Reading through the descriptions of the episodes of this podcast it seems a lot like they start with a conclusion and then confirmation bias themselves (and everyone else who already agrees with them). Maybe not the most objective source.
In general a podcast series will be started after the hosts have researched the subject, and decided they have an angle to present it to their public. Following them while doing their research could be interesting at small doses, but the number of absolute non stories or boring conclusions would be staggering and they'd need to be crazy entertaining by themselves to keep a whole podcast going on that pace.
It's harsh to fault them for having an opinion on the subject they dug to the end, and a conclusion already made at the time they start recording the series.
This is false. Age of Napoleon is quite good at presenting the factual history of its topic and then weighing dual interpretations of events. He highlights that something is his opinion when he gives it. The result is a wildly engaging podcast.
Hell, he's an avowed Marxist, which is a belief system I find repugnant. However, other than one or two clearly labeled bonus interview episodes, his views are AFAICT, totally absent from his presentation of history. He strives very hard to not tell you what to think.
It is disheartening that you believe information must be presented with an agenda.
There's a ton of distance between the author and the subject, it's about something they deeply enjoy and decided to dedicate more than a hundred episode to, and I'm not sure how much being Marxists matters here, when Marx started becoming famous after Napoleon died.
That's a lot different from discussing a politician of your own country who's still alive and untried at the time you do your podcast series.
The greatest irony here is that he managed to make it to 100.
"Only the good die young, only evil seems to live forever". Iron Maiden
Tom Lehrer retired when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize, because he said satire was dead at that point[1].
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2000/jul/31/artsfeatures...
And I'll just add this in. When I was 24 I got a job at the New York Times working on the tech team that would launch nytimes.com. The "web editor" was one Bernard Gwertzman. Look him up. He was the foreign desk editor of the paper of record for decades. He made his name reporting on the Vietnam war. Would you like to know who his best friend was in 1996 when I met him? Henry Kissinger. He had lunch with him every wednesday at the Harvard Club. Having read Manufacturing Consent more than once I was flabbergasted. If Chomsky had known this... Anyway, he and I were the first ones to show up for a meeting one time and I asked him how he and Henry K had met. He leaned over and said (with a literal wink) "while I was reporting on Vietnam, but don't tell anyone!"... said the man who among many other things 1. reported that we were not bombing Cambodia, 2. Supported Pinochet and 3. didn't report on the East Timor genocide. All policies that were 100% Kissinger.
Rest in piss. Both of them.
Note: I can’t verify facts in the field, but I can read the statement and see how it is reported. So, samples:
1. After pro-Russian forces achieved a major victory in August 2014, the Russian president issued a rather consolation-seeking statement, between other thing “asking” pro-Russian forces to release prisoners.
This was reported as a belligerent statement.
2. At approximately the same time the Ukrainian president issued a statement basically justifying war crimes as means to win the war, on the lines: “our children will go to schools, and separatists’ children will be hiding in basements - that’s how we will win this war”.
This was not reported at all.
Again, these things are easy to check - just read / listen to the original. Still, the media are lying about them. What do you think they are doing reporting things that are not that easy to check?
Chomsky have denied genocide that Kissinger helped perpetrate, so he could have known.
Well worth a listen imo, I ended up binging every episode over the course of a year or two.
I don't know, for the record. I'm just pointing out that it doesn't sound like a reasoned consideration of the evidence taking into account the historical context. It sounds like someone who thought "I bet Henry Kissinger was a bastard", then found a book that says "Henry Kissinger was a bastard!" and then made a podcast saying "See? I knew it!"
That analysis approach is useful for historian to understand human behaviors but should not be the bar one uses to evaluate a legacy. Hitler believed that the raising of the Third Reich was absolutely necessary for German survival. We can acknowledge that in understanding how a person becomes pure evil while also observing that, yes, he was pure evil.
Nobody is the villain of the story they've told themselves. We have the privilege and perspective to evaluate whether that story was awful and should never be repeated.
Nobody is doing this kind of podcast "on the fly"
Maybe every so often a conversation within a podcast episode contains some extraordinary analytical insight not found elsewhere, but to expect an entire series of episodes to average out to anything close to that is too high of an expectation.
That being said, it is probably correct to ignore most of them.
Much like comments written on the internet.
> That being said, it is probably correct to ignore most of them.
See above.
This Week in Virology was my go to during the pandemic, hosted by a virologist, and immunologist, and an infectious disease doctor.
You'll notice that many if not most of the loudest "expert" voices during the pandemic were speaking outside their area of expertise. With the exception of Fauci, of course.
Mentioned the reasons in my last post.
Edit: and there’s nothing wrong with that! Just recognize when something is entertainment vs. trying to be objective.