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Comment by lawn | Hacker News Reader

Hardcore History: Supernova in the East, part 5.

It's about Japan during the second world war and there's something about the absolutely insane Japanese mentality that lead civilians to commit mass suicide that captivated me.

The whole series, and really the whole of Hardcore History is absolutely amazing and even if you think you don't like history you absolutely should give it a try. Blueprint of Armageddon is still the best piece of entertainment I've ever had, regardless of media.

https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-66-supern...

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Strongly agree. Blueprint for Armageddon [1] about the machinations of WW1 is still the best audio narrative I've ever heard. I recently listened to it again after my first binge back in 2014 and it's still unparalleled.

Supernova in the East is also deeply fascinating and disturbing.

[1] https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-50-bluepr...

This is my recommendation as well. I've been listening to these as they have come out. I listened to part 5 on a long car ride recently. The description of the mass suicide after the Battle of Saipan was shocking. Most people today don't know the horrors of Imperial Japan. Most assume there couldn't be such a fanatical, vicious, and atrocity-oriented culture in contemporary times.

I'm a big fan too, but beware of his pretty bog standard reading of history. For instance, he makes plenty of insinuations in the Supernova series about how the US basically had to nuke Japan because they were so fanatical.

Here's a thoroughly nuanced analysis of the causes and motivations leading to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: https://youtu.be/RCRTgtpC-Go

This is an excellent documentary. Skipping ahead to the “Discussion” section and watching through to the end gives a good summary, and it certainly opened my mind. Thanks for sharing, I’m probably going to go back and watch the whole thing.

There are quite a lot of arguments supporting this view, see e.g. "Jon Stewart, War Criminals & The True Story of the Atomic Bombs" [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylMbvf3sn_g

Dan Carlin's podcasts are my goto for crazy long (18-24 hour) car trips.

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