What are some good history/geopolitics Youtube Channels?

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Ronaldo_

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I've watched people like WhatifAlthist and Kaiserbauch, and while both IMHO cover the most interesting topics in their field, they both seem to have too significant of a rightwing bias to take seriously. I mostly use them as reference points for books, time periods, or theories to read about. If anyone has any other suggestions, please let me know!
 
What kind of history are you interested in? Any particular times and regions? Is this a general interest in history, or does it tie into your interest in the Civ game? (I checked your posting history and it indicates an interest in Civ 6)

If you like medieval-era or Tudor-era stuff, there are some channels I could recommend.
 
Here's some history related channels I enjoy:

Drachinifel: Naval history
World of Antiquity: Pretty much what it sounds like - lots of videos on the ancient world
Ancient Americas: Again, pretty self explanatory, good content on pre-columbian America
Fall of Civilizations: Podcast on how societies collapse (way way way better than Jared Diamond....)
Rex's Hangar: Like Drachinifel for planes
Tasting History: Recreating historical food, along with some of the history behind them.
Stephan Milo: Prehistory and anthropology
 
I would describe both of those channels as nazi adjacent. Whatifalthist is stupidly right wing and Kaiserbach (I've never watched but checked out his video list) looks to be an open nazi.

History is inevitably political, but these guys are just stupidly bad imo.
If you want actual historians and not people playing as one, I'd check out Mike Duncan's Revolutions or say The Dig by Jacobin. They are both podcasts, so you don't get the videos, but the audio is uploaded on youtube for both. Muke Duncan is a historian and The Dig interviews actual historians and sociologists on a huge range of topics.

I really liked Blowback on Iraq, Cuba, Korea, and Afghanistan. They are journalists who compile a lot of resources and produce a podcast. So again, no vid but the audio is on you tube.
 
I can't speak to YouTube history channels as I've avoided YouTube due to the difficulty of separating the quality content from the sensationalist or politically-motivated content. PhroX's list seems to pass the initial sniff test (perhaps literally for "Tasting History"), but I'd be curious if others can also vouch for it (I'm a "once three people recommend it separately, I'm a lot more likely to check something out" person).

But if you don't mind audio-only, my go-to history podcast for the road is Hardcore History. The podcaster, Dan Carlin, spends months researching the subjects of each podcast (most of which are closer to audiobook length). He's very good about providing the sources for his work, including direct quotations, and mentioning when the sources may be more biased than would be expected. He used to do a politics podcast as well, but quit it after he got tired of each side (right/left) accusing him of being a partisan of the other side. And before podcasting, he was on the radio, so his delivery is excellent.

I've also listened to and recommend Norman Centuries, by Lars Brownworth, if that time period in history appeals to you.

I'm currently listening to the British History Podcast in chronological order. I'm in the 400s AD, and so far the research seems to be well-done.

And of course Mike Duncan is one of the classic history podcast choices, although I've only listened to part of his History of Rome series so far.

For geopolitics? If you live in the U.S., my recommendation would be to turn the radio dial to whichever channel carries NPR. They do a pretty good job of presenting the facts, rather than opinions, coupled with in-depth journalism and interviews of people who have expertise in various fields. It's much more in-depth than what you'd find on TV, doesn't try to push a political view, and when they do interview public figures, they disclose what their position is, so you'll know if they're associated with a particular cause or party.
 
PhroX said:
World of Antiquity: Pretty much what it sounds like - lots of videos on the ancient world
Click to expand...
Quintillus said:
I can't speak to YouTube history channels as I've avoided YouTube due to the difficulty of separating the quality content from the sensationalist or politically-motivated content. PhroX's list seems to pass the initial sniff test (perhaps literally for "Tasting History"), but I'd be curious if others can also vouch for it (I'm a "once three people recommend it separately, I'm a lot more likely to check something out" person).
Click to expand...
I can recommend World of Antiquity. The host is an antiquarian and has multiple series about artifacts, ancient mysteries, travel guides and debunking psuedohistory.
 
PhroX said:
Here's some history related channels I enjoy:

Drachinifel: Naval history
World of Antiquity: Pretty much what it sounds like - lots of videos on the ancient world
Ancient Americas: Again, pretty self explanatory, good content on pre-columbian America
Fall of Civilizations: Podcast on how societies collapse (way way way better than Jared Diamond....)
Rex's Hangar: Like Drachinifel for planes
Tasting History: Recreating historical food, along with some of the history behind them.
Stephan Milo: Prehistory and anthropology
Click to expand...

Those are all pretty good. To those I would recommend:
History with Cy for ancient near east stuff

The Histocrat (and the related video series on the channel, Mythillogical) for similar ancient history or myth related stuff.

Miniminuteman for something similar to Stephan Milo, with a greater focus on debunking and a very irregular release schedule.

For modern military / defense strategy is is hard to beat Perun.

Townsends for food history, albeit only Revolutionary War era America.

Modern military aviation has Military Aviation History.

For swords and pre-gunpowder combat, Scholagladiatoria

For modern military hardware in general, Matsimus is pretty good.

EDT: For modern geopolitics and economics, and talk by Adam Tooze is pretty enlightening.
(Economic historian who became famous for The Wages of Destruction, all about the Nazis economy; and then shifted into modern economics and geopolitics with Crashed, all about Great Financial Screw-Up.)
 
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Quintillus said:
I can't speak to YouTube history channels as I've avoided YouTube due to the difficulty of separating the quality content from the sensationalist or politically-motivated content. PhroX's list seems to pass the initial sniff test (perhaps literally for "Tasting History"), but I'd be curious if others can also vouch for it (I'm a "once three people recommend it separately, I'm a lot more likely to check something out" person).

But if you don't mind audio-only, my go-to history podcast for the road is Hardcore History. The podcaster, Dan Carlin, spends months researching the subjects of each podcast (most of which are closer to audiobook length). He's very good about providing the sources for his work, including direct quotations, and mentioning when the sources may be more biased than would be expected. He used to do a politics podcast as well, but quit it after he got tired of each side (right/left) accusing him of being a partisan of the other side. And before podcasting, he was on the radio, so his delivery is excellent.

I've also listened to and recommend Norman Centuries, by Lars Brownworth, if that time period in history appeals to you.

I'm currently listening to the British History Podcast in chronological order. I'm in the 400s AD, and so far the research seems to be well-done.

And of course Mike Duncan is one of the classic history podcast choices, although I've only listened to part of his History of Rome series so far.

For geopolitics? If you live in the U.S., my recommendation would be to turn the radio dial to whichever channel carries NPR. They do a pretty good job of presenting the facts, rather than opinions, coupled with in-depth journalism and interviews of people who have expertise in various fields. It's much more in-depth than what you'd find on TV, doesn't try to push a political view, and when they do interview public figures, they disclose what their position is, so you'll know if they're associated with a particular cause or party.
Click to expand...
I like Carlin too so there is that, but I jsut feel obligated to do the nerd left winger thing and point out that all history and news reporting by extension is political, either in what they leave out or what they choose to focus on, the real question is how you want the optics tilted when you are listening or reading. Americans are only exposed to reactionary, conservative, or liberal content for almost all of my life and this is still true for the majority of the population.

NPR is definitely liberal and while their journalistic honestly is waaaaay better than Fox News or OAA (as in they have journalists that actually care about integrity in journalism), they still bend liberal by editorial decision. A lot of socialist/left wing stuff can be just super annoying and lecturing I try to avoid those, but it helps to get a mixed view of stories. I'm inundated by reactionaries and conservatives in my daily life and so familiar with the positions you can read me a story and I can pretty much nail how Fox News will spin it the next day. But NPR stays in the narrative of capitalism being wonderful and just needs some new paint and USA USA USA stuff, so it's definitely political (everything is even though it is annoyingly true).

I know whatifalthist is a closet white supremacist because I was raised around that exact type of person and when you get them even lightly tipsy the racist parts start coming out real fast. I know the other guy is a nazi because its literally espousing great replacement theories and blaming hordes of immigrants for Europe's problems. Europeans' quality of life on average is better than most of the planet by a lot and to the extent it's getting worse it's not immigrants it is neo-liberalism hurting the working class.
 
Estebonrober said:
all history and news reporting by extension is political
Click to expand...
For me that very much depends on how "is political" is defined. I would agree with a definition that said, "all history and news reporting is influenced, even if subconsciously, by the beliefs and knowledge of the person doing it." But I wouldn't agree with a definition of "is political" that said, "all history and news reporting is political in that the reporter is trying to convince you to agree with their political beliefs." There certainly is a lot of that, and that's part of why I tread lightly with sources I don't recognize (not being aware of what they may be intentionally leaving out). And sometimes people's knowledge is so skewed to one way that even if they don't realize it, they'll be a "political" reporter due to those biases. But I also believe that there are reporters/authors/historians out there who are simply trying to spread factual knowledge. They may not have perfect knowledge, and we all have our cultural biases, but I would not consider that to be political.

I suppose my bigger concern with the quoted statement (which I've seen elsewhere as well) is that, IMO, it cheapens even good journalism that attempts to be fact based, by advocating a nihilistic attitude that implies we might as well not even try to remain impartial, because it's all going to be political anyway. I suppose that also speaks to my own preferences in a way; I'm more of a pragmatist than an idealist.

I'm not sure if we really disagree on this or not, and I agree that a mix of viewpoints is good, that just happens to be a good example of one of those "not able to see the shades of grey in things" statements of the socialist/left wing side that annoys me as well.
 
The history programs I have on my subscription are as follows:
Oversimplified
Mr. Terry History
Mr. Beat
BlueJay
Cogito
Casual Historian
Crash Course (When they did their history segment)
Feature History
Gaijin Goomba (His topics that relates to Japanese History)
General Knowlage
Heimler's History (And his Retrospect side channel)
Hip Huges
History Matters
History with Hilbert
It's History
John D. Ruddy
KhAnubis
Knowing Better
Knowledgia
Look Back History
Metatron
Sam O'Nella Academy
SideQuest
Simple History
Step Back (If you can stomach his woke commie takes)
Suibhne
The Armchair Historian
The Cold War
The Cynical Historian
The Fat Electician
The Great War
TIK History
Vlogging Through History
World War II

There's a few Alt History sites I enjoy
AlternateHistoryHub
Whatifalthist
Monsieur Z

Quintillus said:
For me that very much depends on how "is political" is defined.
Click to expand...
From what I gather, from that side of the political aisle: Everything is political!

Estebonrober said:
I really liked Blowback on Iraq, Cuba, Korea, and Afghanistan. They are journalists who compile a lot of resources and produce a podcast. So again, no vid but the audio is on you tube.
Click to expand...
Blowback is just a garbage commie "muh America is bad" podcast akin to The DeProgram. Wouln't reconmend at all, Step Back History is as far as I can go to even recomend that occupies the left wing quadrant.
 
Quintillus said:
For me that very much depends on how "is political" is defined. I would agree with a definition that said, "all history and news reporting is influenced, even if subconsciously, by the beliefs and knowledge of the person doing it." But I wouldn't agree with a definition of "is political" that said, "all history and news reporting is political in that the reporter is trying to convince you to agree with their political beliefs." There certainly is a lot of that, and that's part of why I tread lightly with sources I don't recognize (not being aware of what they may be intentionally leaving out). And sometimes people's knowledge is so skewed to one way that even if they don't realize it, they'll be a "political" reporter due to those biases. But I also believe that there are reporters/authors/historians out there who are simply trying to spread factual knowledge. They may not have perfect knowledge, and we all have our cultural biases, but I would not consider that to be political.

I suppose my bigger concern with the quoted statement (which I've seen elsewhere as well) is that, IMO, it cheapens even good journalism that attempts to be fact based, by advocating a nihilistic attitude that implies we might as well not even try to remain impartial, because it's all going to be political anyway. I suppose that also speaks to my own preferences in a way; I'm more of a pragmatist than an idealist.

I'm not sure if we really disagree on this or not, and I agree that a mix of viewpoints is good, that just happens to be a good example of one of those "not able to see the shades of grey in things" statements of the socialist/left wing side that annoys me as well.
Click to expand...
not nihilistic about it, just cognizant. I stand by cultural biases are political, so much so they make many so in my region of the US be blind to obvious political realities around them.
 
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Estebonrober said:
I would describe both of those channels as nazi adjacent. Whatifalthist is stupidly right wing and Kaiserbach (I've never watched but checked out his video list) looks to be an open nazi.
Click to expand...

It's been a long time since I watched any of their videos, so they might've improved, but from what I remember Whatif is pretty bad alt-hist even if you disregard the fashy tendencies. The typical hand-waving of how divergences happen and ignoring wider consequences of their changes.
 
Quintillus said:
But I also believe that there are reporters/authors/historians out there who are simply trying to spread factual knowledge. They may not have perfect knowledge, and we all have our cultural biases, but I would not consider that to be political.
Click to expand...
Except what might be a simple fact to one person is a radical politial opinion for another. Even something as basic as "the Ancient Egyptians built the Pyramids of Giza" or "William Shakespeare existed" are political.
 
PhroX said:
It's been a long time since I watched any of their videos, so they might've improved, but from what I remember Whatif is pretty bad alt-hist even if you disregard the fashy tendencies. The typical hand-waving of how divergences happen and ignoring wider consequences of their changes.
Click to expand...
yea its jsut bad, and his citations are not even historians or sociologists or anything, they are lawyers and MBAs and stuff. It's like calling all those "history" books Bill O'Rielly wrote all those years ago, actual history. No. It is not just bad; it is literally ignorant of so much relevant information that it is less than worthless it is harmful.
 
Podcasts:
Well There's Your Problem, A Podcast About Engineering Disasters. With Slides.
The Medieval Podcast
If Books Could Kill
Maintenance Phase
Any of the "Inebriated Past" special episodes from Chapo, but especially the one on Upton Sinclair's failed 1932 run for governor of California
Hell On Earth (I've heard is good, haven't listened)

Youtube:
Alan Fisher
Atun-Shei
Defunctland
hoots
JohnTheDuncan
Jonas Čeika - CCK Philosophy
PhilosophyTube
Simon Roper
Zoe Baker
 
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