There are two fine BBC podcasts on modern India (last colonial years and onwards) but those are in Hindi (ones I am aware of) and have pleasantly short episodes.
Then there’s the contemporary Seen and the Unseen (https://seenunseen.in) having pleasantly very long episodes.
The 6th century Indian Buddhist logician Dignāga's ideas about evidence and deductive reasoning remind me a lot of the analytic philosophy of the early 20th century.
If you are interested in such things, I suggest Buddhist Logic and Epistemology: Studies in the Buddhist Analysis of Inference and Language, and Epistemology, Logic, and Grammar In Indian Philosophical Analysis, by Bimal Krishna Matilal and Lokayata: A Study in Ancient Indian Materialism and Science and Society in Ancient India by Debiprasad Chattyopadhyay.
Not about India but on the topic of favorite podcasts, anything by Mike Duncan. Starting with the History of Rome series to the whole Revolutions series. Not too dramatic, but not 100% dry either.
Carthage is a fascinating story. Driven out of Phonecia by the Sea People (another amazing story) they end up on the north coast of what we now call Africa and later another city Cadiz Spain. They had an amazing culture until a new culture, Rome, appeared across the water in what is now called Italy.
Carthage was the and only real sea power in the region and its funny yet sad that they labelled ship parts to make construction more efficient. The Romans eventually capatured a ship and were able to use the built-in guide to make their own copies. Rome used the ships to attack and defeat Carthage.
I often wonder what the world would be like if Rome fell and Carthage survived. Adding insult to injury even words like Africa are Roman terms that we use today to describe where Carthage existed.
You're painting Carthage a little bit as a victim, when it was initially a power the equal of Rome. The Punic Wars were brutal for both nations. The sack of Carthage came only after Carthage, led by Hannibal, conducted a 15 year campaign of conquest and terror across Italy. The Romans' relentless adaptation to building a navy, even in the face of unimaginable losses, is remarkable and speaks to a cultural adaptation and perseverance that was a driving force of their success.
A History of South India: From Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagara by K. A. Nilakanta Sastri is the go-to 1955 book on Vijayanagara empire..there never was a glorious kingdom like Vijayanagara nor was there anything spectacular like it’s fall…
My first introduction to the region outside of what was then known as Tamil country was via Raja Raja Chozhan ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajaraja_I )from the tamil historical fiction, Ponniyin Selvan by Kalki. I knew he also wrote a first person narrative titled “Naan, Krishna Deva Rayan” of the later Vijayanagara Empire but I never got around to reading it. This post inspired me to look it up and it’s on Amazon Kindle if anyone else is interested. It’s in Tamil.
Someone translated the Krishnadevaraya book into English. It's on Amazon as I Krishnadevaraya. I found it rather lacklustre tbh. I have about every book on Hampi you can find, and as recollections go, Nilakantashastry is good. The ASI publications are impressively well done. I have the entire collection, but I have not gone through it fully.
I have the tamil edition. The author isn’t Kalki but Ra.Ki.Rangarajan. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra._Ki._Rangarajan I have never read this author before..so I am hoping he is as good as Kalki and it’s better in Tamil..
Ponniyin Selvan is a beautiful piece of work. I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it. Kalki spent years researching the topic. His other work, sivakamiyin sabatham is also fantastic.
Anyone interested in historical novels, check out these - Yavana Rani, Kadal Pura and Raja Muthirai. All by an author called Sandilyan.
Kalki’s books are a bit slow paced with phenomenal dialogues, beautiful prose and amazing descriptions. Sandilyan writes short, punchy dialogues and his novels are fast paced. They are both good, but Kalki is better and more authentic. Well with your time.
If you know Tamil, please read them in Tamil, not translations. Kalki especially is not easy to translate.
Sivagamiyin Sabatham is the second of the trilogy. It is preceded by Parthibhan Kanavu(the future chola dynasty king’s desire to break away from the ruling pallavas)
It is to be read in the same as order as it was written.. PaKa, SiSa and PoSe. Poniyin Selvan, of course is the magnum opus…there are ponniyin selvan tours in tamilnadu that goes to each and every location in the novels.
My neighbor used to say that there are only two kinds of female archetypes in the world: Nandini or Kundavai. Now that I am older, it terrifies me that he thought that! Altho..having said that..I know someone who didn’t speak to their cousin for months and months because one of them was Team Nandini and the other was Team Kundavai..so there’s that.
PSA: Ponniyin Selvan originally serialized in the Kalki magazine had some nice artwork by "Maniam" to go with it. The only current edition that contains the text and the artwork as it was in the original magazine is the 5-volume set from "Vikatan Prasuram". This is the "collector's edition" to have and well worth the money - https://books.vikatan.com/book-details?bid=2175
I can’t imagine the amount of work and research need to make a podcast of that quality and length. I imagine many Master theses would be unable to convert their work into a podcast of this quality.
And to see it’s all released for free for us to consume… just mind-boggling.
When it comes to big corporations, maximizing profit is the only thing that matters. Someone like Dan Carlin doesn’t need to make millions of dollars, doesn’t need to answer to investors. That gives him the luxury of taking as much time as he needs, to make the best episodes possible.
Of course most of these creators wouldn’t make content if there is no money in it, they gotta eat too! But unlike mega corporations, money is just one of the factors to them, not the only factor
That's the theory of shareholder capitalism, but in practice there are modern cultural pressures that dislocate profit motive from behavior.
Primarily agency conflict of interest between employees who believe strongly in social justice (as one example) and the employer's profit motive. Said employees create significant social peer pressures inside the org's culture, for example organizing walkouts based on their principles, which forces the hand of the execs. Execs are scared of the employees and prefer to cede to the new culture rather than challenge it and face their two minutes of hate. These are all just people following their private incentives and beliefs at the expense of the employer's profit motive.
A concrete example of this is when tech company employees protest their employer's contracts with the army. That works against the exec's judgment of what is profitable.
Now, this only happens when there is true ideological conviction. Otherwise the profit motive rules the day.
They also have a YouTube channel that adds images and video to the same audio track. A lot of it is just stock footage, but I like the images of ruins and the renders of what cities might have looked like in the past. It’s especially helpful when they’re discussing artwork.
Just so you know, the last two (or so) videos have had expensive custom images, video, reconstructions, illustrations, self shot on-location imagery, etc. He mentioned it in an intro awhile back. That's the reason for the long delay between recent videos.
The stock stuff earlier really adds value though. It's not some generic background pan and zoom. If it's in the background it's probably being activity talked about and being used as a visual aid. Having a map of an area or seeing the ruins as they are today or quotes from sou fe out of books etc really elevates the experience.
I honestly don't listen to the non-video ones they are such an essential element.
Mike Duncan's two podcasts, Revolutions[0] and The History of Rome[1], are both great. I'll second the sibling commenter's recommendation of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History [2].
For video content of a similar feel, Historia Civilis[3] is hard to beat.
Maybe not too similar, but still in the same ballpark: The History of Philosophy without any gaps. [0] Especially the series on islamic and indian philosophy is very well researched, easy to listen to and quite illuminating. If I'm not mistaken the author, Peter Adamson is a professor without teaching obligations due to the workload associated with the podcast.
I wish I did. One thing I've noticed about most of English-language history is the fact that there's so little African, Asian, and pre-Columbian American coverage. There are so many cultures between them, and I feel like everything is oriented towards the Mediterranian, Greeks, Romans, Medieval Europe.
But having read Graeber, Mann, Diamond, Harari, and Reich among others and some historical cultural stuff, I'm lusting for more non-Western history. Even Russia is a black hole to me pre-realists. Anybody have recommendations for more exotic stuff?
On YouTube, there's the World War 2 channel which is doing WW2 chronologically in great detail, and The Great War channel ( same presenter originally, Indy Neidell) which did WW1 and consequences. Both have some spinoffs on their secondary channels ( TimeGhost for WW2 and Realtime History for TGW) about subjects as diverse as the Indonesian war of independence, Russo-Japanese war, Franco-Prussian war, etc. Both have great well researched content week by week, with special episodes focusing on special people, events, battles, doctrines, armaments, countries, etc., and in both cases listening is OK, even though the visuals, footage, pictures, maps, etc. are also quite interesting.
I have more on my phone, but they're specific to UK history (where i live).
I've not listened to first two in a while as I'm listen to a lot of history books via audible. But I've listened to the first 100 episodes of the Byzantium podcast and the Russian Revolution episodes in the Revolutions Podcast - both are really well researched and produced.
If any one loves listening to things about the rise/decline of civs I can recommend the audio book version of Oswald Spenglers Decline of the West:
I plan to read the book version at some point but it's a bit of a tomb. So thought I'd approach it via the audio book first to get a better idea of the main concepts before reading it.
And i'm currently reading Arnold J. Toynbee - A Study of History, which is a fascinating look at the rise and fall of civs. It adds a different point of view to Spenglers theory and work.
"Dan Davis History" youtube channel, very well written. The bronze age, indoeuropean expansion, horse domestication, chariot warriors, mythology.. https://youtube.com/c/DanDavisAuthorChannel
The Historicrat is an excellent channel on YT, which delves deeply into the earliest settled societies. I'd recommend it as a counterpart to the Fall of Civilisations podcasts on Sumeria and the Bronze Age Collapse.
I did not expect to wake up today and see a post about my hometown on HN. The capital of the Vijayanagara empire was Hampi, which is an archaeological site in Northern Karnataka, South India. It's a fascinating place to visit. I'd recommend spending at least 5 days, perhaps in July or October.
It's the sort of place where you can spend even a month and still see new things every day.
> It's the sort of place where you can spend even a month and still see new things every day.
Did exactly that in the mid 1990s. Hampi is a magical place. The evocative granite ruins are scattered across a vast swathe in a hilly landscape of huge orange boulders with the broad Tungabadra river flowing through it, fringed by coconut and banana fields.
The main street of modern Hampi is located in a Vijayanagar shopping arcade. @stonecharioteer, have they kept cars and motorbikes out of Hampi? I hear the town now stretches across the river. Have the ferrymen in their round coracles disappeared?
My travelling partner and I made friends with Niju, the postmaster, and we went wild honey hunting with him.
One of the most memorable months of my life, and I've had a few.
The coracles are still around. You can drive card and bikes around, albeit within a reasonable distance. I am from Kamalapura, which is 4km from the Lotus Mahal. A lot has changed in Hampi, but the stalls and hawkers are gone from the ruins. The Tungabhadra still flows strong, and the Archeological Society has done some good work, some things are really improved. There's a good rock climbing community around there. And the government has shifted a "zoo" to the Bear Sanctuary and it's now a wildlife preserve. Apparently the leopards are also returning because of Covid (one of the positive things).
I have a cousin who has an instagram channel you'll love: @hampi_stories. He's a photographer who goes to Hampi every weekend.
If you ever return, hit me up. I use this handle everywhere. I can introduce you to the Dean of the Hampi university, who is a family friend. No one knows Hampi like he does.
I'm writing a book on the Rayas. It's a lot of work because I want to write it in a vein that skips ahead and behind, with scenes that intertwine stories from before it's most famous king, Krishnadevaraya, and scenes of his own time. It's one of my favourite places. I'm glad you loved visiting.
Yep. Hence the handle @stonecharioteer, which I use everywhere.
Our village has several bits that have assimilated the empire. I remember we needed the permission of the Archaeological Society of India to change our front door since the door itself was 200 years old. At one point we didn't have a door because we were waiting for permission.
I do love deep takes on history like this. But I am a big fan of written stuff over podcasts or video (e.g., the well deservedly popular acoup.blog) just because I read faster than I listen, so I have a lot of love for podcasts that post transcripts.
For podcasts that don't, does anyone know of a tool that might be able to generate a reasonably accurate transcript? I'm probably putting too much faith in the ability of ML to transcribe Vijayanagara correctly, but I'm hoping I'm wrong.
(And I'm aware I'm losing some of the value of this podcast - the readings in Sanskrit, the traditional music - in looking for transcripts, but I'd pay that price to dive into new information at a rate that suits me better.)
You can get a near perfect transcript of just about anything, by using the adobe transcript tool in Adobe Premiere. But it requires a Creative Cloud subscription. Cheapest plan is about 20 dollars a month.
Girish Karnad's last play, on this subject especially, called "Rakshasa Tangadi" (after the two villages near the battle site of Talikota) ought to be better known.
Wonderful work. I heard him talk about it on stage during probably what was the last year of the great artist at a BLF. He was on oxygen support on stage but completely in control and upright and you never felt it as an audience.
This may be an unpopular take but the inability of a target to threaten devastating mass destruction has been definitely a factor historically in tempting ambitious rulers and their societies to attack rich competing countries that began to show weaknesses.
The decades since the end of WW2 have been the most peaceful certainly from a POV of major power vs major power war in human history.
We all know weaknesses of major nuclear powers now but no one dares attack.
This is fair, but you're only addressing one vector of empire collapse, which is through warfare with external forces.
Empires and kingdoms have fallen through internal systemic failures, both political and logistical.
The modern prevalence of nuclear war has obviously all but removed the risk of collapse via invasion, but there are multiple other credible collapse vectors for the present day 'empires'.
I'm kinda bored, but this is a topic that I'm absolutely fawning over, this is quasi-informed speculation:
I don't think there is a common failure point, from what I've seen. Easter Island collapsed from disease. Various Amerindian cultures suffered similar fates, those who made it through were victims to genocidal campaigns. Some of the earliest societies we really just don't know. Like the Indus Valley, I think it was FoC that covered it, but there's evidence that water supply fell short of demand, and they appear to have been highly dependent on it. Sometimes it's war, and war can be incredulously asymmetrical, Battle at Marathon, or the barbarians that demanded tribute from the Chinese Empire, Incans, Aztec, etc...
I think the one running theme I've pressed out of it is initiating a civilization in the first place. Yuval Noah Harari in Sapiens describes this metanarrative crafted out of a shared myth, be it gods or legal fictions. And it's true, fiat currency, corporations, ownership and et cetera are the functional mythos by which we operate. But it's a house of cards. In the real human timeline the practical concept of state/society/civilization has only existed very briefly. And a considerable amount of information we take from it is inferred, and some of the constructions underpinning our narrative are purely inductive.
And I think there's also room to debate on the definition of fail states. If there's some radical reconstitution, I think that counts as a fall. When Caesar, and then Octavian, and the transition that they ushered in, I'd consider that a failure. The various revolutions we've seen throughout history I think would count even in the case they weren't successful, excepting the American Revolution. I'd even go so far as to argue that something like the introduction of the Fed could be at least an admission of failure, and then Bretton Woods. I guess my argument is every time that house of cards falls, y'know, the social contract, falls flat - it's a fail state. I don't think that's necessarily acknowledged as such though.
I'm reticent to cartoon it. In the more literal sense: you've got conservatism which removes degrees of freedom, you have progressivism which increases them. Too much conservativism reduces dynamism, and the system can't adapt, or is maladapted. On the obverse, the civilization loses directionality and, I dunno, random walks and loses its identity (social contract) at which point maybe internal stresses build to breaking and you get a radical reconstitution. Acceleration and a sort of whiplash could explain other cases. I think there's a Goldilocks balance, which itself is sort of a moving target. But this is all relative, too. A warlike civilization will be conservative in a mode of warring, and a peaceable civilization would be progressive in adopting it.
And of course we have to meter all aspects that are within the sphere of influence of the civilization, and how impactful it is. Sort of an inverse squares problem in earlier civilizations where it was actually difficult for kings to enforce their dominion, and information was slow. The ability for a civilization's state to "self-motivate" is pretty critical for its existence (schismatic, or low-influence), otherwise it's really just for play - and I'd argue that's a pretty crazy semantic territory I can't make ground in.
Vijayanagara: The Deccan Empires of Medieval India, 1290-1398 depicts the epic, century-long rise and fall of medieval kingdoms in India over two dynastic periods, for 1-3 players.
Also my favorite history podcast, the video versions are also really good.
Very high production quality, and a riveting narration that provides a broader historical context while giving details about the life of the individuals at the time.
I’ve been trying to find pre colonial history textbooks/books on India especially those specifically about South Indian empires. Does anyone have any recommendations?
If anyone is interested in podcasts from or about India (mostly history related), here I list some:
- Scroll & Leaves - https://scrollsandleaves.com/
- Incarnations: India in 50 lives - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05rptbv
- History of India - https://overcast.fm/itunes1041684187/the-history-of-india-po...
- Desi Stones and Bones - https://desistonesandbones.org
- Echoes of India - https://shows.ivmpodcasts.com/show/echoes-of-india-a-history...
There are two fine BBC podcasts on modern India (last colonial years and onwards) but those are in Hindi (ones I am aware of) and have pleasantly short episodes.
Then there’s the contemporary Seen and the Unseen (https://seenunseen.in) having pleasantly very long episodes.