Dan Carlin

There’s so much ugliness in the world that it makes me happy whenever I have a chance to talk in glowing terms about anyone.  Today is one of those days. Today, I’d like to tell you about someone who not only is one of the best podcasters in the world, but also one of my favorite humans. It has been just about ten years since I met Dan Carlin.

            Back then, a bunch of people following my work messaged me urging me to listen to Hardcore History. After enough emails, I gave in and checked out one episode. Since I’m a little slow, I didn’t immediately understand the appeal. I thought Dan was clearly skilled, but I didn’t understand why people spoke about him like he walked on water. Either way, I liked what I heard, so I listened to a second episode (it was part of his series Death Throes of the Republic.) By the end of that second one, I found myself at the edge of my seat, anxious to find out what happened next in the tale. It took me a minute to remember I knew all too well what happened next. Growing up in Italy, I had been exposed to Roman history all my life, spent five years translating from Latin the works of the key characters in the narrative (Cicero, Caesar, etc.), and continued studying the topic even in college. And yet, somehow Dan had managed to create in me a sense of suspense and excitement about events that I had researched countless times. That’s when I realized Dan was a master storyteller of the highest quality. If he read the phone book from cover to cover, I’d listen. From that moment forward, I binged on any Hardcore History he ever recorded, went through his Common Sense archives and even hunted down most podcasts where he appeared as a guest. In case you are unfamiliar with Dan’s work, and you don’t want to take at face value my assessment of his skills, try this experiment. There are plenty of works you could listen to if you want to test my claim, but most of Dan’s episodes are multi-hour epics. So, in the interest of time, you could check out a fairly short one in which Dan’s storytelling skills are on display: Nightmares of Indianapolis

It’s a tired trope to say that you should never meet people you admire, since they’ll never live up to the idealized image of them you built in your head. In the case of Dan Carlin, the trope is painfully wrong. Since the first time I reached out to him, it became immediately clear to me that, if at all possible, his incredible skills as a podcaster pale in comparison to his qualities as a human being. In my way of looking at the world, genuine kindness stands above most any other quality. And I can’t recall a single time when Dan displayed anything but kindness toward me.

In 2015, after I had known Dan for a couple of years, I was about to start History on Fire, and truth be told I was a little apprehensive. By hosting a long-form history podcast, I felt like maybe I was stepping on Dan’s toes, or that at the very least it could be perceived that way. The last thing I wanted was to make him feel that I was trying to invade his turf, so I remember calling him to ask for his blessing. Had I detected even a hint of displeasure on his part, I would have shelved the project. But rather than treating me like competition, Dan was incredibly supportive, even to the point of going out of his way to help me out however he could.

Besides his personal qualities and his story-telling skills, Dan possesses a trait that is unfortunately rare. In a sane world, the ability to consider any issue from multiple points of view, and taking seriously all the arguments against the very thesis you support should be nothing to write home about. Similarly, a tendency toward nuance in our thinking should not be anything special. It should be the bare minimum we expect from anyone who is not a slave to ideological dogmas. And yet… we live in a world where the overwhelming majority of people, including so-called public intellectuals, seem to unfailingly spout pre-digested talking points aimed at furthering whatever ideology they happen to like. Either dogmatic true believers or grifters who milk their audience's anger to make money. Give me any topic and I can predict exactly what they'll say about it. Is it because I'm psychic? Not quite. It's because they unwavering follow the playbook of their ideology of choice. Dan, on the other hand, is a breath of fresh air. I'm never sure what his take will be on any given topic. And that's because he actually considers evidence and weighs the pros and cons before coming to a conclusion (shocking! I know...) And his conclusions usually are the antithesis of the over-simplistic slogans so popular in public discourse. This kind of intellectual honesty shouldn't be the exception to the rule, but it is.

Consider Dan’s own words: "If I can add some nuance and complexity and some context and compassion. If I can get people to think about walking a mile in the other guy's moccasins, or pretend like you want to, I can feel like I'm adding something that is unusual. And it's a little bit shocking and upsetting to me that it is unusual. When people say it's so refreshing, you wonder why it's refreshing to try to see the other person's viewpoint? Shouldn't that just be how we are?"

Yes, Dan, it should. But it’s not, so your contributions are deeply appreciated.

            As a token of gratitude to you, dear reader, who has followed me this far, in the rest of this article, I will post the links to all the episodes I have recorded with Dan over the years. And our first entry is…

Aug 2013

This is the first podcast I ever recorded with Dan. It was via Skype, before we ever met in person. Until that point, we had only exchanged a few emails, and then he had graciously accepted to appear as a guest on The Drunken Taoist podcast. Just FYI, the conversation with Dan begins shortly after the 13-minute mark. Episode 23 Drunken Taoist

Nov 2013

I remember I was at home playing with my daughter (who was about four years old at the time) when I received a text from Joe Rogan asking me if I wanted to podcast with him and Dan Carlin. It must have been a last-minute idea, since the podcast was starting within three hours. I was thrilled at the prospect of meeting Dan in person, so I didn’t have to be told twice. I found someone to watch my daughter, and rushed out to challenge LA traffic. When Dan walked into the studio, it was clear that he had not been warned I’d be joining their conversation. I felt a little bad about barging in unexpected on what was supposed to be his episode with Joe. Given the circumstances, it’d have been legitimate for him to be less than warm, but he immediately scored points in my eyes by being extremely gracious about it. Either way, I didn’t want to abuse his hospitality and take too much time, so I decided I’d take a secondary role in the conversation, letting Joe and Dan do the bulk of the talking. As it was customary on the JRE back in those days, shortly before the beginning of the recording, Joe lit up a joint and offered to share. I took a couple of hits with him. Dan, on the other hand, being a sober gentleman, passed. Once upon a time, there was a video of this conversation on YouTube, but since Rogan passed to Spotify I can no longer find it. Maybe your googling skills are better than mine and you can find it. I was able to dig up the audio: Episode 413 JRE

The following is a series of conversations Dan and I recorded. In the first and third links (April 2017 and April 2020), Dan appears as a guest on History on Fire. The second (the one from Feb 2019) was released both as a History on Fire episode and as a Hardcore History Addendum episode. The latest one (May 2023) was released only for Hardcore History Addendum. Ever since bringing History on Fire back out from paywalls, I had mentioned to Dan about the possibility of recording something together. Not only it’s always a pleasure to chat with him, but I figured it’d help me a lot by letting his audience know History on Fire was on all free platforms again. When I asked, I didn’t know that Dan had a policy of not having the same guest twice on his show. Upon finding out, I felt like maybe I had placed him in an uncomfortable position. But being the usual gentleman, Dan decided that sticking to a policy was not as important as helping a friend, so he broke his own rule and had me on again.

April 2017: http://historyonfirepodcast.com/episodes/2017/4/28/episode-19-featuring-dan-carlin

February 2019: http://historyonfirepodcast.com/episodes/2019/2/11/episode-44-dan-carlin

April 2020: http://historyonfirepodcast.com/episodes/2019/12/18/bonus-episode-dan-carlins-the-end-is-always-near

May 2023: https://dchhaddendum.libsyn.com/ep26-dig-this

Make sure to check out Dan’s substack at: https://dancarlin.substack.com/

P.S. Who’s that guy with the baseball hat standing behind Caesar? And the guy with the goofy smile?