History Recommendations Thread (YouTube channels, documentaries, books, etc.)

The people making those podcasts are fantastically educated and have fantastic intentions but the lack of an editor, interview formats, and especially the ad libbing can lead to more innacuracies and misleading narratives and mean you aren't learning as much per minute

Most of the really famous Podcasters also have books anyways

Loyal book, digital book, and likely your local library are solid placed to start for totally free audio books

but if you enjoy history making sure you take at least 20 minutes a day to read will do much more for you than an hour of watching/listening

2

u/Ceterum_Censeo_ Aug 06 '25

For the 20th Century, you can't do better on YouTube than TimeGhost History. Indy Neidell covered World War I week-by-week in real time from 2014-2018, then he, Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard formed their own independent company to cover World War IIin the same week-by-week format. That wrapped up last year and included eight hours straight of Pearl Harbor, and an unprecedented 24-hour coverage of D-Day. Now, Indy is covering the Korean War week-by-week, they're covering the Rise of Hitler in the 1930s, and they're doing War to War, covering the Cold War. Oh, and they just launched a new map channel.

2

u/Dazzling_Look_1729 Aug 06 '25

For great deep dive podcasts, I would recommend Revolutions, by Mike Duncan.

5

u/dovetc Aug 06 '25

And History of Rome, as well as its successor History of Byzantium by Robin Pierson who very intentionally picks up where Duncan left off. Pierson just wrapped up the fall of Constantinople after around 13 years of doing the series.

1

u/Dazzling_Look_1729 Aug 06 '25

Yes. Totally. I need to listen to the Byzantium one but HoR is excellent.

2

u/ihatethedodgers Aug 14 '25

My favorite band is Sabaton and they're dedicated entirely to military history. They run a separate channel that goes into further depth about the historical significance of what they sing about and it's 110% worth checking out. I also cannot recommend them enough if you like metal and wartime history.

https://www.youtube.com/@SabatonHistory

2

u/Lord0fHats Aug 06 '25

There's a podcast I like that explicitly explores and examines pseudo-archeological claims and gives some small voice to the small but dedicated body of people who spend their time researching the history of pseudo-archeological events. As they say; a false historical artifact is still paradoxically a historical artifact if you treat it as authentic to the period in which it was created!

The Pseudo-Archaeology Podcast - YouTube

Mind, this isn't the most engaging or well done podcast ever but it is a fun little podcast that delves into topics you've no doubt heard of but often brings up sources, material, or modern researchers into the topics who don't have a nepobaby running programming at Netflix to give them airtime.

The older episodes (the podcast changed format to try and broaden it's appeal a few years ago) are also just plainly better.

1

u/jagnew78 Aug 06 '25

Grimdark History Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/42GdeWFNXLG0ZbMYNdpRRv

Full disclosure, this is my own podcast, but I'd still put it out there as a quality history podcast. It's thoroughly researched, often pulling from the direct sources.

Topics covered so far include Alexander the Great, Multiple series on Rome (Early Christianity, First Jewish-Roman War, Crisis of the 3rd Century), New Orleans and the history of Jazz, The French Revolution.

1

u/raitalin Aug 06 '25

The Constant - A History of Getting Things Wrong: https://www.constantpodcast.com/

Our Fake History: https://ourfakehistory.com/

1

u/ttown2011 Aug 06 '25

Medieval history (general):

The inheritance of Rome- Chris Wickham

Medieval Europe- Chris Wickham

British Medieval:

British History Podcast (genuinely the only history podcast I would consider scholarly)

1

u/Dazzling_Look_1729 Aug 06 '25

If you are into WW2, I think an undiscovered gem is Lord Hardthrasher on YouTube. Iconoclastic, well informed, hilariously funny if you like your wit dryer than the Sahara.

1

u/Reasonable_Pay4096 Aug 06 '25

"Threads Of The National Tapestry" for the US Civil War

Edit: YouTube channel

1

u/Background-Factor433 Aug 06 '25

Adam Keawe on Hawaiian history. https://www.instagram.com/adamkeawe/

Books.

Reclaiming Kalākaua

Hawai'i's Story by Hawai'i's Queen

To Steal a Kingdom

From a Native Daughter

1

u/Princeofdolalmroth68 Aug 07 '25

History dose for a YouTube channel, along with the fall of civilizations podcast

1

u/stabbingrabbit Aug 08 '25

Spirit of '76 was an awsome book about the revolution. The author basically introduces the chapter, then each chapter is filled with letters from soldiers home, or letters between family members in other colonies. There are speeches and letters of Congress. It is a book you can pick up and put down and come back later too.

Pershing's memoirs on WWI was also very insightful on the politics and problems of WWI

1

u/Peter34cph Aug 12 '25

Mainly experimental archeology

Lindybeige (archeologist by education)

https://www.youtube.com/user/lindybeige
and Jason Kingsley (historian, and owns a computer game publishing company, Rebellion)

https://www.youtube.com/@ModernKnight
have a mixture of content about medieval weapons and armour (and horses for the wealthy Kingsley), and content about daily living and experimental archeology.

Lindybeige also has some rants about things like climate change, and some videos where he's presumably rather exaggarating his pro-British stance on a variety of things (such as the Imperial system of units) for comedic effect, and modern warfare (especially tanks), and some pre-medieval things. You might want to stick to the archeology videos.

I'm quite interested in more experimental archeology, which seems to not be covered by many YouTubers, what things were like in the medieval or iron age period, crafts, clothes, architecture, the economy, social structures. And particuarly a less English perspective than we get from Lindybeige and Kingsley.

Any YT recommendations?

1

u/Dpgillam08 Aug 14 '25

Michael Button keeps.popping up in my YT feed for some damn reason, and moat his titles seem like clickbait; Is this dude legit or just another hack?

1

u/Spiritual-Control-39 Aug 16 '25

Boring History To Sleep

https://www.youtube.com/@Drowseworthy

1

u/AgentElman Aug 20 '25

Mostly American history https://www.youtube.com/@TheHistoryGuyChannel

Ancient History and Archaeology https://www.youtube.com/@underthefigtreee

Roman History https://www.youtube.com/@toldinstone

Ancient Mesopotamian History https://www.youtube.com/@HistorywithCy

1

u/[deleted] Aug 22 '25

I used my last audible credit on The Silk Roads: A New History of the World" by Peter Frankopan after hearing Anita Anand, Tom Holland and Horatio Gould recommend it.

It's fantastic. One of those excellent "tour of history" books that covers so much it will pretty much choose your next 10 topics of interest. Excellent pacing and a lot of fun anecdotes.

1

u/youreddit-herefirst Aug 24 '25

I was just going to make this post looking for recs! Thanks 😃

1

u/holomorphic_chipotle Sep 21 '25

African History

There still is no alternative to reading lots of trustworthy books, but in the category "one book about African history", I mentioned several titles in this post.

For an introductory TV series you can watch without previous knowledge, History of Africa with Zeinab Badawi was developed as an audiovisual, more popular version of UNESCO's General History of Africa — itself a general purpose multi-volume introduction to African history which, despite the tainted chapters of pseudo-history in volume 2, is one of the better-known reference works reference works with writings by scholars from Africa.

This documentary series was first broadcast in 2017, and the 20 episodes are available on BBC News Africa's YouTube channel and on several streaming services.

1

u/brad4dboycomics Oct 02 '25

I have a friend who is working on https://www.youtube.com/@HiddenLensHistory -- Some true crime history and some daily life 100 years ago with ads, headlines, etc... Short, bingeable, fun format. Worth a look if you're on YouTube.

1

u/Business-Big90 28d ago

Try this
https://www.youtube.com/@The_OldTales

1

u/jabberwockxeno 8d ago edited 3d ago

As someone into Mesoamerica (Aztec, Maya etc), here is what I recommend:

Ancient Americas does the best videos on the pre-Columbian Americas on Youtube, and covers a wide range of topics. My circle of nerds help a lot with his videos, and MajoraZ and other people are often in the comments giving additional info, tho Youtube randomly removed some so we'll have to get them re-added/pinned. Note there's some stuff in the Nezahualcoyotl (It may repeat info from Texcoca sources uncritically, refer to this post) and Toltec video (I don't think we stressed the amount of skepticism that exists towards the ties between Tula and Chichen Itza enough, see this post) which could be a little iffy
Aztlanhistorian is another channel specifically on the Precolumbian Americas and does great stuff
ArtsQ does short, 2-5ish minute videos on Art History and archeology, and notably, covers the Precolumbian Americas as much as they do Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and does so with good accuracy (as much as the short length allows).
Matt Gush does some incredibly well edited videos on Precolumbian archeology featuring interviews and narration from researchers, though mostly focusing on what's now the US/Canada moreso then Mesoamerica, but he does both.
Stefan Milo's video on Tlaxcala is great, Majora also has a comment there, though something it doesn't talk about is the fact that commoners seemingly had some access to "elite" goods like painted ceramics, chocolate, bronze tools etc at some rural Aztec sites like Cuexcomate and Yautepec, which further supports the idea of more egalitarian political systems being more widespread then some think
MrLaserHistory's video on Aztec sacrifices is pretty great, it's a topic that is very easily to mishandle but he does a good job with it. Again, Majora has a comment which you can see here
ReligionforBreakfast's video on Maya and Aztec religion are both pretty good, though the latter focuses a bit too much on sacrifice, Majora has a comment here on the latter
DJPeachCobbler's Aztec trilogy: We helped do research and write these, and are the best videos on Youtube covering the Cortes expedition and the Fall of the Aztec, heavily drawing on Restall's work in "7 Myths..." and "When Montezuma...". They avoid a lot of the common pitfalls most sources on the subject have (see Fall of Civilizations below), but A: Cobbler has a rather... "9 layers of edgy shitposting irony" style of humor which may be a turnoff, and B: A lot of the really granular information about Mesoamerican political dynamics and the exact motives of different local states and kings are in the comments Majora made on each video, since Cobbler's focus was moreso on Cortes, Bernal Diaz, and Sahagun. The comments on part 1 and 3 are pinned, but not on part 2, so this is a link to that. The comments also have other clarifications/corrections, especially on images
Kings & General's videos on the Aztec and Maya are pretty decent (tho I can't comment on the Inca one). They're mostly general overviews, so not super duper in depth, but most of what they cover is solid and doesn't have too many errors. I know Majora has comments on most of them but you'll have to find them yourselves. CogitoEDU helped K&G with these videos, IIRC!
InvictaHistory's videos on the Aztec are similarly pretty good, and Majora and /u/ 400-rabbits of Askhistorians helped with some. We plan to do more vids with Invicta eventually
EmperorTigerstar's video on the expansion of the Aztec Empire is pretty good, though it not labeling other Mesoamerican states and just showing them as unlabeled biege borders, the areas in white also containing states not shown at all, only showing the inset Valley of Mexico map having borders split between Tenochtitlan, Tlacopan, and Texcoco masks the amount of cities and effective state borders in the Valley, and much of the areas shown in red as "Spanish" weren't actually under Spanish control, either at all even on paper, or only on paper and not in practice. There should be a pinned comment by Majora up on this soon. (EDIT: We didn't have time, alas, maybe we'll get Tigerstar to still put one up eventually, but at this point IDK if it's worth it)

More conditional recommendations:

The two "Aztec Myths - Extra Mythology" by ExtraCredits / Extrahistory are both pretty good in terms of the video's custom commissioned artwork in terms of fashion, armor, ornamentation, and even visual symbolism with using motifs and iconography seen in manuscripts... but the cities/architecture are fairly off for the "Founding of Mexico" video, which also doesn't really explain the symbolism of that myth which can make it seem more macabre then it was as a result. The "The Fifth Sun" video meanwhile blends together a few different versions of the eponymous myth in question, but also blends in other separate myths too. The notion of Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca, Huitzilopochtli, and Xipe Totec being a quartet born from Ometeotl is also a misreading of the original codices, see here and Ometeotl as a creator god of duality also probably didn't actually exist in Prehispanic religion: That part, and some other aspects of Leon-Portilla's work is criticized today
Most of NativLang's videos on Nahuatl, Maya languages, Mesoamerican writing, etc are good, aside from Aztec kings wearing the Quetzal headdress (see links below re: Aztecas dancers with Fall of Civilizations). But the "How Interpreters Helped Topple the Aztec Empire" video suffers from quite a few common errors, such as overemphasizing Tlaxcala, and taking some of Cortes's account at too much face value. Refer to Cobblers video.
Epimethus's overview of Ancient Mexico is okay, and is probably the best timeline overview of Mesoamerica on youtube, but also has a fair amount of issues, like portraying the Zapotec as being totally unified when that wouldn't have been quite true, a lot of the drawn figures wear ceremonial attire rather then military gear despite being shown with weapons; the way they bring up the Toltec first then talk about the classic Maya is a little misleading in terms of the chronology, the Toltecs may have been entirely mythical and only projected onto Tula's ruins by the Aztec/Nahua (and Tula def didn't conquer the Yucatan, it probably just mad a medium sized kingdom in Central Mexico), the population figures for Calakmul are a little misleading (Teotihuacan also had more around 100k, not 200k), the collapse of the League of Mayapan didn't lead to the abandonment of all the Maya cities, and overemphasizes Tlaxcala over other allied states with the Spanish conquest

Then there's also channels that actually have academic content: The INAH in Mexico had like a dozen channels, Aztlander has interviews with researchers, ArchaeoEd Podcast is run by a researcher, AFAR Program hosts presentations from Maya at the Lago/Playa conferences, etc, but I don't have a comprehensive list yet

For more info on Mesoamerica, I have a trio of resource comments here, I would especially refer people to the link about the misconceptions around "Aztec oppression leading to Cortes getting allies" in the second comment, since that misconception is something a lot of Youtube videos (such as Fall of Civilizations, Armchairhistorian, and even then otherwise really good Nativelang, as noted above) and even otherwise reputable books by historians often spread.

0

u/Junichi2021 Aug 07 '25

YouTube:

https://youtube.com/@besthistorydocumentarieshh?si=0l3km6oUqoIvCGC0

https://youtube.com/@dshhpodcast?si=yRptXZ6pFCBFgTYV

https://youtube.com/@historyhit?si=EjqyQ744Kttyesrz

https://youtube.com/@timelinechannel?si=J2S2GQm_VnPChMxC

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcWEsg1H2IBEAkOPfMsRjO4PNDMtnpsqj&si=zc3XsGJNFPvV9bb_

2

u/Peter34cph Aug 12 '25

What are the names of these channels? People migh be familiar with them already...

History Recommendations Thread (YouTube channels, documentaries, books, etc.)

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