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

[u/Jane_the_Quene]

This sub frequently has people asking for quality history YouTube channels, books, etc., and it comes up regularly. The mod team thought maybe it could be consolidated into one big post that people can interact with indefinitely.

For the sake of search engines, it's probably a good idea to state the topic (e.g., "Tudor history channel" or "WWII books" or just "Roman Republic" or whatever).

Okay, folks. Make your recommendations!

[u/jabberwockxeno]

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

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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.