4 ms·

A much better account of WW2 in the Pacific is the latest Hardcore History series. The 6 part "Supernova in the East" https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-histo

A much better account of WW2 in the Pacific is the latest Hardcore History series. The 6 part "Supernova in the East" https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-series/ https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-series/

mayneack 5y ago
Carlin actually had Gladwell on recently to talk about the book. He wasn't anywhere close to as critical as this review, however. https://pca.st/5rvqo9kz https://pca.st/5rvqo9kz
- InitialLastName 5y ago
  > He wasn't anywhere close to as critical as this review, however. When someone with a much (much!) bigger following than you parachutes into your field and joins you on your platform (where you are currently covering the same topic), you maybe withhold your most severe criticism of their work.
billfruit 5y ago
Barbara Tuchman's "Stilwell and the American Experience in China" is a good booklength treatment of WW2 in Asia, also prominently featuring a prominent proponent of air warfare, General Chennault.
afterburner 5y ago
Carlin has also been criticized for being loose with history in favour of story. Carlin's podcast series are much, much longer than Gladwell's typical podcast treatments though, so at least it lets him include a lot more details.
- triceratops 5y ago
  > Carlin has also been criticized for being loose with history in favour of story. How so? He seems to be pretty upfront in talking about his sources, quoting from them, and saying repeatedly that he's a journalist and not a historian.
  - sheepybloke 5y ago
    In one of his podcasts, he talks about the "pendulum of history" and how it swings, depending on the time, between more story (ie more emotion and look as to feelings of the time) or more fact (ie 10k people died in this battle). He mentioned that he preferred to be on the more story side; giving eyewitness accounts and showing the emotion of the history. I wouldn't put him near Gladwell though, but on the more story side of the pendulum.
    - InitialLastName 5y ago
      I think there's a difference between Dan Carlin's "I'm interested in exploring what it felt like to be in some moment of history, and why the people there made the decisions they made" and Malcolm Gladwell's "I'm going to cherrypick facts until my 'history' fits the just-so fable I'm trying to tell".
    - triceratops 5y ago
      Being on the "story" side is IMO a large part of his podcast's appeal. You can get the bare facts of a battle or event on Wikipedia, and that's interesting in its own way. After listening to an episode on Carlin's podcast, I usually go look it up on Wikipedia, to get a different picture. But talking about the people who were in that event, leaning heavily on eyewitness accounts and primary sources, all of that makes the events come alive. I think both are valid and important viewpoints on history. I think history in school would be a lot more interesting if it took a similar approach. Looking at an historical event at more of a ground-level is nowhere near the same thing as giving outright incorrect information.
- mastax 5y ago
  Carlin spends a lot of time telling you where he gets information, who he's quoting from, how reliable they are, what the historical consensus is, etc. In a word, historiography. That's not to say he never gets anything wrong, he and his researchers aren't steeped in the subject for their whole careers so they'll miss things. He is biased towards the exciting stories and sources, but usually qualifies them with "I'll tell you this fun story but historians disagree about X Y Z because of A". I'll have to look into the criticisms but my impression just from listening is far better than any other pop history.
  - rjtavares 5y ago
    From what I read, historians generally like him. The main criticism is that he sometimes uses outdated sources or oversimplifies stuff.
    - UncleMeat 5y ago
      I've heard somewhat mixed things from my historian friends. But you'll be happy to hear that "sometimes uses outdated sources or oversimplifies stuff" is a common criticism of basically all academic history written outside of the last 20 years, so he is in decent company.
elevaet 5y ago
When I first heard Dan Carlin's macho vocal persona, I expected a very hawkish and USA-centric view of history. But he completely defied my bias. He really makes an effort to present a balanced and nuanced view of history, from all perspectives in a conflict. Thanks for the tip on part VI, I've been eagerly awaiting the release of that.
- piyh 5y ago
  Carlin's interview on the Lex Fridman podcast was great.
- 1986 5y ago
  His voice sounds / sounded so uncannily like Alex Jones' (maybe just to me?) that I had a similar initial reaction, and similarly was pleasantly surprised
JoeDaDude 5y ago
Coincidentally, I just started reading Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire by Richard B. Frank [1]. The very first chapter details survivor accounts of the March 45 fire bombing of Tokyo. Later chapters go into the difficulties LeMay had when trying to precision bomb industrial facilities and how ineffective the bombing was. [1] https://www.google.com/books/edition/Downfall/cJXtAAAAMAAJ?hl=en https://www.google.com/books/edition/Downfall/cJXtAAAAMAAJ?h... For a general; history of bombing as a tactic, I recommend A History of Bombing by Sven Lindqvist [2]. A short and unusual book in that the author gives instructions on how to read the book in two ways, either chronologically as a history book, or thematically, following the themes and ideas of bombing strategies. [2]. https://books.google.com/books?id=Wws_HAAACAAJ&newbks=0&hl=en&source=newbks_fb https://books.google.com/books?id=Wws_HAAACAAJ&newbks=0&hl=e...
mezentius 5y ago
Carlin's podcast on this subject, summarizing other well-researched histories, gives a much better idea of why firebombing and the atomic bomb were considered within bounds. The Japanese government was willing to throw away an appalling number of military and civilian lives in order to delay inevitable defeat, or at the very least attempt to bargain for better terms on which to end the war. (Carlin accurately describes this as "a form of political murder.") In places like Burma, New Guinea, and Peleliu, Japanese soldiers were thrown into utterly hopeless actions in order to inflict as many Allied casualties as possible. Beyond this, Japanese soldiers generally refused to surrender, and often had to be killed to the last man. Firebombing and the atomic bomb, while obviously subjects of internal bureaucratic and ideological jockeying, were considered viable primarily because they might shorten a long and very brutal war. Whether they did so or not is debatable, but we'd be on very shaky ground to debate the morality of the attempt from the comfort of posterity. I don't particularly care for Gladwell's glib nonsense, but I also find fault with the sort of anti-Gladwell Brooklyn-podcaster history (e.g. https://thebaffler.com/latest/narrative-napalm-kulwin https://thebaffler.com/latest/narrative-napalm-kulwin) that engages in righteous hand-wringing over supposed American atrocities, without once mentioning any of the context above, nor Japan's atrocities in China in the 1930s leading up to the conflict, nor the very obvious fact that America didn't start the war.
- coliveira 5y ago
  This is a bunch of nonsense. The real reason Americans wanted to finish the war with Japan quickly (at any cost) is that they were afraid that Russia would invade Japan.
  - ww2buff 5y ago
    There was a faction of right wing Republicans who wanted to end the war quickly in order to forestall Russia, but they wanted to end the war quickly by forgoing an invasion and allowing Japan to surrender conditionally, without an occupation or a forced change of government or constitution, because they thought an armed and relatively intact militarist-run Japan would be a good buffer against the Soviet Union. This was unacceptable to the liberal new deal faction running the US government, who believed that a disarmed and democratic Japan was the only way to prevent another war. “They only wanted to keep the commies out” is a nicely glib line, but one that glosses over the many, many political considerations that shaped the end of the pacific war and reveals an almost total ignorance of the scholarship on the subject

mayneack 5y ago

Carlin actually had Gladwell on recently to talk about the book. He wasn't anywhere close to as critical as this review, however. https://pca.st/5rvqo9kz https://pca.st/5rvqo9kz

InitialLastName 5y ago
> He wasn't anywhere close to as critical as this review, however. When someone with a much (much!) bigger following than you parachutes into your field and joins you on your platform (where you are currently covering the same topic), you maybe withhold your most severe criticism of their work.

billfruit 5y ago

Barbara Tuchman's "Stilwell and the American Experience in China" is a good booklength treatment of WW2 in Asia, also prominently featuring a prominent proponent of air warfare, General Chennault.

afterburner 5y ago

Carlin has also been criticized for being loose with history in favour of story. Carlin's podcast series are much, much longer than Gladwell's typical podcast treatments though, so at least it lets him include a lot more details.

triceratops 5y ago
> Carlin has also been criticized for being loose with history in favour of story. How so? He seems to be pretty upfront in talking about his sources, quoting from them, and saying repeatedly that he's a journalist and not a historian.
- sheepybloke 5y ago
  In one of his podcasts, he talks about the "pendulum of history" and how it swings, depending on the time, between more story (ie more emotion and look as to feelings of the time) or more fact (ie 10k people died in this battle). He mentioned that he preferred to be on the more story side; giving eyewitness accounts and showing the emotion of the history. I wouldn't put him near Gladwell though, but on the more story side of the pendulum.
  - InitialLastName 5y ago
    I think there's a difference between Dan Carlin's "I'm interested in exploring what it felt like to be in some moment of history, and why the people there made the decisions they made" and Malcolm Gladwell's "I'm going to cherrypick facts until my 'history' fits the just-so fable I'm trying to tell".
  - triceratops 5y ago
    Being on the "story" side is IMO a large part of his podcast's appeal. You can get the bare facts of a battle or event on Wikipedia, and that's interesting in its own way. After listening to an episode on Carlin's podcast, I usually go look it up on Wikipedia, to get a different picture. But talking about the people who were in that event, leaning heavily on eyewitness accounts and primary sources, all of that makes the events come alive. I think both are valid and important viewpoints on history. I think history in school would be a lot more interesting if it took a similar approach. Looking at an historical event at more of a ground-level is nowhere near the same thing as giving outright incorrect information.
mastax 5y ago
Carlin spends a lot of time telling you where he gets information, who he's quoting from, how reliable they are, what the historical consensus is, etc. In a word, historiography. That's not to say he never gets anything wrong, he and his researchers aren't steeped in the subject for their whole careers so they'll miss things. He is biased towards the exciting stories and sources, but usually qualifies them with "I'll tell you this fun story but historians disagree about X Y Z because of A". I'll have to look into the criticisms but my impression just from listening is far better than any other pop history.
- rjtavares 5y ago
  From what I read, historians generally like him. The main criticism is that he sometimes uses outdated sources or oversimplifies stuff.
  - UncleMeat 5y ago
    I've heard somewhat mixed things from my historian friends. But you'll be happy to hear that "sometimes uses outdated sources or oversimplifies stuff" is a common criticism of basically all academic history written outside of the last 20 years, so he is in decent company.

elevaet 5y ago

When I first heard Dan Carlin's macho vocal persona, I expected a very hawkish and USA-centric view of history. But he completely defied my bias. He really makes an effort to present a balanced and nuanced view of history, from all perspectives in a conflict. Thanks for the tip on part VI, I've been eagerly awaiting the release of that.

piyh 5y ago
Carlin's interview on the Lex Fridman podcast was great.
1986 5y ago
His voice sounds / sounded so uncannily like Alex Jones' (maybe just to me?) that I had a similar initial reaction, and similarly was pleasantly surprised

JoeDaDude 5y ago

Coincidentally, I just started reading Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire by Richard B. Frank [1]. The very first chapter details survivor accounts of the March 45 fire bombing of Tokyo. Later chapters go into the difficulties LeMay had when trying to precision bomb industrial facilities and how ineffective the bombing was. [1] https://www.google.com/books/edition/Downfall/cJXtAAAAMAAJ?hl=en https://www.google.com/books/edition/Downfall/cJXtAAAAMAAJ?h... For a general; history of bombing as a tactic, I recommend A History of Bombing by Sven Lindqvist [2]. A short and unusual book in that the author gives instructions on how to read the book in two ways, either chronologically as a history book, or thematically, following the themes and ideas of bombing strategies. [2]. https://books.google.com/books?id=Wws_HAAACAAJ&newbks=0&hl=en&source=newbks_fb https://books.google.com/books?id=Wws_HAAACAAJ&newbks=0&hl=e...

mezentius 5y ago

Carlin's podcast on this subject, summarizing other well-researched histories, gives a much better idea of why firebombing and the atomic bomb were considered within bounds. The Japanese government was willing to throw away an appalling number of military and civilian lives in order to delay inevitable defeat, or at the very least attempt to bargain for better terms on which to end the war. (Carlin accurately describes this as "a form of political murder.") In places like Burma, New Guinea, and Peleliu, Japanese soldiers were thrown into utterly hopeless actions in order to inflict as many Allied casualties as possible. Beyond this, Japanese soldiers generally refused to surrender, and often had to be killed to the last man. Firebombing and the atomic bomb, while obviously subjects of internal bureaucratic and ideological jockeying, were considered viable primarily because they might shorten a long and very brutal war. Whether they did so or not is debatable, but we'd be on very shaky ground to debate the morality of the attempt from the comfort of posterity. I don't particularly care for Gladwell's glib nonsense, but I also find fault with the sort of anti-Gladwell Brooklyn-podcaster history (e.g. https://thebaffler.com/latest/narrative-napalm-kulwin https://thebaffler.com/latest/narrative-napalm-kulwin) that engages in righteous hand-wringing over supposed American atrocities, without once mentioning any of the context above, nor Japan's atrocities in China in the 1930s leading up to the conflict, nor the very obvious fact that America didn't start the war.

coliveira 5y ago
This is a bunch of nonsense. The real reason Americans wanted to finish the war with Japan quickly (at any cost) is that they were afraid that Russia would invade Japan.
- ww2buff 5y ago
  There was a faction of right wing Republicans who wanted to end the war quickly in order to forestall Russia, but they wanted to end the war quickly by forgoing an invasion and allowing Japan to surrender conditionally, without an occupation or a forced change of government or constitution, because they thought an armed and relatively intact militarist-run Japan would be a good buffer against the Soviet Union. This was unacceptable to the liberal new deal faction running the US government, who believed that a disarmed and democratic Japan was the only way to prevent another war. “They only wanted to keep the commies out” is a nicely glib line, but one that glosses over the many, many political considerations that shaped the end of the pacific war and reveals an almost total ignorance of the scholarship on the subject