Fall of Civilizations

Review by Ian Dumas

The short: 

The Fall of Civilizations Podcast digs through the ruins of the many collapsed civilizations of the past and investigates how the people of that time lived and how they might have felt as their world fell apart.

The long: 

Every episode of the Fall of Civilizations Podcast laboriously lays out one civilization’s rise to prominence and prosperity, how their citizens lived their life and saw the world around them, and finally how, and why, that civilization would eventually collapse. The beauty of this podcast comes from its format. Rather than being a discussion of the civilization, each episode is a narrative of that civilization’s journey from creation to collapse. The narrator and creator of the series, Paul Cooper, has a background in writing historical fiction and his narrative style and attention to detail breathes life back into civilizations that have been gone for thousands of years. Each episode is also filled with primary sources, often read in their original language, translated, and presented by voice actors to further enliven the subject. Of the 14 episodes that have been released, only 4 have covered the Middle East directly with episodes 2, 8, 11, and 13 covering the Bronze Age Collapse, Sumer, Byzantium, and the Assyria respectively. Still, echoes of the Middle East can be felt in most, if not all, other episodes.

To listen or not to listen:

Absolutely listen to this podcast. The Fall of Civilizations Podcast will bring long-dead civilizations back to life in a way that no other media can. And if the admittedly long runtimes (most episodes are well over 2 hours) don’t seem like they’re for you, every episode is available as a video on YouTube.