The Podcast History of Our World Will Take You From Creation Myths to (Eventually) the Present Day

podcast history of the world

For­ward-think­ing his­to­ri­ans almost come close to for­ward-think­ing come­di­ans in terms of their enthu­si­asm for pod­cast­ing. Per­haps it stands to rea­son, since excel­lence at either pur­suit, dif­fer­ent as they may seem, demands no small degree of mem­o­ry and artic­u­late­ness. We’ve cov­ered sev­er­al ster­ling exam­ples of the his­tor­i­cal pod­cast right here on Open Cul­ture, includ­ing The His­to­ry of Rome, The His­to­ry of Byzan­tium, and The His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy With­out Any Gaps. My own his­tor­i­cal­ly-mind­ed pod­cast explo­rations have led me to every­thing from A His­to­ry of the World in 100 Objects to My His­to­ry Can Beat Up Your Pol­i­tics. If you pre­fer to take your his­to­ry lessons through a pair of ear­buds, tech­no­log­i­cal­ly savvy his­to­ry pro­fes­sion­als and pas­sion­ate­ly fas­ci­nat­ed ama­teurs alike have stepped up to fill the need. Rob Mona­co, one of the newest entrants into the game, has tak­en on per­haps the most ambi­tious his­to­ry pod­cast chal­lenge of them all: to tell the entire Pod­cast His­to­ry of Our World.

“The gen­e­sis of the show hap­pened late one night after quite a few Dog­fish Head Midas Touch brews were con­sumed with this pod­cast­er’s long­time good bud­dy,” writes Mona­co on the pod­cast’s about page. “As I was a fresh­ly unem­ployed social stud­ies teacher with a mas­ters degree and noth­ing to do, my ami­go sug­gest­ed that I take up the micro­phone and start mak­ing my own show.” Begin­ning with an episode on the ear­li­est cre­ation myths, embed­ded above, he goes on to dis­cuss the dawn of man, the third dynasty of Ur, the ancient Hebrews, King Solomon, and so on, show­ing no signs of slow­ing in his mis­sion to, even­tu­al­ly, get up to the present day. No need to rush him, though, since, like any his­to­ri­an worth his salt, ama­teur or pro­fes­sion­al, he under­stands that telling his­to­ry well means telling a sto­ry well. “Pod­cast­ing is a beau­ti­ful medi­um that gives some­one like me a chance to reach out and share my love and knowl­edge of his­to­ry and cul­ture to a huge audi­ence,” he writes, “an audi­ence that even ten years ago, I would not have been able to reach with­out the back­ing of tra­di­tion­al media. And that’s incred­i­ble.” If he suc­cess­ful­ly pod­casts the whole his­to­ry of our world, well, that’s even more so.

The Pod­cast His­to­ry of Our World is also avail­able on iTunes.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The His­to­ry of Rome in 179 Pod­casts

The His­to­ry of Byzan­tium Pod­cast Picks Up Where The His­to­ry of Rome Left Off

The His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy With­out Any Gaps – Peter Adamson’s Pod­cast Still Going Strong

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.


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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.