The education system has done an effective job of making the discipline of history dry and boring. Sarcasm aside, in the right hands, history podcasts can be both informative and entertaining. All it takes is good writing and production, and a trained actor, in this case Paul McGann, to provide narration. Recently, I have been listening to Real Dictators, a podcast series that chronicles the lives of the likes of North Korea's ruling Kim dynasty, Mao Zedong, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, and Francois Duvalier of Haiti.
Here's some of my impressions on the series so far. Life in North Korea sounds horrible on every measure. The average citizen subsists on meagre food rations, under heavy state oppression. Kim Jong-il, son of Kim il-Sung, was a film buff who liked movies from the capitalist world. He fancied himself as a movie mogul, and oversaw the production of Bulgasari, a Godzilla knockoff monster movie.
Joseph Stalin was an unusually cruel man, unmoved by ordering the deaths of real and imagined opponents, or millions of innocent Soviet citizens who died as a result of his actions. His second wife committed suicide. His son, Yakov, fought with the Red Army in the Second World War. After he was captured by the Germans, he let his son die rather than negotiate his release. This was partially out of coldness, but also reflective of the Georgian culture Stalin was brought up in.
Through interviews with historians and first hand accounts, the producers have done an excellent job of fleshing out these evil men. I commend this series to your subscription list.
