well that was underwhelming. If you have listened to his podcasts prepare to hear everything you’ve already heard before; Dan doesn’t try at all to come up with any new stories, questions, or ways of explaining the same stories from history. (Hint: Planet of the Apes reference Incoming) This book does not cover new territory but feels like he just looked through his old research notes and put them all together.
but I believe the book should be rated aside from connection to his podcast. I was expecting him choosing to write a book means he would dive more intensely into a certain subject, citing deeper sources, having some overarching point to choose to write a book, but there was none to me. He presents the downfall of nations of the past in his classic dramatic narratives, and while it was fascinating, it felt very pointless. His historical stories were interesting but very surface level, entertaining but not much else; As he goes from story to story I wonder what is the point of any of this? He ties it all together by asking “What if that happened to us?” But the loose connection between it all feels like I learned nothing of any value when I finished. I leave the book with no more knowledge or questions answered, or questions to ask even. Just random history stories told in dramatic fashion and some fun considerations of WhAt IF?!’s.
For those looking for solid history, you will be disappointed; for those wanting some rather simple historical entertainment , you might enjoy this.
but I believe the book should be rated aside from connection to his podcast. I was expecting him choosing to write a book means he would dive more intensely into a certain subject, citing deeper sources, having some overarching point to choose to write a book, but there was none to me. He presents the downfall of nations of the past in his classic dramatic narratives, and while it was fascinating, it felt very pointless. His historical stories were interesting but very surface level, entertaining but not much else; As he goes from story to story I wonder what is the point of any of this? He ties it all together by asking “What if that happened to us?” But the loose connection between it all feels like I learned nothing of any value when I finished. I leave the book with no more knowledge or questions answered, or questions to ask even. Just random history stories told in dramatic fashion and some fun considerations of WhAt IF?!’s.
For those looking for solid history, you will be disappointed; for those wanting some rather simple historical entertainment , you might enjoy this.
November 6, 2019
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Based on a podcast, this is an interesting jump into the world of history, but not quite as we known it. Dan Carlin examines some of the disasters of our history to determine their likelihood of ever happening again, as well as how they occurred in the first place. It’s grand scale history, sweeping us through the ages and inviting the reader to think about the what ifs and near misses of our pasts.
At times I found the subject matter a little dry and heavy going, requiring a bit more thought and concentration than I originally intended. Several times I had to put it down and leave it for a while so that I could appreciate and digest what I’d just read as I felt it didn’t really ‘flow’ well. I also thought that at times it was a little too broad, trying to tackle too much without any great depth of content. The subject matter also isn’t really that memorable.
Ok for what it is, and provides a good soundboard for the reader to seek out further information.
Based on a podcast, this is an interesting jump into the world of history, but not quite as we known it. Dan Carlin examines some of the disasters of our history to determine their likelihood of ever happening again, as well as how they occurred in the first place. It’s grand scale history, sweeping us through the ages and inviting the reader to think about the what ifs and near misses of our pasts.
At times I found the subject matter a little dry and heavy going, requiring a bit more thought and concentration than I originally intended. Several times I had to put it down and leave it for a while so that I could appreciate and digest what I’d just read as I felt it didn’t really ‘flow’ well. I also thought that at times it was a little too broad, trying to tackle too much without any great depth of content. The subject matter also isn’t really that memorable.
Ok for what it is, and provides a good soundboard for the reader to seek out further information.
October 19, 2019
I have never listened to the podcast that this book is based on, but found it incredibly thought-provoking. At it's heart it's a philosophical take on history looking at how famine, plague, war and other calamities come about, what there effects were and then asking the question of could they happen again? Is our civilisation genuinely different from the Assyrians or Romans who didn't think that their empires could fall either?
In a weird way, I think this book is akin to Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind in its explicit approach of "historical-themes-as-a-philosophical-way-of-examining-society-today". Whilst Harari writes with a "certainty", creating one gigantic narrative sweep of history and a prediction for where we are headed, this book is more about raising questions for the reader to think through and finding nuance.
It has a similarly grand ambition to Sapiens (in this case to look at whether the apocalypse is coming), but rather than 1 narrative it does so through 6 or so discrete prisms (eg history of disease, history of war, history of childhood) that zoom in on a relevant example from history - Bronze Age collapse, Cuban Missile Crisis, Black Death plagues etc... I've come away from it with some new insights and a lot to process.
In a weird way, I think this book is akin to Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind in its explicit approach of "historical-themes-as-a-philosophical-way-of-examining-society-today". Whilst Harari writes with a "certainty", creating one gigantic narrative sweep of history and a prediction for where we are headed, this book is more about raising questions for the reader to think through and finding nuance.
It has a similarly grand ambition to Sapiens (in this case to look at whether the apocalypse is coming), but rather than 1 narrative it does so through 6 or so discrete prisms (eg history of disease, history of war, history of childhood) that zoom in on a relevant example from history - Bronze Age collapse, Cuban Missile Crisis, Black Death plagues etc... I've come away from it with some new insights and a lot to process.
February 12, 2022
Ukratko reći o čemu se u ovoj knjizi radi je dosta nezahvalan zadatak. Nije ovo još jedna obična priča o napretku čovječanstva kroz povijest. Ovdje će se propitkivati razni događaji, a odgovore na pitanja ćete si najčešće morati sami dati. Činjenice su tu, no kako ćete vi reagirati na pandemije, atomsku bombu , ratove i sl., potražite između ovih korica i razmislite o svemu kao pojedinac.
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February 6, 2020
This is a book about systems. Carlin tells stories from across history about civilizations, and how a set of choices can affect a civilization in unintended ways.
These stories aren’t all exactly connected to each other, except that they are all under the theme of civilizations as a system. This is kind of like a Malcolm Gladwell book, except Gladwell tells stories to try and prove a point. Carlin isn’t interested in proving a point, or explaining a definitive answer to a question. Carlin just likes the questions.
And he’s a great presenter of history - I learned a lot and it made me think about things in ways I hadn’t before, so I’m giving this five stars.
The best part of the book for me was the next to last (and longest) chapter on nuclear war, specifically the idea of preventative nuclear war. I didn’t realize there was a push between the end of WW2 and when other countries got the bomb for the US to just go ahead and attack Russia while we had the upper hand. Some of the people pushing for this were hawks, but many were avowed pacifists! The idea being that preventative annihilation of bad actors would have saved the largest number of lives.
Lots of interesting questions with no clear answers. The open-ended nature is what makes it interesting.
These stories aren’t all exactly connected to each other, except that they are all under the theme of civilizations as a system. This is kind of like a Malcolm Gladwell book, except Gladwell tells stories to try and prove a point. Carlin isn’t interested in proving a point, or explaining a definitive answer to a question. Carlin just likes the questions.
And he’s a great presenter of history - I learned a lot and it made me think about things in ways I hadn’t before, so I’m giving this five stars.
The best part of the book for me was the next to last (and longest) chapter on nuclear war, specifically the idea of preventative nuclear war. I didn’t realize there was a push between the end of WW2 and when other countries got the bomb for the US to just go ahead and attack Russia while we had the upper hand. Some of the people pushing for this were hawks, but many were avowed pacifists! The idea being that preventative annihilation of bad actors would have saved the largest number of lives.
Lots of interesting questions with no clear answers. The open-ended nature is what makes it interesting.
November 12, 2019
The principal question for the modern age is this: Has humanity made moral progress, or are we destined to repeat the same mistakes and suffer the same misfortunes? Dan Carlin, founder of the popular podcast Hardcore History, explores this question as he recounts the apocalyptic moments of our past while asking if the modern world is destined to face similar catastrophes, and if so, whether or not we have the resolve to handle them.
Carlin covers the Bronze Age collapse, the fall of the Assyrian and Roman empires, and the devastating physical and psychological effects of famine, plague, total war, and potential nuclear annihilation.
This is not exactly light or uplifting reading for the holiday season, but that’s the point. Carlin is suggesting that perhaps the state of perpetual peace and stability we are seemingly living in is making us soft and vulnerable to an unexpected calamity that we are no longer tough or resilient enough to endure. We may think that our comfortable lives will go on uninterrupted indefinitely, but then again, so did the Romans, along with the Assyrians, Babylonians, and ancient Egyptians and Greeks. As Carlin asks the reader:
“Can you imagine the city you currently live in as a desolate ruin? Will it one day be like most cities that have ever existed, or not? Either outcome seems fascinating.”
As Carlin narrates the calamities of the past, the reader is confronted with the question of whether or not our civilization is really immune from any of these apocalyptic scenarios. We may live with advanced technology, but our proclivity for tribalism, superstition, and war is always bubbling under the surface. Might we simply be waiting for the next incurable pandemic or total war or catastrophic nuclear or ecological disaster? As Carlin wrote:
“There have always been large wars between the great powers. Any next such war would involve nuclear-armed states. World War III sounds like a bad movie concept, but is it any more unlikely than eternal peace between the great states?”
The idea that humanity has already faced its greatest challenges on all fronts (disease, war, natural disasters, famine, and political upheaval) seems to be very unlikely. And it is precisely this complacent frame of mind that makes any civilization most susceptible to catastrophe. As Carlin wrote, when discussing the possibility of nuclear annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis:
“Samuel Johnson is supposed to have said, ‘When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.’ For that two-week period [the Cuban Missile Crisis], when all seemed near lost, humankind treated the threat with the level of gravity it deserved. In a perfect world, we would be able to do this continuously, but history has shown that the lesser aspects and banalities of life have a way of intruding.”
In other words, it could be the case that our underestimation of existential risks ironically makes them much more likely to occur.
On the other hand, and despite all of this, there is some cause for optimism. We certainly know more today about the containment of infectious disease, for example, and we also know that no two democracies have ever gone to war with each other. As long as our medical and political science stay one step ahead—and constant vigilance is maintained—we may in fact be able to avert the next deadly pandemic or total war.
More importantly, there is an argument to be made that we have also made some moral progress, having grown increasingly averse to war and violence. As Carlin pointed out, after the end of the Second World War, the United States was the only country in the world to possess nuclear weapons. Yet despite the urgings of several American military leaders to attack the Soviet Union, the US did not initiate a nuclear attack on its primary global competitor when it had the opportunity to do so.
As Carlin wrote:
“What would Julius Caesar, or Alexander the Great—or Hitler, for that matter—have done with a monopoly on nuclear weapons? Not use them? If you gave the great Carthaginian general Hannibal nuclear weapons in his life-or-death struggle with the Roman Republic, handed him the button, and said, ‘If you push this, all of Rome will be devastated,’ does he push it, or does he say, ‘Maybe I should think about this?’”
Whether or not you think the US was justified in dropping atomic bombs on Japan to end the war (perhaps saving more lives in the process), its decision to not use them on the Soviet Union when they had a nuclear monopoly can be considered progress of a kind.
To Carlin’s credit, he prefers to ask the questions rather than answer them. By his own admission, he is a fan and popularizer of history, not a historian. His strengths lie in his ability as a master storyteller and clever inquirer, which are on full display in this book. But it is the reader who is ultimately left to decide whether or not the future will resemble the past.
Carlin leaves the reader to contemplate several questions, the most critical of which may be whether we should de-modernize the world to prevent environmental disaster or whether the very societies that create the greatest ecological and military risk are the most likely to, for example, cure the next pandemic or divert an incoming asteroid. In the end, the question is whether or not we will use our technology for good or evil, or whether we are up against so many threats that, sooner or later, one or the other will lead to civilizational collapse. Since no one can foresee the future, these are not easy questions to answer.
In closing, I’ll point out that there is a more cynical interpretation of the book that would consider it to be a series of loosely connected essays regurgitated from the podcast. Since Carlin is not advancing any original thesis, it’s possible that a fan of the podcast would already be familiar with much of the content. Not being very familiar with the podcast myself, I can’t really say. But without that knowledge, I can easily recommend the book on its own merits as a fascinating narration of our more gruesome past and as an important philosophical exploration of humanity’s future.
Carlin covers the Bronze Age collapse, the fall of the Assyrian and Roman empires, and the devastating physical and psychological effects of famine, plague, total war, and potential nuclear annihilation.
This is not exactly light or uplifting reading for the holiday season, but that’s the point. Carlin is suggesting that perhaps the state of perpetual peace and stability we are seemingly living in is making us soft and vulnerable to an unexpected calamity that we are no longer tough or resilient enough to endure. We may think that our comfortable lives will go on uninterrupted indefinitely, but then again, so did the Romans, along with the Assyrians, Babylonians, and ancient Egyptians and Greeks. As Carlin asks the reader:
“Can you imagine the city you currently live in as a desolate ruin? Will it one day be like most cities that have ever existed, or not? Either outcome seems fascinating.”
As Carlin narrates the calamities of the past, the reader is confronted with the question of whether or not our civilization is really immune from any of these apocalyptic scenarios. We may live with advanced technology, but our proclivity for tribalism, superstition, and war is always bubbling under the surface. Might we simply be waiting for the next incurable pandemic or total war or catastrophic nuclear or ecological disaster? As Carlin wrote:
“There have always been large wars between the great powers. Any next such war would involve nuclear-armed states. World War III sounds like a bad movie concept, but is it any more unlikely than eternal peace between the great states?”
The idea that humanity has already faced its greatest challenges on all fronts (disease, war, natural disasters, famine, and political upheaval) seems to be very unlikely. And it is precisely this complacent frame of mind that makes any civilization most susceptible to catastrophe. As Carlin wrote, when discussing the possibility of nuclear annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis:
“Samuel Johnson is supposed to have said, ‘When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.’ For that two-week period [the Cuban Missile Crisis], when all seemed near lost, humankind treated the threat with the level of gravity it deserved. In a perfect world, we would be able to do this continuously, but history has shown that the lesser aspects and banalities of life have a way of intruding.”
In other words, it could be the case that our underestimation of existential risks ironically makes them much more likely to occur.
On the other hand, and despite all of this, there is some cause for optimism. We certainly know more today about the containment of infectious disease, for example, and we also know that no two democracies have ever gone to war with each other. As long as our medical and political science stay one step ahead—and constant vigilance is maintained—we may in fact be able to avert the next deadly pandemic or total war.
More importantly, there is an argument to be made that we have also made some moral progress, having grown increasingly averse to war and violence. As Carlin pointed out, after the end of the Second World War, the United States was the only country in the world to possess nuclear weapons. Yet despite the urgings of several American military leaders to attack the Soviet Union, the US did not initiate a nuclear attack on its primary global competitor when it had the opportunity to do so.
As Carlin wrote:
“What would Julius Caesar, or Alexander the Great—or Hitler, for that matter—have done with a monopoly on nuclear weapons? Not use them? If you gave the great Carthaginian general Hannibal nuclear weapons in his life-or-death struggle with the Roman Republic, handed him the button, and said, ‘If you push this, all of Rome will be devastated,’ does he push it, or does he say, ‘Maybe I should think about this?’”
Whether or not you think the US was justified in dropping atomic bombs on Japan to end the war (perhaps saving more lives in the process), its decision to not use them on the Soviet Union when they had a nuclear monopoly can be considered progress of a kind.
To Carlin’s credit, he prefers to ask the questions rather than answer them. By his own admission, he is a fan and popularizer of history, not a historian. His strengths lie in his ability as a master storyteller and clever inquirer, which are on full display in this book. But it is the reader who is ultimately left to decide whether or not the future will resemble the past.
Carlin leaves the reader to contemplate several questions, the most critical of which may be whether we should de-modernize the world to prevent environmental disaster or whether the very societies that create the greatest ecological and military risk are the most likely to, for example, cure the next pandemic or divert an incoming asteroid. In the end, the question is whether or not we will use our technology for good or evil, or whether we are up against so many threats that, sooner or later, one or the other will lead to civilizational collapse. Since no one can foresee the future, these are not easy questions to answer.
In closing, I’ll point out that there is a more cynical interpretation of the book that would consider it to be a series of loosely connected essays regurgitated from the podcast. Since Carlin is not advancing any original thesis, it’s possible that a fan of the podcast would already be familiar with much of the content. Not being very familiar with the podcast myself, I can’t really say. But without that knowledge, I can easily recommend the book on its own merits as a fascinating narration of our more gruesome past and as an important philosophical exploration of humanity’s future.
January 15, 2020
This book is totally pointless. It's merely a listing of the most famous apocalyptic moments in history. It offers no new revelations. The author argues no point, makes no conclusions. I'm not sure why he even wrote the thing. I bought the book as I was searching for some material on the Bronze Age Collapse and I did enjoy that section of the book but the rest of the book? I'm just pleased that it was short. Dreadful. Run away from this book.
November 24, 2019
I understand that some of the book's content has appeared in Dan's Hardcore History podcasts, but since I've only listened to a sparse few a lot of the book was relatively new material to me.
I thought the premise of the book was excellent: Things look quite good right now and it's hard to imagine civilization regressing substantially, but history is filled with examples of exactly that over and over again. Just how optimistic should we be today that we can avert the same fate?
I expect that Dan could write an excellent book laser focused on exploring this, but while the book does do a bit of it now and then, more often than not it also distracts itself and goes off on tangents of what feels like filler / irrelevant content. For example, we're discussing the Assyrian empire, the Roman empire and their fall, but then we also randomly learn a little too much of the treatment of children in history, or the details of various bombings during the second world war. What is the point of these?
I would have preferred if the book stuck more closely to its core theme, with multiple examples of powerful empires rising and falling unexpectedly, with an analysis of what made that happen, and whether that analysis applies to today. This is something we half get, which is still fun. Enjoyed overall!
I thought the premise of the book was excellent: Things look quite good right now and it's hard to imagine civilization regressing substantially, but history is filled with examples of exactly that over and over again. Just how optimistic should we be today that we can avert the same fate?
I expect that Dan could write an excellent book laser focused on exploring this, but while the book does do a bit of it now and then, more often than not it also distracts itself and goes off on tangents of what feels like filler / irrelevant content. For example, we're discussing the Assyrian empire, the Roman empire and their fall, but then we also randomly learn a little too much of the treatment of children in history, or the details of various bombings during the second world war. What is the point of these?
I would have preferred if the book stuck more closely to its core theme, with multiple examples of powerful empires rising and falling unexpectedly, with an analysis of what made that happen, and whether that analysis applies to today. This is something we half get, which is still fun. Enjoyed overall!
April 2, 2020
I had not listened to the podcast, but I love the premise of this book—in the span of human history, world-threatening wars and catastrophes are a constant reality. Carlin has a way of talking about these events that make them feel more real and relevant than most histories
December 17, 2019
This is parsing past history within setting generalization posits. I was super disappointed. Portions I skim read. I love history and got something very unlike what the title surmised to my meeting it or in anticipation.
It's not "super bad" quality for most readers. No. But for me or any true students who hold depth homo sapiens historic study within their backgrounds, this just won't fill the bill. It just won't at all. If it was beer it would be the "super light" variety.
It merely disseminates others' partials records/ theories (mostly too in footnotes which sometimes are a 1/3rd of the page) for various period surveys. And it tries to define "end" as used in the title too. Time and again it does. For me, that was just way too inexact from the get go. Too many kingdoms or empires "ended" in centuries of whimper failures- more than in big imploding or other "ends". That's how you end up not being able to understand or even "fix" your Roman roads.
And he never began to give present day food distribution depth (massive energy source use) the portion this factor deserves either. It would entail epic and fast starvation and chaos. Urban life especially "ending" to be another quotient of what it is now. And it would not take long. Months to a few years at most.
The chapter that cored on Smallpox was the best pointed. Plague being a ghastly runner up. And he relates too that smallpox came into Native American populations (what is called that strain of ethnicity NOW) BEFORE the European entry. And that it came from over the Asian bridge as did the people. Several times in fact. And that was why all the indigenous South American and SW USA continent was decimated and depopulated - probably twice-BEFORE Columbus. So where does that put Zinn and Columbus tirade blame amid most other "watch out for that deadly European" theme that has distorted most history in the last 20 to 30 years?
Well, if you are super interested in the Syrians, Hittites, Romans, and Germanic or Mongol invasions- it might be of interest in footnote source.
But the flowery or "lyrical" asides and prose forms for history? No, not a fan. There are entire sections that sound like "history for middle school" remedial class fare.
I thought this would be far more specific about odds of future civilization demise and going backwards trends (hey, you got to get "used" to the "new normal" of no job function). Instead I got a lot of Lord of the Apes references and Charlton Heston level fodder analogies.
I do not recommend this book. Not even for history skimmers.
It's not "super bad" quality for most readers. No. But for me or any true students who hold depth homo sapiens historic study within their backgrounds, this just won't fill the bill. It just won't at all. If it was beer it would be the "super light" variety.
It merely disseminates others' partials records/ theories (mostly too in footnotes which sometimes are a 1/3rd of the page) for various period surveys. And it tries to define "end" as used in the title too. Time and again it does. For me, that was just way too inexact from the get go. Too many kingdoms or empires "ended" in centuries of whimper failures- more than in big imploding or other "ends". That's how you end up not being able to understand or even "fix" your Roman roads.
And he never began to give present day food distribution depth (massive energy source use) the portion this factor deserves either. It would entail epic and fast starvation and chaos. Urban life especially "ending" to be another quotient of what it is now. And it would not take long. Months to a few years at most.
The chapter that cored on Smallpox was the best pointed. Plague being a ghastly runner up. And he relates too that smallpox came into Native American populations (what is called that strain of ethnicity NOW) BEFORE the European entry. And that it came from over the Asian bridge as did the people. Several times in fact. And that was why all the indigenous South American and SW USA continent was decimated and depopulated - probably twice-BEFORE Columbus. So where does that put Zinn and Columbus tirade blame amid most other "watch out for that deadly European" theme that has distorted most history in the last 20 to 30 years?
Well, if you are super interested in the Syrians, Hittites, Romans, and Germanic or Mongol invasions- it might be of interest in footnote source.
But the flowery or "lyrical" asides and prose forms for history? No, not a fan. There are entire sections that sound like "history for middle school" remedial class fare.
I thought this would be far more specific about odds of future civilization demise and going backwards trends (hey, you got to get "used" to the "new normal" of no job function). Instead I got a lot of Lord of the Apes references and Charlton Heston level fodder analogies.
I do not recommend this book. Not even for history skimmers.
November 3, 2019
I mean, sure, Dan Carlin is an absolute treasure, but I'm unclear on why this book exists. It's all retreads from his podcast, but with less depth (stories he would have spent 3-4 hours delightfully rambling on about condensed to about a quarter of that), and with no real positive tradeoff for that. I was thinking it'd either be a more rigorous work of history— better sourced, maybe, or less grandiose— or more tightly plotted— weaving more narratives together, linking themes more clearly, introducing characters and events with a bit more precision— but all in all it's just less.
It's probably a good introduction for someone who's never heard the podcast. But an ever better introduction would just be to download some episodes and jump in.
It's probably a good introduction for someone who's never heard the podcast. But an ever better introduction would just be to download some episodes and jump in.
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August 23, 2019I don't really do podcasts; as a rule, I'd rather read something at my own speed than listen to it. So when a noted podcaster, here of Hardcore History, has the courtesy to transfer to my preferred format, it seems only fair that I should take a look at the result. Alas, it does not get off to a good start; the preface is only ten pages long but I still lost count of the number of times he says that considering the idea our civilisation could collapse, as so many have in the past, seems like something out of science fiction! Or fantasy! I mean...does it? It was common currency as a notion long before either of those genres was defined. And even if it does, why do you have to keep repeating it quite so often? All of which slightly hyper tone left me concerned that this was going to be the 'Listen up bitches, it’s time to learn incorrect things about someone you’ve never heard of' school of history, extended to book length – a thing this poor battered world really doesn't need. And...well, in its defence, at least it isn't that. But in the first two chapters, we barely got past repeated illustrations that things were different in the past, and people reacted to them differently. Who knew, eh? Now, there is a place for that. I mean, I still giggle occasionally at the memory of that Tumblr post asking if Rasputin had done something problematic. A mate told me he'd seen something about Leopold II of Belgium being cancelled, which I would once have said seemed as superfluous as unfollowing Hitler, if we hadn't somehow ended up in an era where following Hitler got cool again. For someone who's literally never read a history book, this might conceivably be useful. But I do mean that 'literally', because I'm pretty sure even once I was a handful of Ladybirds in I'd have been giving the level of insight here some side-eye.
As for the writing...dear heavens. Maybe this stuff sounds better spoken? Maybe he's one of those people with a voice which can make the 'phone directory sound good? Because on the page, the syntax is screaming. Consider:
"Today, a first-class power might suffer casualties from a single incident that number in the dozens – perhaps from the mechanical failure of a helicopter, or maybe a blast from an improvised explosive device (IED). Compare this with the hundreds of thousands of casualties the United States experienced in the Second World War – at Iwo Jima, for example, the thirty-six day conflict left nearly seven thousand Americans dead, of at least twenty-six thousand total casualties. And that's just American numbers; imagine the millions of casualties suffered by the Germans, or the tens of millions suffered by the Chinese and Soviets. It's interesting speculate how we today would react to such mortality."
So we've moved from a single incident, to a given battle, to the entire conflict, then given it all a bit of a stir, just to make sure we're definitely not comparing like to like, and any results are thus guaranteed to be utterly meaningless. Or how about this:
"For mothers who couldn't produce milk or had died in childbirth, the wet nurse filled a real need"
There's a valid, if obvious, point in there. But the phrasing is such as to imply undead mothers hanging around the Columna Lactaria, looking to hire. Then you get this one:
"The Spartans of 380 BCE might not have beaten their very formidable grandfathers of 480 BCE, but the Spartans of 280 BCE would definitely not have beaten their grandfathers."
Now, I'm past peak fighting age, and a century ago my grandfather was a child. And generations in modern Britain run longer than they did in ancient Greece. So you've got a history book done by someone who can't even manage a back-of-the-beermat generations-per-century figure without royally fucking it up. But I think my favourite might be the footnote "*DeMause thinks child-rearing practices may indeed be capable of affecting a nation's foreign policy." This is attached to the asterisk in a paragraph explaining who DeMause is and what he thinks about the effect of child-rearing practices on a nation's foreign policy, and thus seems fundamentally not to get what footnotes do. Yes, this is a proof copy from Netgalley, and possibly some of this will be ironed out in the final version. But seriously, this would be the sort of proof where you end up leaving so much red ink on it you can't even understand your own annotations, and it's basically better to just start again, even if you do risk losing searing insights like "In our defense, we could probably say that we did the best we could knowing what we know now – but that's also what our ancestors would have said."
But then the third chapter, just when I was about to bail on the whole sorry enterprise, is really quite good on the Bronze Age collapse, and maybe it's having a specific starting point, rather than vague catch-alls like toughness or child-rearing, that Carlin needs. He makes sound, not painfully obvious points on stuff like iron not being the total upgrade on bronze as which it's sometimes portrayed, just better in enough specific requests. That's followed by more sound chapters, on the fall of Nineveh, and the cycle whereby barbarians settle down and stop being seen as barbarians by themselves or others, just in time to get menaced by the next lot of barbarians. Yes, it's still not perfect: he uses 'administrate' when 'administer' would do perfectly well, 'Roman citizens' is applied in a modern sense of 'people living under Roman rule' rather than the far more limited and precise one of the time, and dear heavens he can't stop comparing anything slightly out of the everyday experience of a modern American to science fiction (which is ironic, given the ridiculous simpleton potentate, and the regular massacres treated as unavoidable hazards of modern life, look a lot that way to the rest of us). The chapter on 20th century nuclear jeopardy, the book's longest, is nailbiting even when one knows how it went down (spoiler: we're still here, for now). Yes, it has footnotes saying things which have already been explained elsewhere in the text, and yes, in saying the Cuban missile crisis was likely the closest the world came to nuclear war, Carlin inexplicably doesn't even nod towards Able Archer, a brush with Armageddon which was all the closer for not taking place in the world's gaze. And as for the aside that Americans haven't elected a bald man president since Eisenhower...well. So yes, there would still be plenty of times to get the red pen out. But this stuff is leaps and bounds ahead of those opening chapters, so why are they even here? Were they a warm-up exercise that didn't get taken out? Could they not at least have been shifted later in the book? Because Carlin says that the chapters are more or less discrete, and at least that way they wouldn't have tempted readers to bail on the book early, as I very nearly did. Which, while the rest of it is by no means perfect, would be a shame.
As for the writing...dear heavens. Maybe this stuff sounds better spoken? Maybe he's one of those people with a voice which can make the 'phone directory sound good? Because on the page, the syntax is screaming. Consider:
"Today, a first-class power might suffer casualties from a single incident that number in the dozens – perhaps from the mechanical failure of a helicopter, or maybe a blast from an improvised explosive device (IED). Compare this with the hundreds of thousands of casualties the United States experienced in the Second World War – at Iwo Jima, for example, the thirty-six day conflict left nearly seven thousand Americans dead, of at least twenty-six thousand total casualties. And that's just American numbers; imagine the millions of casualties suffered by the Germans, or the tens of millions suffered by the Chinese and Soviets. It's interesting speculate how we today would react to such mortality."
So we've moved from a single incident, to a given battle, to the entire conflict, then given it all a bit of a stir, just to make sure we're definitely not comparing like to like, and any results are thus guaranteed to be utterly meaningless. Or how about this:
"For mothers who couldn't produce milk or had died in childbirth, the wet nurse filled a real need"
There's a valid, if obvious, point in there. But the phrasing is such as to imply undead mothers hanging around the Columna Lactaria, looking to hire. Then you get this one:
"The Spartans of 380 BCE might not have beaten their very formidable grandfathers of 480 BCE, but the Spartans of 280 BCE would definitely not have beaten their grandfathers."
Now, I'm past peak fighting age, and a century ago my grandfather was a child. And generations in modern Britain run longer than they did in ancient Greece. So you've got a history book done by someone who can't even manage a back-of-the-beermat generations-per-century figure without royally fucking it up. But I think my favourite might be the footnote "*DeMause thinks child-rearing practices may indeed be capable of affecting a nation's foreign policy." This is attached to the asterisk in a paragraph explaining who DeMause is and what he thinks about the effect of child-rearing practices on a nation's foreign policy, and thus seems fundamentally not to get what footnotes do. Yes, this is a proof copy from Netgalley, and possibly some of this will be ironed out in the final version. But seriously, this would be the sort of proof where you end up leaving so much red ink on it you can't even understand your own annotations, and it's basically better to just start again, even if you do risk losing searing insights like "In our defense, we could probably say that we did the best we could knowing what we know now – but that's also what our ancestors would have said."
But then the third chapter, just when I was about to bail on the whole sorry enterprise, is really quite good on the Bronze Age collapse, and maybe it's having a specific starting point, rather than vague catch-alls like toughness or child-rearing, that Carlin needs. He makes sound, not painfully obvious points on stuff like iron not being the total upgrade on bronze as which it's sometimes portrayed, just better in enough specific requests. That's followed by more sound chapters, on the fall of Nineveh, and the cycle whereby barbarians settle down and stop being seen as barbarians by themselves or others, just in time to get menaced by the next lot of barbarians. Yes, it's still not perfect: he uses 'administrate' when 'administer' would do perfectly well, 'Roman citizens' is applied in a modern sense of 'people living under Roman rule' rather than the far more limited and precise one of the time, and dear heavens he can't stop comparing anything slightly out of the everyday experience of a modern American to science fiction (which is ironic, given the ridiculous simpleton potentate, and the regular massacres treated as unavoidable hazards of modern life, look a lot that way to the rest of us). The chapter on 20th century nuclear jeopardy, the book's longest, is nailbiting even when one knows how it went down (spoiler: we're still here, for now). Yes, it has footnotes saying things which have already been explained elsewhere in the text, and yes, in saying the Cuban missile crisis was likely the closest the world came to nuclear war, Carlin inexplicably doesn't even nod towards Able Archer, a brush with Armageddon which was all the closer for not taking place in the world's gaze. And as for the aside that Americans haven't elected a bald man president since Eisenhower...well. So yes, there would still be plenty of times to get the red pen out. But this stuff is leaps and bounds ahead of those opening chapters, so why are they even here? Were they a warm-up exercise that didn't get taken out? Could they not at least have been shifted later in the book? Because Carlin says that the chapters are more or less discrete, and at least that way they wouldn't have tempted readers to bail on the book early, as I very nearly did. Which, while the rest of it is by no means perfect, would be a shame.
April 9, 2021
If you’re a long time listener of Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast, as you read The End Is Always Near, you’re likely to hear his voice in your head hitting every emphasis, cadence, and downbeat. Which is to say, the book is pretty much like reading his podcast. Which is good--quite good. But it also means you’ve probably already heard most of everything that you’ll read. Not that his podcast is a substitution for this book, or book a substitute for podcast, though they share a family resemblance. This is a book review, not a podcast review, so let’s get on with it already.
Boy, oh boy, he nailed the timing of this one. The End Is Always Near was published in October of 2019. Imagine putting out a book about a series of significant historical “end times”--including the plague--a mere couple of months before our current day apocalyptic scenario. At one point, he even asks us to picture what would happen if a deadly epidemic of a highly contagious disease happened in today’s world of interconnectivity and travel--gee, I’ll try!
Dan Carlin has a great way of taking big, complicated, multifaceted histories and tying them together with metaphors and socratic questions relevant to a modern reader. He doesn’t just make history accessible, but inhabitable. So, even if history books aren’t usually your thing, you’ll be able to pick this up and step right into the end of the Bronze Age, the aftermath of the fall of Rome, or the highest tensions of the Cold War.
I do have a few criticisms. The histories he’s chosen are incredibly Western-centric. I would have liked to see more inclusion of Eastern and Global South histories. They’ve certainly faced their fair share of apocalypses! In the chapters on nuclear war tensions between the US and USSR, half the story was severely lacking. (Hint: the half that wasn’t the US.) If Dan Carlin puts out another book, I’ll definitely check it out, but I’ll hope he’s more extensive in his historical selections.
Boy, oh boy, he nailed the timing of this one. The End Is Always Near was published in October of 2019. Imagine putting out a book about a series of significant historical “end times”--including the plague--a mere couple of months before our current day apocalyptic scenario. At one point, he even asks us to picture what would happen if a deadly epidemic of a highly contagious disease happened in today’s world of interconnectivity and travel--gee, I’ll try!
Dan Carlin has a great way of taking big, complicated, multifaceted histories and tying them together with metaphors and socratic questions relevant to a modern reader. He doesn’t just make history accessible, but inhabitable. So, even if history books aren’t usually your thing, you’ll be able to pick this up and step right into the end of the Bronze Age, the aftermath of the fall of Rome, or the highest tensions of the Cold War.
I do have a few criticisms. The histories he’s chosen are incredibly Western-centric. I would have liked to see more inclusion of Eastern and Global South histories. They’ve certainly faced their fair share of apocalypses! In the chapters on nuclear war tensions between the US and USSR, half the story was severely lacking. (Hint: the half that wasn’t the US.) If Dan Carlin puts out another book, I’ll definitely check it out, but I’ll hope he’s more extensive in his historical selections.
December 14, 2019
The themes of this book will be familiar to listeners of the Hardcore History podcast, as Dan Carlin has touched on them before, particularly in the early episodes (before the podcast became super long). Here, those themes are fleshed out in more detail. The book maintains the same engaging style that made me fall in love with the podcast.
March 2, 2023
Eminently readable book about some of the worst stuff humanity has to offer. Dan Carlin is a conversational writer, and these essays practically read themselves.
January 5, 2020
The writing/content = 4-stars. Loses a star because of the unnecessary footnotes, which were for the most part just digressions that could've easily been worked into the narrative. These footnotes covered up to half of some pages, and most pages had notes. These were a big drag on my reading momentum.
February 9, 2021
Listened on audiobook. It felt like an extended episode of Hardcore History cobbled together from scraps that didn’t merit their own episodes. The book wasn’t terrible, but it felt like Carlin just rambling his thoughts about a few historical periods.
January 9, 2020
If you haven't listened to Dan Carlin's "Hardcore History" podcast, do yourself a favor and download it now.
I first heard of Dan Carlin thanks to an interview the author Sam Harris gave to The Guardian back in 2015. Harris mentioned Carlin's podcast and before long I'd downloaded all 50+ episodes and was instantly hooked. The only problem is that Carlin, who releases long-form podcasts that often exceed four hours, only produces one to two podcasts a year, so the wait time is real.
I particularly recommend Carlin's podcast on the First World War called Blueprint for Armageddon as well as his series on the rise of Genghis Khan's mongols called Wrath of the Khans.
The reason I mention the podcast here is that Carlin has essentially gone and written a book, his first, that is more or less a "Greatest Hits" of his podcast series. That doesn't mean the book isn't good, it is, but when you're used to a series that takes on a specific subject in six 4+ hour episodes, a 288-page book that jumps through various historical events isn't going to feel like much more than an overview.
So there it is. If you want a great introduction to Dan Carlin, this is it. I predict you'll like it and end up wanting more ... or you could just jump right into the podcast.
While Carlin claims endlessly that he's "not a historian", he certainly does make history fun!
I first heard of Dan Carlin thanks to an interview the author Sam Harris gave to The Guardian back in 2015. Harris mentioned Carlin's podcast and before long I'd downloaded all 50+ episodes and was instantly hooked. The only problem is that Carlin, who releases long-form podcasts that often exceed four hours, only produces one to two podcasts a year, so the wait time is real.
I particularly recommend Carlin's podcast on the First World War called Blueprint for Armageddon as well as his series on the rise of Genghis Khan's mongols called Wrath of the Khans.
The reason I mention the podcast here is that Carlin has essentially gone and written a book, his first, that is more or less a "Greatest Hits" of his podcast series. That doesn't mean the book isn't good, it is, but when you're used to a series that takes on a specific subject in six 4+ hour episodes, a 288-page book that jumps through various historical events isn't going to feel like much more than an overview.
So there it is. If you want a great introduction to Dan Carlin, this is it. I predict you'll like it and end up wanting more ... or you could just jump right into the podcast.
While Carlin claims endlessly that he's "not a historian", he certainly does make history fun!
September 1, 2020
Carlin’s a renaissance man trapped in the specialist 21st century.
A guy who could do a podcast of the phone book and make it interesting.
Never doctrinaire, Carlin is great at unspooling the moral vagaries of history. Many who lambast those in the past for not meeting the moral standards of today would be well served by a repast of Carlin delving into the mindsets of those who came before and their understandable justifications for their questionable actions.
A lot of history and moral qualms I was familiar with. Most interestingly, were the chapters on child rearing and how old school methods hurt or helped the moral milieu of times gone by.
A guy who could do a podcast of the phone book and make it interesting.
Never doctrinaire, Carlin is great at unspooling the moral vagaries of history. Many who lambast those in the past for not meeting the moral standards of today would be well served by a repast of Carlin delving into the mindsets of those who came before and their understandable justifications for their questionable actions.
A lot of history and moral qualms I was familiar with. Most interestingly, were the chapters on child rearing and how old school methods hurt or helped the moral milieu of times gone by.
August 21, 2020
Dan Carlin was as excellent as ever with this book. It was thought-provoking, and interesting throughout. I would highly recommend it to history nerds and people interested in extreme situations that people throughout history have dealt with.
August 10, 2021
Interesting book that goes through some of the apocalyptic moments from the past and how it affected humanity to the point we are at now.
I found it very engrossing and learned more details of some historical events that I wasn't aware of.
I found it very engrossing and learned more details of some historical events that I wasn't aware of.
January 10, 2021
The parts about a pandemic being unthinkable to contemporary readers is charmingly, tragically dated now, but otherwise an enjoyable work. Recommend the audiobook for fans of his podcast.
August 5, 2023
so i think i should preface this with: i really like hardcore history. yes, dan carlin isn’t a historian and his podcast is Very Much Popular History, but dan carlin is a great storyteller and very very engaging. so i was pretty excited to pick this up for another deep dive into history … and then, wait, i’ve heard this before.
so yeah, if you’ve listened to all of the podcast episodes that this book is based on, this isn’t really worth it, because the podcasts are more in depth and more engaging (yes, i listened to this on audiobook).
so yeah, if you’ve listened to all of the podcast episodes that this book is based on, this isn’t really worth it, because the podcasts are more in depth and more engaging (yes, i listened to this on audiobook).
September 18, 2021
Do great podcasters necessarily make good authors?
I, like many who will read or have read this book will know Dan Carlin from the fabulous ‘Hardcore History’ and ‘Common Sense’ podcasts. Turning some of Dan’s musings about the moral dilemmas associated with our ability to annihilate large numbers of our fellow human beings into a book probably seemed like a good idea. It still could be if Dan had been a bit more focussed on the topic at hand.
As it says on the cover, the theme of the book is ‘Apocalyptic moments’ through the ages, well-illustrated by the ‘Planet of the Apes’ scenario where Charlton Heston comes across the ruined Statue of Liberty rising out of sand in some distant future and the likely ‘Four Horsemen’ that might bring about such an event. The ‘Planet of the Apes’ meme is a great stepping-off point for exploring this theme so while hardly original, I thought that Carlin’s take on this would be a worthwhile read.
It is and it isn’t. Carlin does a pretty good job of exploring our potential to destroy the planet using nuclear weapons and the moral dilemmas around their use, but spends no time looking at what is becoming the most likely scenario of destroying the Earth by human-induced climate change, or the potential for climate change to initiate global conflict.
The review of threats to modern human survival takes up 50% of the books total page count, which, as it not a very long book, seems to require the author to include some padding in order for the book to go beyond long essay length. The opening chapter ‘Do Tough Times Make for Tougher People?’ (yes Duh!) and that children in past societies were raised more brutally than our current crop of mollycoddled Baby Boomers or Generation whatever (again yes duh). These are favoured themes for Carlin’s podcasts but they do not contribute to the central theme of the book described on the books subtitle. Buyer beware, this book is more a collection of essays on some of Carlin’s favourite topics rather than a cohesive exploration of the theme of ‘Apocalypse’.
I also found Carlin’s writing style a bit laborious. The joys of listening to his podcast is his ability to explore tangents and still remain organised enough to return to his central arguments. In ‘The End is Always Near’ Carlin uses footnotes to explore tangents or provide additional context. It’s probably my shortcoming as a reader but as soon as I see a footnote my eyes drift to the bottom of the page, interrupting my reading ‘flow’. A large number of the footnotes could have been included in the main body of the text (although to be honest there are too many asides in parenthesis as well – see I’m even doing it myself) or eliminated altogether. For example, page 212 Alfred Nobel* (*The man the modern peace prize is named after) or p 222 ‘Back in Germany, the commanders thought their bombing effort might end the (First World) war’* (*Of course, they turned out to be wrong). The information in the footnotes may be a revelation for some readers but are they really necessary?
A bit of tighter editing might also have helped. Robert Oppenheimer’s famous quote ‘Now, I am become death, the destroyer of worlds’ appears twice within 7 pages (p 154, p160). Repetition, while good in a podcast jars a bit in a book.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book is Chapter 6, ‘A Pandemic Prologue’. When the book was published in 2019, COVID-19 was a nasty bug sloshing around a Wuhan wet-market, waiting to step onto the world stage. Carlin’s review of past epidemics such as the Black Death or Spanish Flu are interesting and enlightening as to how much things have changed in a century. Earlier pandemics were terrible in their mortality (its estimated that 1-2% of the world’s population died from Spanish flu) but the limits of our knowledge then meant that the flu had to die out and could not be vaccinated against. The global response to COVID-19 and the development of a vaccine within 12 months suggests that one of the ‘Four Horsemen’ may not be as devastating as previously thought.
So in the end, not a bad book but it should be read and promoted as a series of essays rather than a book with a cohesive ‘Apocalyptic’ theme. If you have stuck with this review this far, indulge me while I put in a plug for my other favourite history podcast presenter Patrick Wyman from ‘Tides of History’ who has released his own book “The Verge Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World’ about how economic and social changes at the beginning of the 16th century transformed the western world. Hardly as ‘sexy’ as the Apocalypse but it will be interesting to compare the two books.
I, like many who will read or have read this book will know Dan Carlin from the fabulous ‘Hardcore History’ and ‘Common Sense’ podcasts. Turning some of Dan’s musings about the moral dilemmas associated with our ability to annihilate large numbers of our fellow human beings into a book probably seemed like a good idea. It still could be if Dan had been a bit more focussed on the topic at hand.
As it says on the cover, the theme of the book is ‘Apocalyptic moments’ through the ages, well-illustrated by the ‘Planet of the Apes’ scenario where Charlton Heston comes across the ruined Statue of Liberty rising out of sand in some distant future and the likely ‘Four Horsemen’ that might bring about such an event. The ‘Planet of the Apes’ meme is a great stepping-off point for exploring this theme so while hardly original, I thought that Carlin’s take on this would be a worthwhile read.
It is and it isn’t. Carlin does a pretty good job of exploring our potential to destroy the planet using nuclear weapons and the moral dilemmas around their use, but spends no time looking at what is becoming the most likely scenario of destroying the Earth by human-induced climate change, or the potential for climate change to initiate global conflict.
The review of threats to modern human survival takes up 50% of the books total page count, which, as it not a very long book, seems to require the author to include some padding in order for the book to go beyond long essay length. The opening chapter ‘Do Tough Times Make for Tougher People?’ (yes Duh!) and that children in past societies were raised more brutally than our current crop of mollycoddled Baby Boomers or Generation whatever (again yes duh). These are favoured themes for Carlin’s podcasts but they do not contribute to the central theme of the book described on the books subtitle. Buyer beware, this book is more a collection of essays on some of Carlin’s favourite topics rather than a cohesive exploration of the theme of ‘Apocalypse’.
I also found Carlin’s writing style a bit laborious. The joys of listening to his podcast is his ability to explore tangents and still remain organised enough to return to his central arguments. In ‘The End is Always Near’ Carlin uses footnotes to explore tangents or provide additional context. It’s probably my shortcoming as a reader but as soon as I see a footnote my eyes drift to the bottom of the page, interrupting my reading ‘flow’. A large number of the footnotes could have been included in the main body of the text (although to be honest there are too many asides in parenthesis as well – see I’m even doing it myself) or eliminated altogether. For example, page 212 Alfred Nobel* (*The man the modern peace prize is named after) or p 222 ‘Back in Germany, the commanders thought their bombing effort might end the (First World) war’* (*Of course, they turned out to be wrong). The information in the footnotes may be a revelation for some readers but are they really necessary?
A bit of tighter editing might also have helped. Robert Oppenheimer’s famous quote ‘Now, I am become death, the destroyer of worlds’ appears twice within 7 pages (p 154, p160). Repetition, while good in a podcast jars a bit in a book.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book is Chapter 6, ‘A Pandemic Prologue’. When the book was published in 2019, COVID-19 was a nasty bug sloshing around a Wuhan wet-market, waiting to step onto the world stage. Carlin’s review of past epidemics such as the Black Death or Spanish Flu are interesting and enlightening as to how much things have changed in a century. Earlier pandemics were terrible in their mortality (its estimated that 1-2% of the world’s population died from Spanish flu) but the limits of our knowledge then meant that the flu had to die out and could not be vaccinated against. The global response to COVID-19 and the development of a vaccine within 12 months suggests that one of the ‘Four Horsemen’ may not be as devastating as previously thought.
So in the end, not a bad book but it should be read and promoted as a series of essays rather than a book with a cohesive ‘Apocalyptic’ theme. If you have stuck with this review this far, indulge me while I put in a plug for my other favourite history podcast presenter Patrick Wyman from ‘Tides of History’ who has released his own book “The Verge Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World’ about how economic and social changes at the beginning of the 16th century transformed the western world. Hardly as ‘sexy’ as the Apocalypse but it will be interesting to compare the two books.
September 11, 2022
Fantastisch boek. Anekdotisch en humoristisch, maar tegelijk verrassende patronen in de mondiale geschiedenis blootgelegd. Geschreven voor de coronapandemie, maar o zo pertinente gelijkenissen hoe die crisis nu werd aangepakt...
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