The Sons Of History

Alan Wakim and Dustin Bass discuss the past five years and six seasons of the podcast as they say adieu. After 200 plus episodes, The Sons of History podcast has come to an end.

A little thank you note:

Today we release the final episode of our podcast. Six seasons. Five years. 200+ episodes. Bestselling authors. Award-winning historians. Guests from across America, France, the UK, and the Republic of Ireland. We have made so many friends and have been honored by our guests and our listeners. Our goal was always to make learning history a fun experience. Those of you who put up with our (Dustin and Alan) bantering and bickering, we thank you. It was always part of the show (just in case you thought otherwise). We always warned our guests before recording that we might start digging at each other and not to be alarmed. 😂 We hope that all of you who listened learned something, whether it be about the Ancient Assyrians, the Greco-Persian War, the fall of the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire, the Vikings, the Hundred Years’ War, Christopher Columbus, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, colonialism, slavery, the US Constitution and the Republican form of government, the expansion of the American West, the Gilded Age, World War 1, the Interwar Years, World War 2, the Cold War, the fall of Communism, and everything in between. Our podcast will remain available on the various platforms and on our YouTube channel, so you can always revisit the many subjects and encounter again the varied guests who hailed from places like Harvard, Yale, Georgetown, U of Virginia, Hillsdale, U of Nebraska, the Hudson Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, and all those independent historians who have dedicated decades of their lives to the pursuit of history and truth. We hope that we might have been even the slightest bit of an inspiration for you to become interested in history and to discover how the world works and how its inner workings are far more complicated than we might credit it. To all of you who have listened and will listen in the future, we give you our heartfelt thanks.
- Alan Wakim & Dustin Bass
The Sons of History

After World War I, Marshal Philippe Pétain was one of France's greatest military heroes. For decades he was held in the highest esteem, but then France fell to the Nazis in 1940 and Pétain instigated the signing of the armistice and began a collaboration with the Third Reich that has led many to wonder how he could do such a thing. Julian Jackson, preeminent historian and author of numerous works on World War II France, joined the podcast to discuss the Marshal and his fall from grace. Pétain, the subject of his latest work "France on Trial," is front and center during this conversation.

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1066 is one of the most famous years in history. It established the Norman duke, now known as William the Conqueror, as king of England. But it was hardly as simple as winning at the Battle of Hastings. Don Hollway, the author of “Battle for the Island Kingdom,” joins the podcast to discuss how the Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, Normans, and others fought for the English throne over the decades and centuries. Hollway guides us through this violent era, the betrayals, the murders, the marriages, the mayhem, and how the Church and the belief in divine destiny helped establish the throne.

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Michael Livingston is on the case again. He joins the podcast to discuss how a 600 year tradition about the location of the Battle of Agincourt and many of its teachings about the battle could very well be wrong. Just as he did with the Battle of Crécy, Livingston makes a very convincing argument that tradition has again usurped historical fact. We discuss the Hundred Years' War, Henry V, Shakespeare, and more in this fun and enlightening conversation. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe.

The Assyrian Empire is considered by many the first great empire. For several centuries this Mesopotamian people conquered and dominated the world of the Near East. Ancient and modern military scholar Mark Healy joins the podcast to discuss these ancient people, their kings, their methods for dominance, and how this empire suddenly came to an end.

Mark Healy's first book Warriors of the Old Testament was published in 1990. He has written extensively on military subjects of the ancient worlds of Egypt, Assyria, and Rome, to the modern world, specifically World War II. His specialties on World War II history are on German armor, U-boats, and the Luftwaffe. We will be talking with him about his latest book “The Ancient Assyrians: Empire and Army, 883-612 BC.”

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Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge were the political power players of the early 20th century. Their relationship proved politically beneficial to both men, but their friendship went far deeper than mere politics. We discuss with Laurence Jurdem how these two men helped shape America from the early 1900s onward.Laurence Jurdem is an adjunct professor of history at Fairfield University and Fordham College’s Lincoln Center campus. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and San Francisco Chronicle. He is the author of Paving the Way for Reagan: The Influence of Conservative Media on US Foreign Policy, and his latest work The Rough Rider and the Professor: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the Friendship that Changed American History.If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe.

How did one Spartan defeat thousands of Athenians? It comes down to strategy, and, of course, having others to fight the war. When the Athenians landed on the shores of Sicily, they nearly convinced the Sicilians to acquiesce. But time was not one the Athenians' side. Dr. Paul Rahe joins the podcast to discuss Spartan strategy and how they used proxy wars to enable their ultimate victory over Athens.

Paul Rahe is the Roger and Martha Mertz Visiting Fellow in Classics at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is the professor of history at Hillsdale College where he holds the Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in Western Heritage. He chairs the Board of Trustees of the Institute of Current World Affairs. And just last year, the University of Piraeus in Greece honored him with the Themistocles Statesmanship Award.

He is the author of numerous works, including Republics Ancient and Modern: Classical Republicanism and the American Revolution, Against Throne and Altar, Montesquieu and the Logic of Liberty, four volumes on the grand strategy of classical Sparta - one of which we are going to be discussing this episode, Sparta’s Sicilian Proxy War.

William Maz, author of The Bucharest Dossier and The Bucharest Legacy, talks post-Communism Romania, the reign of the oligarchs of Eastern Europe, and, of course, spies. In this episode, we dig into the ongoing struggle in Russia and Ukraine, and the evolution of secret police and intelligence communities.

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Nathanael Greene was arguably George Washington's most trusted general, and arguably the American Revolution's most consequential. Greene led the Southern War Department, and his decisions were pivotal in defeating the British. Salina Baker, author of the new book "The Line of Splendor: A Novel of Nathanael Greene and the American Revolution," joins the podcast to discuss the great general and his life.

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Is war no longer a tenable option? Dustin Bass and Alan Wakim discuss how nuclear power and biological advancements in warfare has created a deterrent to war, as well as how missed opportunities and the unwillingness to win wars has led to a culture of political and military indecision.

The Sons of History also answer a request from a review on ancient history sources.

For more suggestions on ancient history sources, see below:

Writers from the Classical Period:

Plutarch, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Livy, Cassius Dio, Suetonius, Flavius Josephus, Sallust, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Pliny the Elder, Julius Caesar, ArrianQuintus of Smyrna, Diodorus Siculus, Herodian, Ammianus Marcellinus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Procopius, Justinian, Lucan, Appian, Aristotle, Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Cicero, Seneca, Cato the Elder, Cato the Younger, Heraclitus, Epictetus, Hesiod, Homer, Virgil, Apollonius of Rhodes, Ovid, Aristophanes, Aeschylus, Sophocles, EuripidesIsidore of Seville, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, and Sun Tzu.

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