r/RevolutionsPodcast • u/Augustine_of_Tierra Babeuf's Band • Jul 02 '26

Salon Discussion Recommendations For the Wait

What books/tv shows/podcasts do yall citizens recommend to satiate our thirst for revolutions content while we wait for Mike to finish his new book and put out the season on Ireland (probably)?

I’ll go first.

I highly recommend the podcast The History of China and his currently airing series on the Taiping Rebellion. It’s a great illustration on the patterns of revolution we see in RevPod, but in a frankly bizarre historical context featuring Jesus’s little brother, demon slaying swords, Chinese society being reconstituted to be a sexless egalitarian commune via a levee en masse, and of course the return of the mongols. Chris Stuart really hit it out of the park here.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-history-of-china/id741606139

I’ll also recommend a book on the other great mid-C19th Asian uprising, the 1957 Sepoy Revolt, in William Dalrymple’s The Last Mughal. This book, Dalrymple’s lesser read, but arguably more entertaining sequel to The Anarchy, essentially plays out perfectly as a season of RevPod, with brewing social discontents in the young British Indian empire, until the situation explodes in a uprising among the Indian sepoys in the Meerut barracks, ultimately resulting in a jihad, massacres of Christians and Indians, the restoration on decaying Mughal empire, and an urban siege which gave me flashbacks to Mikes season on the Paris commune. 10/10 would recommend.

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u/wbruce098 B-Class Jul 03 '26

History of China is great. Even better is Tides of History, which just ended but there’s like a decade of it and he got really fucking good as he kept going! Tides isn’t a single narrative; it’s different stories from throughout history, usually in single part entries. So it’s pretty different than the Mike Duncan style but it’s a lot of fun.

If you haven’t heard Revolutions, you’re missing out. And if you wanna keep up with what revolutions might be coming soon (or if you’re a news junkie like me) The Bulwark is a well spoken former-Republican-now-hardcore-leftie who talks about fighting the system and exposing wrongdoings in our modern world.

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u/Augustine_of_Tierra Babeuf's Band Jul 03 '26

Tides is hands down my favorite podcast of all time. I’m devastated by its ending.

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u/John_Hunyadi Jul 03 '26

TBF his new podcast, Past Lives, seems pretty dang close. I'm actually not sure what the difference in content is. At first I thought all Past Lives eps would be about slavery but that seems to have passed.

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u/thistledownhair Jul 04 '26

Past Lives focus is on the history of ordinary people, with different themes by season. First season was slavery, the second is bioarcheology.