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lostcateran 's review for:
Having never listened to Dan Carlin's podcast but being a huge fan of both other history podcasts and on the concept of the rise and fall of states, I was hopeful that I would enjoy this book. Boy, was I wrong.
I read (listened?) to this book with the assumption that this was going to be a fairly brief survey of the dark ages throughout history and maybe a discussion of the possible causes. That was about a quarter of the book - the second quarter oddly enough. It left me enormously disappointed.
The first quarter went into how complex our current society is, how we can measure the "toughness" of past generations, and how former generations raised their kids. "Umm, okay, I thought, maybe this is a launching point for some theme of the book." But he never brings these points up again, with the notable exception of how complex and integrated our modern world is, which he repeats ad nauseam. Yes, thank you Dan, we get it, we live in a interconnected world, we don't need to be reminded of this every 10 minutes.
The second quarter was the best part of the book - a discussion of the Bronze Age decline and dark age, the major players (Assyria, Hittites, Babylon) and hypothesized causes. He also talks about the more recognizable "European Dark Ages" of post-Roman Britain and Western Europe. This was what I thought the whole book would be about, but he spent maybe two hours on this. A shame.
The third quarter went into the horrors of nuclear weapons. He spends a little time on how normal people thought about the prospect of nuclear war, but so much more on the morality of nuclear warfare. Not the topic of the book at all, but if he was going to talk about the ethics and philosophy of just war, maybe... you know... cite some philosophers, ethicists, and others that have actually thought about this in a concrete, cohesive manner. It was, frankly, lazy journalism, not history.
The fourth quarter was just as bad as the first, just extending the ethical discussion to the concept of total warfare as understood since the beginning of the 20th century. None of this even remotely dealt with dark ages, how people cope with the fall of a state, or how law and order falls apart (both the commonalities and differences across time and space).
Ultimately, this was trying to be an ethical treatise on warfare. If it was going to be that, cite sources that matter, not just interesting people that said things in the moment. In any case, that is not how this book was marketed, and I am thoroughly disappointed. More importantly, the delivery was so insubstantial and meandering, I have no interest in listening to Dan's podcast.
I read (listened?) to this book with the assumption that this was going to be a fairly brief survey of the dark ages throughout history and maybe a discussion of the possible causes. That was about a quarter of the book - the second quarter oddly enough. It left me enormously disappointed.
The first quarter went into how complex our current society is, how we can measure the "toughness" of past generations, and how former generations raised their kids. "Umm, okay, I thought, maybe this is a launching point for some theme of the book." But he never brings these points up again, with the notable exception of how complex and integrated our modern world is, which he repeats ad nauseam. Yes, thank you Dan, we get it, we live in a interconnected world, we don't need to be reminded of this every 10 minutes.
The second quarter was the best part of the book - a discussion of the Bronze Age decline and dark age, the major players (Assyria, Hittites, Babylon) and hypothesized causes. He also talks about the more recognizable "European Dark Ages" of post-Roman Britain and Western Europe. This was what I thought the whole book would be about, but he spent maybe two hours on this. A shame.
The third quarter went into the horrors of nuclear weapons. He spends a little time on how normal people thought about the prospect of nuclear war, but so much more on the morality of nuclear warfare. Not the topic of the book at all, but if he was going to talk about the ethics and philosophy of just war, maybe... you know... cite some philosophers, ethicists, and others that have actually thought about this in a concrete, cohesive manner. It was, frankly, lazy journalism, not history.
The fourth quarter was just as bad as the first, just extending the ethical discussion to the concept of total warfare as understood since the beginning of the 20th century. None of this even remotely dealt with dark ages, how people cope with the fall of a state, or how law and order falls apart (both the commonalities and differences across time and space).
Ultimately, this was trying to be an ethical treatise on warfare. If it was going to be that, cite sources that matter, not just interesting people that said things in the moment. In any case, that is not how this book was marketed, and I am thoroughly disappointed. More importantly, the delivery was so insubstantial and meandering, I have no interest in listening to Dan's podcast.