Mike Duncan (podcaster)

Duncan began The History of Rome in 2007, after failing to find any good podcasts about ancient history.[9] The project turned into an award-winning weekly podcast which aired for 179 episodes until 2012 and was downloaded more than 100 million times.[7][9]

The podcast covers the time period from the origin of the Roman Kingdom to the fall of the Western Roman Empire, focusing on the most accepted chain of events according to historical consensus.

In the 2010 Podcast Awards, The History of Rome won best educational podcast.[10]

Revolutions has aired since September 15, 2013. The podcast covers modern political revolutions, beginning with the English Revolution.[11] Each season is dedicated to one revolution or revolutionary wave and discusses the revolution through a chronological narrative approach like in his podcast The History of Rome, but the shorter time periods for each season allow greater detail for individual events. Seasons begin with one or two episodes dedicated to the pre-history of the revolution and its causes, sometimes highlighting when and how the revolution could have been avoided. Initially, Duncan planned to limit his podcast to 12-15 episodes per revolution, but he ran over that self-imposed limit with the English Civil War and the American Revolution and decided to give up on it for the French Revolution, which ultimately ended up being 54 episodes not counting supplemental episodes. The series has covered the English Civil War, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, Simon Bolivar and Gran Colombia, the July Revolution, the Revolutions of 1848, the Paris Commune, the Mexican Revolution, and the Russian Revolution, which in January 2020 was announced to be the show's last.[12]

Revolutions also has supplemental episodes that are special episodes not counted in the normal number of episodes and of varying length compared to roughly half-hour normal episodes – some of them focus in depth on a particular topic or person, while others are verbatim reproductions of historical texts such as the United States Declaration of Independence or the French Declaration of the Rights of the Man and of the Citizen.

Duncan drew inspiration for the Revolutions podcast out of a deep personal interest from his teenage years, "When I was really getting into history when I was a teenager, the American Revolution was my favorite period of American history. I spent a whole period of time being really into the Russian Revolution."[13] As he had done with The History of Rome podcast, Duncan has run a series of tours to accompany the podcast which visit historical sites mentioned on the show.[14] Publications including Time,[15] Popular Mechanics,[16] and The Guardian [17] have included Revolutions on their lists of recommended podcasts. Benjamin Wittes, after hearing the first two episodes of Revolutions, called the podcast "informative, engaging, told in Duncan's usual easygoing, somewhat comic style that packs a lot of history into relatively brief discussions".[18] The introduction to each episode is a clip from Joseph Haydn's Symphony 92 (Oxford).[19]

1. English Revolution, aired September 2013 to January 2014 (16 episodes, 4 supplementals)
2. American Revolution, aired February to May 2014 (15 episodes, 2 supplementals)
3. French Revolution, aired July 2014 to November 2015 (55 episodes, 5 supplementals, 1 PSA)
4. Haitian Revolution, aired December 2015 to April 2016 (19 episodes, 1 supplemental)[20]
5. Spanish American wars of independence, aired June 2016 to February 2017 (27 episodes, 1 supplemental)
6. July Revolution, aired March to May 2017 (7 episodes, 5 supplementals)[21]
7. Revolutions of 1848, aired July 2017 to April 2018 (33 episodes, 0 supplementals)
8. Paris Commune, aired from May 2018 to June 2018 (8 episodes, 0 supplementals)
9. Mexican Revolution, aired August 2018 to March 2019 (27 episodes, 0 supplementals)[22]
10. Russian Revolution pt 1, aired from May 2019[22] to April 2020 (39 episodes, 0 supplementals)
11. Russian Revolution pt 2, aired from January 3, 2021 to current day.[23]

Duncan published The History of Rome: The Republic, a collection of edited transcripts from the first 46 episodes of the podcast, opening with the founding of the Roman Kingdom and ending with the breakdown of the Roman Republic.[24]

On October 24, 2017, Duncan published The Storm Before The Storm, a non-fiction work which explores Rome between 146-78 BC, the period predating the end of the Roman Republic.[25] It entered the New York Times best seller list Hardcover Non-Fiction on the eighth place during its first week.[26] In an interview with the Washington Post Worldview, Duncan claimed his aim for the book was to 'pull back two generations' (from the time of Caesar) 'and ask, “What was it that opened the cracks in the foundation of the Republic?”'[27]

The book received widespread praise, with many reviewers noting how the events described in the book portend to modern times. Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare Blog wrote "Never has a book about history that's two millennia old been so timely...You'll learn as much about the problems we face today from this book as from any newspaper",[28] and a review in the Huffington Post praised his "congenial style", claiming that he "zeros in on Rome’s polarization between “optimates” (conservatives) and “populares” (populists), the disintegration of participatory democracy, and the concomitant rise in inequality, uncivil discourse, and violence. The parallels with modern times, and particularly contemporary America, leap off the page".[29]

Duncan is currently writing his third book, Hero Of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution, about the Marquis de Lafayette during the American Revolution and the French Revolution. It is set to be released in the end of August, 2021.