🎬 Long Arcs — Multi-Episode Listening Projects
Sustained series you commit to over days or weeks — each episode picks up from the last. The best format for walks with a newborn: familiar voice, narrative momentum, no need to remember context between sessions.
Best starting point: Dan Carlin's Celtic Holocaust if you want to go straight to the Caesar/Rome thread from your YouTube tab. 12 Byzantine Rulers if you want the quickest complete arc (~6hrs). History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps as a long-term background project — 20min episodes, endless depth.
Finish / Pick Up
Revolutions
Mike Duncan
Season status below
200+ episodes across 10 seasons, each covering a different revolution. Overcast only has Season 1 in its local database (22 episodes, all played) — older seasons were listened to and cleaned from the device. Seasons 2–10 show as unlistened below; update as you go.
S2 The American Revolution · ~15 eps
S3 The French Revolution · ~55 eps · the longest arc
S4 The Haitian Revolution · ~17 eps
S5–7 The Spanish American Revolutions · Venezuela, Gran Colombia, Río de la Plata
S8 The July Revolution · France 1830
S9 The Revolutions of 1848
S10 The Russian Revolution · ~60 eps · widely considered the best podcast history series ever made
Find in Overcast · Mike Duncan also wrote The Storm Before the Storm (Roman Republic)
Start Fresh — Priority Order
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History
Dan Carlin
Subscribed · 0 plays
Five self-contained arcs, each a complete standalone. Start with Celtic Holocaust — it's directly the Caesar/Gallic Wars content from your YouTube tab, but as a ~6hr deep dive. Then Death Throes: the best audio treatment of the Roman Republic's collapse.
~6 hrs #60 — The Celtic Holocaust · Caesar's Gallic Wars Start Here
~14 hrs #34–39 — Death Throes of the Republic · Fall of the Roman Republic
~12 hrs #56–58 — King of Kings · Achaemenid Persian Empire · pairs with Fall of Civ #20
~12 hrs #43–47 — Wrath of the Khans · Mongol Empire
~24 hrs #50–55 — Blueprint for Armageddon · WWI · consensus best podcast series ever made
All free on podcast apps · find in Overcast under "Dan Carlin's Hardcore History" · also subscribed to Addendum (shorter companion episodes)
The History of Rome
Mike Duncan
Complete series · 179 eps
Duncan's first and defining series — 179 episodes covering Rome from Romulus (753 BC) to the fall of the Western Empire (476 AD), averaging ~15–20min each. The complete Roman arc in one feed. Made 2007–2012, still the benchmark for narrative history podcasting. Pairs directly with Revolutions: same voice, same meticulous structure, different era. 12 Byzantine Rulers is the natural sequel.
eps 1–12 The Kings · Romulus through the Tarquins · foundation mythology through early republic
eps 13–80 The Republic · early republic, conquest of Italy, Punic Wars · pairs with Carlin's Celtic Holocaust and Death Throes
eps 81–110 The Late Republic · Marius, Sulla, Caesar, the collapse · best arc in the series
eps 111–155 The Empire · Augustus through the Five Good Emperors · Augustan golden age → Julio-Claudian chaos
eps 156–179 The Decline & Fall · third-century crisis → Diocletian → Constantine → 476 AD
~50hrs total · free on all podcast apps · thehistoryofrome.typepad.com · sequel: 12 Byzantine Rulers · same author as Revolutions
12 Byzantine Rulers
Lars Brownworth
Subscribed · 0 plays
The original narrative history podcast (2005). 12 episodes, ~30min each — the quickest major arc on this list. Covers Diocletian through Constantine XI and the fall of Constantinople. Self-contained and completable in a week of walks. A direct gateway into the Byzantine world that runs through your history interests.
~6 hrs total 12 episodes · start from Episode 1 · Overcast → "12 Byzantine Rulers"
Quickest complete arc on this list · pairs with Byzantium & Friends (also subscribed)
History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps
Peter Adamson
Subscribed since Apr 2019 · 0 plays
400+ episodes, ~20min each — a genuine long-term project, not a weekend arc. Multiple distinct sub-arcs by era. The Islamic Philosophy arc (eps ~130–200) is the most unique content anywhere: Al-Kindi, Avicenna, Averroes, Al-Ghazali in depth. Directly extends your ESOTERICA and Lord of Spirits YouTube content. Start at the beginning or jump straight to Islamic philosophy.
~20min each Ancient Greek Philosophy · eps 1–80 · start of the arc
~20min each Islamic Philosophy · eps ~130–200 · most distinctive, jump in directly
~20min each Medieval Christian Philosophy · Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham
Best background-listening project · 20min format works during baby routines · no catch-up needed between sessions
History on Fire
Daniele Bolelli
Subscribed · 0 plays
Long-form narrative history in the Dan Carlin tradition — but Bolelli is more theatrical, more emotionally engaged, Italian accent. Multiple self-contained series. The Samurai arc is the strongest entry point: 10+ hours on feudal Japan that functions as a complete book. The Mongols arc pairs directly with Carlin's Wrath of the Khans for a second perspective.
10+ hrs Samurai Series · start with "History on Fire #1" in Overcast Start Here
varies Mongols Series · second perspective alongside Carlin's Wrath of the Khans
150+ episodes · free · best for long walks · find in Overcast under "History on Fire"
Hannibal and the Punic Wars
subscribed
0 plays
Dedicated chronological series on the Second Punic War — Hannibal's invasion of Italy, Cannae, Scipio, Zama. The natural companion to your Roman Republic material (Revolutions S3 covers the period immediately after). Shorter arc than Carlin or Brownworth.
Find in Overcast under "Hannibal and the Punic Wars" · start from ep 1
History of the Crusades
subscribed
0 plays
Chronological series on the Crusades from the First through the dissolution of the Crusader states. Connects your existing ancient religion / ESOTERICA material (Yahweh, early Christianity, Byzantine collapse) to medieval Christian expansion. Long arc — treat as a multi-month project.
Find in Overcast under "History of the Crusades" · start from ep 1
📺 Playlists & Lecture Series
Structured multi-session series that live outside your podcast app — dharma talk archives, YouTube lecture series, open courses. Each is a sustained project you return to deliberately rather than stumble into. The distinction from Long Arcs: these require going somewhere specific, not just opening Overcast.
📺 vs 🎧 — Use YouTube for anything visual: maps, slides, talking heads you want to read. Use podcast for pure conversation, commuting, walks. When content exists in both (Dwarkesh, Fall of Civilizations, CWT), the podcast version is fine for audio-only sessions; YouTube rewards seated, deliberate attention.
Rob Burbea
Seeing That Frees
Rob Burbea · Gaia House 2014
Start Here
Burbea's deepest teaching on emptiness and dependent origination — the companion to his book of the same name. ~30 talks from his 2014 retreat at Gaia House, each ~50min. The most rigorous and beautiful treatment of Buddhist emptiness in English. Transforms how you see perception, self, and the texture of experience. His death in 2020 makes this irreplaceable.
~30 talks · ~50min each Start at Talk 1 — free on Dharma Seed · also on YouTube
Soulmaking Dharma — Eros, Logos & the Imaginal
Rob Burbea · 2016–2019
After Seeing That Frees
His late-career synthesis, more speculative and more beautiful. Draws on Jungian, Platonic, and Buddhist frameworks to explore the imaginal, eros as a mode of perception, and soulmaking as a practice. A vast archive — enter via "Re-enchanting the Cosmos" or the "Path of the Imaginal" retreat series. Extends everything in HoPWAG and ESOTERICA in unexpected directions.
200+ talks Entry: "Re-enchanting the Cosmos" series · or search "imaginal" on Dharma Seed
Philosophy Lectures — YouTube
The Great Books — Lecture Series
Michael Sugrue · Hamilton College c.1990
Highly Recommended
Recorded at Hamilton College and rediscovered online to cult status in recent years. ~50 lectures each on a major text or thinker — Plato's Republic, Augustine's Confessions, Machiavelli, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky. Sugrue is a Princeton-trained historian of ideas who teaches with extraordinary clarity and passion. Among the best teaching on YouTube. Watch in any order; each lecture is self-contained.
~1–1.5 hrs each YouTube · any order · 50K–300K views per lecture
Good entry points: Nietzsche · Augustine's Confessions · Plato's Republic · Dostoevsky's Underground Man
Heidegger's Being and Time
Hubert Dreyfus · UC Berkeley
Demanding · Rewarding
Berkeley lectures by the definitive English-language interpreter of Heidegger — free online. Works through Being and Time systematically across ~30 sessions. Dreyfus bridges continental and analytic philosophy in a way nobody else manages, making Heidegger's central ideas genuinely accessible. No background required. Connects naturally to the phenomenology thread in Burbea and to your interest in philosophy of mind and perception.
~30 lectures · ~75min each Archive.org or YouTube · free
Death
Shelley Kagan · Yale Open Courses
Accessible · Free
26 Yale lectures on the philosophy of death — soul, personal identity, survival, mortality, and whether death is bad. One of Yale's most popular free courses. Kagan is a lucid analytic philosopher who builds arguments step-by-step, assuming no prior philosophy. Questions about finitude and meaning land differently with a newborn in the house.
26 lectures · ~45min each Full playlist on YouTube · Open Yale Courses
Political Philosophy
Leo Strauss — Lecture Recordings
Leo Strauss Center · University of Chicago
Exceptional Archive
Actual audio recordings of Strauss's UChicago lectures from the 1950s–60s, properly catalogued and free. Courses on Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau, Nietzsche — each a complete semester. The best entry into the most important political philosopher of the 20th century and directly connects to your Sugrue and HoPWAG threads. Strauss's method of reading — slow, suspicious of "progress," attentive to esoteric writing — is itself a mode of intellectual practice worth absorbing.
~1hr each Start: Plato's Republic or Machiavelli · each course is self-contained
Essential pairing: On Tyranny (book) — Strauss's exchange with Kojève on tyranny and the end of history · one of the great intellectual dialogues of the century
📈 Business & Investing 🎧 audio-first
Long-form, deeply researched business history and capital allocation conversations. Acquired is the standout — 4–8 hour deep dives that read like serious history. Invest Like the Best is more modular; pick by guest.
Arc — binge in any order
Acquired — Ben Gilbert & David Rosenthal Essential
Each episode is a 4–8 hour deep dive on a single company — the founding, the critical decisions, the compounding. Not a news podcast; closer to serious economic history. The best episodes rival Hardcore History for density and craft. Start: Berkshire Hathaway (Parts 1–3, ~12hrs total) — the best company history ever made. Then Nike (~9hrs, Phil Knight arc), Standard Oil (~7hrs, Rockefeller), LVMH (~6hrs, Arnault), Nvidia (~9hrs, most recent). All free.
~100 episodes · free · acquiredfm.com · each ep is a self-contained arc
Modular — pick by guest or theme
Invest Like the Best — Patrick O'Shaughnessy
Long-form conversations with investors, founders, and allocators. More episodic than Acquired — pick by whoever you want to understand. High-signal guests: Howard Marks (multiple eps on cycles), Patrick Collison, Marc Andreessen, Tobi Lütke, Charlie Songhurst. Good walking pace.
400+ episodes · free · search by guest name · also pairs with Founders (David Senra, biography-format companion)
📚 Subscribed But Unexplored
You're subscribed to these but have zero or near-zero play history in the export. All are directly your taste profile — these are deliberate subscriptions that haven't been opened yet.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History Subscribed, 0 plays
You're subscribed but have no episode data. The Celtic Holocaust (~6hrs, Caesar's Gallic Wars) is the obvious starting point — it's literally what you described wanting on the YouTube side. Death Throes of the Republic (6 parts, ~14hrs) is the greatest Roman Republic audio ever made. Blueprint for Armageddon (WWI, ~24hrs) is the consensus GOAT. All free on podcast apps.
Free on all podcast apps · start with Celtic Holocaust or Death Throes
Fall of Civilizations Podcast Subscribed, 0 plays
The podcast version of the YouTube episodes — same audio. If you'd rather listen than watch: start with #8 Sumerians. #20 Persia is the most recent and most underlistened. The YouTube tab has full episode notes and playtime estimates.
Same content as YouTube tab recommendations · 20 episodes
History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps — Peter Adamson Subscribed since 2019
400+ episodes covering philosophy from ancient Egypt to today, ~20min each. Never missed a time period. The Islamic philosophy series (eps 130–200) is the most unique content anywhere — covers Al-Kindi, Avicenna, Al-Ghazali in depth. Pairs directly with your ESOTERICA and Lord of Spirits YouTube content.
400+ eps · free · ~20min each · start at beginning or jump to Islamic philosophy
12 Byzantine Rulers — Lars Brownworth Subscribed
The podcast that made narrative history podcasting a genre (2005 original). 12 episodes (~30min each), covering Diocletian through Constantine XI. Short, dense, excellent. Very listenable with a baby. A direct complement to the Fall of Civilizations framework.
12 episodes · ~30min each · start from ep 1
History on Fire — Daniele Bolelli Subscribed
Long-form narrative history in the Dan Carlin tradition but more theatrical. The Samurai series (10+ hours) and the Mongols series are both extraordinary walking content. Bolelli is Italian, more emotionally engaged than Carlin — excellent for long walks.
150+ episodes · free · start with Samurai or Mongols series
Gresham College Lectures Subscribed
Free public lectures at Gresham College London — same model as British Museum Events but broader. History, science, law, music. The history and literature tracks are outstanding. You have the British Museum Membercast; this is the wider London lecture circuit equivalent.
Hundreds of lectures · free · search by topic
Empire: World History — William Dalrymple & Anita Anand Subscribed
Short episodes (~30–45min) on the history of empire — British, Roman, Mughal, Ottoman, Mongol. Dalrymple is one of the best popular historians alive. The East India Company episode is essential. Episodic — start anywhere.
Available on podcast apps · episodic, start anywhere