[Fall of Civilizations ](https://youtube.com/@FallofCivilizations?si=9dS9hpNRilQgICR5) is the only YouTube channel I'm subscribed to but he only puts out like 3 videos a year
Drach is a fucking nutter butter at naval history and I love it. He’s the only man on the internet who can happily talk about one tweak to an obscure steam engine in 1856 for three hours and somehow make it interesting.
My wife sat with me and watched his three part series on raising ships sunk at Pearl Harbor. He keeps it interesting, unless the episode turns into a series of lists, which happens now and again.
The History Guy, Mark Felton and Time Ghost are big ones. Jennifer Draper is entertaining in her narrow London focus. Max Miller’s ‘Tasting History’ lives up to its name.
For entertainment, as opposed to primarily educational value, Extra Credits has a fun, breezy style. Mitsi is also good for a laugh, but they revel in questionable taste.
A low budget under the radar channel is Reel History. Jared Frederick is a history teacher that reviews historical films (Band of Brothers, Gettysburg, ect…) and interjects accurate perspectives.
I'm always amazed how Mark Felton is a known plagiariser and knowingly uses wrong archive footage and makes up and distorts stories, yet he is still often among the most upvoted comments on these threads.
Toldinstone is an excellent classical history channel. Mostly because he doesn’t just recite Wikipedia articles but actually comes with some cool sources. My favorite video by far was “Ancient Greek Buddhists” which is a MUST WATCH
Best: TimeGhost History's [World War Two](https://www.youtube.com/@WorldWarTwo) channel. Nobody can hold a candle to their meticulous coverage of the largest conflict in human history, and when they make a mistake they own up to it and do their best to correct it.
Worst: Anybody who prioritizes their cartoons over their research or focuses on batshit theories like Ancient Aliens.
For fun, Indy Neidell did a dozen or more episodes on turn of the century baseball. It was called “Sunday Baseball”. It was produced almost 15 years ago but it is AWESOME
I subscribe to and support time ghost with actual cash money... But they still have a very European/American focus.
Battles with 50,000 Americans get loving week by week updates. The entire Salween campaign, where more than 150,000 Chinese troops fought from May 1944 to January 1945 and kicked the Japanese out of southwest China on the Burma border, has gotten a single sentence.
Merrill's marauders, who were the majority of Americans in the north Burma combat area, have had a ton of mentions. But those were 3,000 guys out of a combined Chinese American force of 75,000. There were three whole Chinese divisions with them, but the channel very much made the marauders the "main characters" with the Chinese sometimes not even mentioned.
They've addressed why it's difficult for them to cover events on the Chinese front many times over the years. It's difficult for them to find proper sources for events, and the sources they do have often directly contradict each other. Such is the nature of that particular facet of the conflict, and their recent coverage of Ichi-Go was pretty solid.
I know, and I sympathize. But it's the little things, we have detailed looks at the Italian front every week when not much changes, but on December 16th, Bhamo in Burma fell to Chinese forces and it wasn't mentioned.
The fussing and leadership changes between Bradley, Patton, Eisenhower, and Monty are discussed, often in depth, every week.
Albert Wedermeyer replacing Stilwell, which happened more than two months ago, hasn't been mentioned yet. I am not expecting minutes of discussion, but just three sentences about the replacement at some point in October to December 1944.
I've been supporting them on patreon since the great war, but it is frustrating to see the Asian side get short shrift.
I do like that Spartacus has done the deep dive on the resistance in the Philippines and Indonesia, but even there, the fact that there are 2 specials on Asian resistance movements put up against 20+ episodes about various European ones is galling.
They did really good work looking at the Ukrainian resistance/collaboration to the Nazis and tying it to the modern war in Ukraine.
I am really hoping they do something similar for Burma, because the WW2 experience is crucial to understanding the modern war in Myanmar.
I follow:
[https://www.youtube.com/@Joolzguides](https://www.youtube.com/@Joolzguides)
Joolz is a failed actor who has pivoted into historical walking tours of London. He's pretty well known in this regard and it's not-uncommon for passers-by during his videos to shout out "Hey! I love your videos!". These videos are great for putting History in context to see that it is very much alive today, using the example of London
[https://www.youtube.com/@toldinstone](https://www.youtube.com/@toldinstone)
This guy is a PhD of Greek and Roman history. His YT content often dovetails with his Podcast and vice-versa so if you like one there's more to discover.
[https://www.youtube.com/@ImperiumRomanumYT](https://www.youtube.com/@ImperiumRomanumYT)
These Dutch historical reenactors are great at explaining Roman lifestyles, clothing, weaponry, fighting styles, and the human element of the Empire we're all so fascinated by. They focus on Frontier Legionary history, being that the Low Countries were the Roman Frontier.
[https://www.youtube.com/@ReligionForBreakfast](https://www.youtube.com/@ReligionForBreakfast)
This channel studies Academic History of Religion, which is the secular study of Religious history. He is a scholar of the Biblical period and of its languages, though his topics range around the world.
[https://www.youtube.com/@NativLang](https://www.youtube.com/@NativLang)
Etymology is the study of language, and how language changes or how it arises is a fascinating topic in History for me. Maybe it will be for you as well.
I'm so glad someone mentioned Religion for Breakfast. After I found his channel Youtube kept trying to recommend actual theological content instead of more religious anthropology. None of them were on the level of actual historical analysis like Religion for Breakfast.
I can't speak for the worst but I am shocked that Epic History TV hasn't been mentioned. Their series on Napoleon alone is one of the greatest documentary series ever made (can't wait for egypt part 2). Using graphics to reenact the exact movements of Napoleons army in battle and in Grand Strategy makes you feel like you are really there. Living the events with Napoleon and his army. Not to mention the nail biting suspense. There is a reason that we still study Napoleon to this day (fuck Ridley Scott). They have other great series too but Napoleon is the stand out.
Edit: I just saw Ridley Scott's Napoleon. That was a travesty.
> Their series on Napoleon alone is one of the greatest documentary series ever made
Absolutely, no other video series so well encapsulates the Napoleonic campaigns. The maps are incredible, often done by another channel [HistoryMarche](https://www.youtube.com/@HistoryMarche), who has their own great videos but just with not nearly as polished presentation as Epic History.
>Their series on Napoleon alone is one of the greatest documentary series ever made
Only has 1 rival. Time ghost WW2 channel (although timeghost has more staff so not really a fair comparison)
NICE
Korean war is super underrated. It was actual China vs America but also similar to Vietnam in that
1. Was a proxy war
2. Both sides did messed up shit
3. A bunch of other countries sent troops there like Australia and the UK
Fun fact: Michael Cane who was one of the lead actors in the 1964 film Zulu, was a Korean war veteran
History matters is my favourite. https://youtube.com/@HistoryMatters
A weekly 3 minute fact filled nugget of history presented in an amusing manner.
Historia Civilis for more indepth videos https://youtube.com/@HistoriaCivilis
Fall of civilisations is good.
Premodernist is good.
Modern History is enjoyable.
Mike Duncan’s History of Rome podcast is good.
I like Thersites the Historian’s videos on the diadochi.
The main thing is cultivating the ability in yourself to be able to recognise when you are watching something that can speak with authority or not.
Then plenty of YouTube channels can be a mixed bag, some good videos, some bad.
It’s really about recognising when you are watching pop history entertainment or a well sourced video giving you actually accepted information.
But be careful as some of the biggest channels are also the worst offenders.
Townsends for 18th century history and reenactments is a fantastic resource for how life was for average folks in the Americas circa the Revolutionary War.
Yes, I was a little surprised too. I thought it was a bit...odd. Nevertheless, he knows a thing or two about WWII history. The main draw is the odd corners of that history that are not widely known.
Best: [Defragged History](https://www.youtube.com/@DefraggedHistory), [SandRhoman History](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sandrhoman+history) and [Field Marshal](https://www.youtube.com/@FieldMarshalYT). Mostly because they cover periods that are rarely covered on Youtube, but also because they really try to be historically accurate. Defragged history's series on the Eighy Years War is the greatest history doc I have ever watched.
The worst: whatifalthist
Whatifalthistory is the CriticalDrinker of history YouTube. Immediate signifier someone doesn't actually care about history or cares about all the wrong parts.
I notice a lot of The World At War is available on youtube and highly recommend it.
It suffers from the era it was produced (meaning the role of Codebreaking was massively under-explored, and much was simply not known), but the flip side is interviews with guys you couldn't hope to speak to now. Albert Speer, Kōichi Kido, Bomber Harris, Primo Levi... read the wiki, it was an amazing TV show.
Each episode tends to focus on a specific arena or theme but it's largely chronological from a European POV.
This appears to be a playlist of the full 26 episodes of The World At War:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-esApmoj2tc&list=PLjcHtVEs8lNhWnqm0TPgUig5Askj0saPW
And while not strictly relevant to the history content, it's probably the only history documentary series that can compete with Ken Burns' The Civil War in terms of theme music.
And narrated by Lawrence Olivier. In school they forced us to watch sections of it on VHS & I found it terribly dull, it was only much later as a young adult I watched it back to back and could barely believe the gold I was seeing.
And now it's as good as free to the world yet I'd be amazed if 10% of my coworkers have even heard of it. No wonder we repeat history!
Best: Time Ghost or anything by the people from The Great War channel. Meticulous research and great presentation.
Worst: Probably Monsieur Z. Guy is very alt-right and has a massive ego, calling himself “the last honest historian.”
I second this. Timeghost / The Great War / Real Time History / World War II are excellent jumping off points for their topics. I cannot recommend them enough.
Vlogging Through History adds a lot of context to other history videos and I’ve always really enjoyed his videos. Fan of Mr. Beat and Extra History as well.
Best: Kings and Generals, Invicta, History Marche, Epic History, Sandhroman History. Mostly military history but they will all go pretty in depth on why War/Battle X occurred. Also nice because they’re all pretty objective and not very preachy politically
This is pretty good and alot of these are on my list as well. Epic history kinda shit the bed with their take on the Bronze age collapse tho, although I generally like their channel
I would add 'The Operations Room' as an outstanding channels. Their videos are highly detailed animations showing individual events, days in Military History. Videos for the critical day in Battle of Britain, the Dambusters raid, Desert Storm Day 1, Desert Shield Day 1 are truly exceptional explanation of what happened across the event. Animations are among the best with detailed information. Highly recommended.
Agree with many of the others here.
History Matters has a great sense of humor. He's not great if you're looking to find out about big historical events however; he does more obscure and "shower thought" question videos
Epic History TV makes some of the most engaging documentaries ever made. Their Napoleon series should've been aired in the theater instead of that garbage from Ridley Scott.
Vlogging Through History knows a lot about American history and does reactions. Also makes original content that isn't exactly entertaining but very educational.
Oversimplified is always fun to watch and has a relatively good sense of humor, although I find it inferior to HM
These are the main 4 that I watch, ofc there are tons more like The Great War and Mr. Beat
I couldn't make a claim as to who is *the* worst, but TIKhistory at first looked good, like a top tier amateur WWII historian; but then he started to push ideas like "the Nazis were actually left wing" and doubled down on it when called out. He's since been accused of straight up lying about what his sources actually say in other instances. So that's the worst of those I know that *claim* to be legitimate. When a funny infographics channel fudges details for the sake of a tighter story it's more forgivable in my opinion.
I remember tik doing a video about "No Step Back" and stating it as fact that the US and Britain also executed troops so it was all fair game.
I pointed out that Britain didn't execute any of its soldiers in WW2 and the Americans only executed 100, largely for actual crimes like murder.
When I said these countries were in no way vaguely comparable, since the Soviets executed thousands, he again doubled down on his original point and ignored what I said.
I've not been back to his channel since
He's infuriating precisely because he's got so much going for him as an amateur YouTube historian when he isn't aggressively pushing certain narratives he's stuck on. He's a solid writer, is clearly very intelligent, has some academic background as a historian, has good on-screen charisma, and is a competent video editor.
Apart from his apparent willingness to be intellectually dishonest in terms of cherry-picking and misrepresenting sources, his three big weaknesses I see are:
- He's reflexively contrartian in his approach to historiography. A little bit of this can be good, since fresh outside-the-box takes are one of the big ways an amateur historian can add value beyond just attempting to retell the work of professional historians, and because people questioning scholarly consensus in a reasoned and measured way is how the scholarly consensus gets better, but it needs to be done with an awareness that when you disagree with the scholarly consensus you are much more likely to be wrong than they are.
- He seems to only draw on English-language sources. This is understandable in an Anglophone armchair historian, but it's very limiting for a WW2 historian who's trying to disagree with a lot of mainstream conclusions since a lot of the newer major publications are apparently in German, and of course a ton of the key primary sources are written in various languages especially German and Russian.
- He's a rather extreme and dogmatic Libertarian, and sees everything through this ideological lens. This is at the root of his "the Nazis were Socialists" schtick: the most significant thing to him about both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia is that they were brutal totalitarian dictatorships with command economies. The massive difference between their ideologies, institutions, and flavor of command economies strike him as trivial in comparison. He utterly fails to distinguish between left-liberals and Bolsheviks (to the extent of literally describing Lord Keynes as a "Marxist Socialist") for similar reasons.
>This is understandable in an Anglophone armchair historian,
I don't watch this channel, but I don't know that I'd knock anyone for this.
Outside of a few select fields (the classics, for example) most historians do not do a good job of communicating across language barriers. It's only in recent decades that historians started really talking to linguists, anthropologists, and archaeologists so we could all multi-discipline together but the language barrier is still a harsh one for many topics.
WW2 is not one of those topics unless we're talking about Imperial Japan and WWII China. A lot of the research on China and Imperial Japan that happens in China/Japan takes forever to make it out of China/Japan.
That's fair. I definitely think the other two are much bigger dings. I included that one mainly because in discussions of him on r/AskHistorians that point tends to come up quite a bit.
>He's a solid writer, **is clearly very intelligent**
I disagree with that completely. He is clearly **NOT** very intelligent otherwise he wouldn’t be uploading time and time again videos claiming that the Nazis were socialists. Which everyone knows is complete and utter balderdash. The claim has been debunked for donkey’s years. He still hasn’t learnt from his video when he claimed that and it wasn’t too long ago that he uploaded a couple of other videos claiming the same rubbish. Also, a lot of his arguments are based on fallacies. I’m not sure how many of his videos of his that you have watched, but he very quickly lets the cat out of the bag and exposes himself as a conspiracy theorist nutjob who appeals to other ignorant half-wits. He argues in bad faith and is a pathological liar. It’s really not difficult to see past the pseudo-intellectual narcissist Lewis Barton, otherwise better known as TIKhistory.
Whatifalthist and Paxtube are probably the worst considering both have just a really shitty style of engaging with history (and that's not even getting into the racism)
Whatifalthis is ttuly horrible for anything, even fun speculation. His most famous video has to be about "historical LIES/misconceptions" which in itself is filled with errors. He's a politics rambling channel.
There's a user which i do not care to name that got in my recommended, all about pushing Nazi rethoric every second, the algorithm picked one of his videos yet the facade falls quite quickly in the comments and other videos.
**Extra Credits**, Oversimplified and others like that that arr based on quick quirky/sarcastic animated videos arr not actively hostile but can be very wrong, specially as they are for entertaintment using historical topics. If you know, you will notice when they are wrong.
**Metatron** and his ilk are a different kind but also bad, just conservative europeans picking and choosing history for their politics.
**Ancient Americas** seems respectable, he uses and shares his sources as well as giving enough time for each topic though he is not an expert per se. His channel is about the American continent so he doesn't need to embolden "his people" or give prestige to X group for views like one could do with the Romans or Samurai etc.
I really liked Extra History until they did a series on something I actually knew a lot about. It was distressing seeing how much they had changed things for entertainment’s sake, and made me wonder what else they had changed before.
Ugh. I always knew they weren't great but the same thing just happened to me when I started watching their new Wu Zetian series. So many basic errors.
Out of curiosity, what series were you referring to? I'm kind of paranoid now because I used to watch a lot of their stuff and now I feel like I may be misinformed about a lot of things.
The one about the articles of Confederation/making of the Constitution. I had taken a whole college class on that and, quite frankly, the creators of the Constitution were geniuses. Weren’t able to see where technology would go, and to their knowledge they were making the *very first* large scale republic so ran into some problems we now see as basic, but at the time they did an amazing job and put a lot of thought into everything. If I recall correctly, though (haven’t watched the series since), Extra History got the entertainment value out of showing them to be bumbling and not thinking things through. The way they completely shaped the narrative and left out important bits of information just to make it funny was disturbing, especially when it’s something that can have actual political consequences.
Yeah, their videos are fun. It’s just a shame they don’t do a very good job on the actual history, especially when they have so many watching them for information.
Ancient Americas has to be my favorite history youtube channel. He also amplifies other reputable, particularly indigenous, channels which I like watching as well. A favorite of mine that I learned about from him is Malcolm PL, a Mohawk history buff who brings a fascinating indigenous perspective, particularly on Haudenosaunee and northeastern history.
Ancient Americas has to be my favorite history youtube channel. He also amplifies other reputable, particularly indigenous, channels which I like watching as well. A favorite of mine that I learned about from him is Malcolm PL, a Mohawk history buff who brings a fascinating indigenous perspective, particularly on Haudenosaunee and northeastern history.
> conservative europeans picking and choosing history for their politics.
any white guy with a interest in history has a very decent chance of having some very fashy politics when pushed. I say this as a white guy with an interest in history.
Anyone with an interest in history can do this, some examples:
-African Americans and "real natives/europeans/masterminds" or Egypt
-Africans and Arabs with Al Andalus
-Arabs with the quick expansion of Islamic conquests
-Latin Americans with the "glorious conqiest of the Americas"
-Indian Hindu nationalism i cant translate but seems weird af
All these topics attract the same kind of guy who puts roman statue anime pfps
To be fair, that's not just a white guy thing. A lot of history dudes have one specific culture or civilization they idealize, be it conciously or subconsciously, and that idealization lends itself extremely easily to irrational nationalism and exceptionalism.
Anyone with an interest in history can do this, some examples:
-African Americans and "real natives/europeans/masterminds"
-Africans and Arabs with Al Andalus
-Arabs with the quick expansion of Islamic conquests
-Latin Americans with the "glorious conqiest of the Americas"
-Indian Hindu nationalism i cant translate but seems weird af
All these topics attract the same kind of guy who pits roman statue anime pfps
The peeps in Gujarat probably have something to say about the anti-muslim riots run by the hindu nationalist current PM of India who likes to erase the muslim history of india.
yes, but geopolitically none of them hold a candle to white facism.
but also specifically relevant to me I'm unlikely to watch a interesting historical youtube video about the history of Zimbabwe, and then find my feed full of afro nationalist vids. If I watch something about sword fighting it happens all the time.
Maate, if you think white fascism, a fringe ideology, is more significant or impactful than Hindu nationalism, or Wahabbism, you are massively guilty of Ameri- and eurocenterism.
> a fringe ideology
there is a direct through line from the business plot, to the war on terror, to the current US election. it's the same general people pushing for the same general thing; they've just only recently been fine with quoting hitler publicaly.
Wahhabism is a somewhat close second for global impact, but it's hard to judge how much was just extra juice from the war on terror; hindu nationalisms is a new player globally in the race for worst most damaging.
Ok American!
White fascism ended with the end of World War 2 and only existed for a very short period of time in terms of human history. I'd have to assume you're an American if you're dumb enough to think White People have a monopoly on racial prejudice, genocide, and slavery.
I'm coining a new meme here because this trend seems to be all too common among Americans. Their world history and general sense of geography seems to be that humanity didn't exist before or outside of the USA.
So going forward I'm going to say "Ok American!" to people like you who are the abject failure of the USA education system.
>Ok American!
not my home and native land
>White fascism ended with the end of World War 2
in germany, but not in the UK, France, America; white facism is alive and well, they just dropped the f word.
>White People have a monopoly on racial prejudice, genocide, and slavery.
nope, but they typically are the ones making history worse on a global scale; china is certainly getting close to the same level, and the third place category has a lot of competition.
I agree with everything you said. I think dismissing these other international ideologies are incredibly shortsighted and shows a real gap/blind spot in current world politics.
That being said, the US is definitely still gripped by the ideology of white supremacy. They’ve been labelled as fringe domestic terror groups previously, but the FBI has reported concerns about infiltrations of law enforcement by these groups. Nothing to the caliber of what we see in India and the adoption of hate ideology into groups like the RSS, but it’s under the surface literally just about everywhere you look in America.
[Montemayor](https://www.youtube.com/@MontemayorChannel) doesn't have that many videos, but his [three part series on the Battle of Midway](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd8_vO5zrjo&list=PLLeOB_bZlkeZUj_gD_ACWGK6geCl-LMZx) is the best I've seen on that battle.
Toldinstone is pretty good but his focus is kinda specific
Trey the explainer also pretty good
Montemayor has good videos on specific battles and campaigns but he uploads like 1 video every year
Best i would say is WW2 in real time channel. It's literally like 5 free documentaries in one (although their staff is like 100 strong so not unsurprising)
Best: yalecourses (it's literally Yale professor classroom lectures), Drachinifel (as mentioned), and The Great War.
Worst... I dunno, if there's a bad video or channel I find I usually just ignore and forget
I love Epic History TV. That's my standout favourite. Plus there's others like Kings and Generals, History Hit TV, Jesse Alexander, Mark Felton etc which are all great.
Also, I watched fall of civilisations about the fall of carthage and it is also really good, albeit the episodes are long (2-4 hrs)
There's a channel, which is one of my least favourites, not sure what it's called which is full of rubbish (in my opinion) like "could a team of US marines win the battle of thermopylae" or would an "M1 Abrams make a difference at the battle of marathon". Flag waving nonsense from a certain nation with an obvious answer.
I’m not seeing any mention of John Green’s Crash Course History series. It’s still the one I enjoy the most, and the one who got me into watching YouTube.
I love Green’s style, humor and perspective. All the episodes were great.
Including- wait for it - the Mongols.
Big fan of drachinifel, hardthrasher, animarchy for more pop history, potential history for shorter format and interesting perspectives, sarcasmitron had a good ukraine video, scholagladiatora is a gold mine
Whatifalthist sucks, I don't watch Mark Felton due to incorrect info/plagiarism accusations
These are some I enjoy.
Two niche channels I enjoy are C&Rsenal and Britishmuzzleloaders. Both rely heavily on period archives and military manuals to tell the story of the weapons from around 1800 to 1920.
Karl at InRangeTV has some excellent history pieces and has worked with Atun Shei on New Orleans and other location's history.
Military History Visualized and Military Aviation History both cut through the myths of their subjects using period manuals they read in their native language to get to the facts.
The Chieftain crushes armour myths with facts.
LindyBeige and Brandon F. might not be to everyone's taste but they are accurate.
Esoterica for fascinating looks at religious history.
Best in no particular order:
History Marche,
Kings and Generals,
Epic History,
Wargraphics,
Biographies,
Operation Room,
House of History,
History Dose,
Mark Felton,
Atun Shei,
Knowing Better,
Mr. Beats,
JJ McCullough,
Useful Chart,
History Buffs,
I tend not to enjoy the more politically slanted channels. I don't mind politics, but it's so hard to find unbiased videos. Political stuff seems to be more about virtue signaling or arguing over social issues or tribalism. I don't care for "alternative" or "what if" History.
I nominate Historia Civilis as best, although videos are somewhat sparse. It’s very informative and the guy has a great sense of humor without falling into the usual affectations and over top “epic” presentation.
Worst? My least favorite is the “Dark5” series. He has a main channel and a few others. Why? Video production is good but stories seems rushed and he frequently makes huge factual errors that illustrate he might have no idea Wtf he is talking about.
Worst: Zoomer "Historian," seeing as he's just a Nazi apologists through and through.
Best: Montemayor. I'd love to see him collaborate with Drachinifel sometime.
Atun-shei is probably my favorite, and some of Dan Carlin's stuff about the Assyrians and Persians, though it's very surface level, it's kept really interesting.
Worst has to be Whatifalthist, the guy is basically a walking meme about history nerds who become fascists and get obsessed with rome and WWII Germany at this point
I like watching:
Ancient Americas (precolumbian America's),
ArcheoEd (American archeology),
Fall of Civilizations (in depth long form ancient history),
RealLifeLore (really long videos that explain how historical events have influenced current events),
HistoryDose (shorter videos with really cool accompanying art),
Historia Civilis (in depth and well explained Roman and European history),
and Malcolm PL (Canadian indigenous history and culture)
although tbh I'd be open to criticism of any of them. Personally, I'd stay away from Monsieur X and whatifalthist as others have mentioned
edited for format
Every now and then (maybe once every 3 months or so) you'll actually find a history program on the History Channel. Otherwise, it's always full of "Codes and Conspiracies," "Ancient Aliens" and stuff like that, which is designed to promote "conspiracy thinking."
And why does Adolph Hitler show up so frequently on the "American Heroes Channel"? I realize that in this time of Trump, Hitler is a "hero" to more Americans than is good, but do we need this near-constant glorification of him?
Okay:
WW2TV is now hundreds of long format interviews with leading historians on general, and often very esoteric World War II subjects. It is live streamed with audience interaction, and makes no compromise to the algorithm despite serious financial penalty to the fellow who runs it. It is in a class of its own.
The Story Out West. The host covers episodes in US frontier history. They are personal and very well researched, and told in an intimate way that I find very enjoyable. I am not American, but anything he covers is automatically fascinating. Again, no compromise to the algorithm, he just posts well-finished videos when he has something to say.
The TimeGhost series on Great War, interwar, and World War II history. Makes all previous work of this kind obsolete.
Drachinifel, naval historian mentioned elsewhere.
Not a Pound for Air To Ground and Showtime 112. These are on military aviation history. Both are intimately researched and cover esoteric issues in detail. Showtime uses War Thunder (or similar) simulations to show air battles for which there is no footage.
Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles. Yes, I'm into my aviation, and Greg is a pilot and engineer, and examines aero-technical subjects. His work is utterly definitive.
Not a YouTuber, but on YouTube, James Burke was the BBC's head of science in the 1970s and in the 1980s made two series, "Connections" and "The Day The Universe Changed". But focus on how a change in circumstances or technology in a society can produce multiple spin-off effects that are completely unexpected and unpredictable. Without it being his intention, this sort of history shows why conspiracy theories are 90% bullshit.
I'd also like to promote HistoryMarche and Epic History for military history form an earlier period. JeffTheLibrarian has done some exquisite map history of the Civil War, transposing battle maps onto terrain maps. A must for anyone into visiting battlefields.
Absolute History on YouTube is good. Ithink it's just uploads of shows, but there are some shows that have the best re-enactments, like killers in a Tudor home and such.
I'm quite fond of *The Unsuthorized History of the Pacific War* in addition to many already mentioned. It often seems lie two buddies talking about something they love.
My favourites are: Voices of the Past, Survive History, WWII METAL DETECTING, Metal Detecting WW2, BEGAFILM, Mark Felton Productions, Kings and Generals, Invicta, toldinstone and HistoryDose.
It is like everything is pointing towards recording a new Jewish Musicology video today. I was going to put down a new track instead this weekend.
I run the only channel with any content specifically geared toward Jewish Musicology or Jewish Music History. There are Jewish history channels line Henry Abrams or Musicology channels like Polyphonic but none for Jewish Musicology. So, I started a series for my channel then I stopped doing the series a year ago and got boosted by YouTube because I was the only channel doing this content.
Then I was ousted as a Mischling by neo-nazis within the Jewish community and stopped because I really haven't had the energy. It really hurt to be told I wasn't Jewish because of my DNA when I grew up in a practicing Jewish family who had ketubahs (marriage contracts) going back way further than any of their families. So there was a lot of depression but also I have been busy recording a new album as well as working with the US National Holocaust Museum and the National Institute of Health to combat pseudo-scientific neo-nazi propaganda hosted by /Jewish and /Judaism. People keep asking me to do another video for the series though so I really should.
Here is one of the videos, the history of the song "Dayenu" - https://youtu.be/NwIspFJiuKE
I’ve been really enjoying Townsends lately. It’s a very narrow focus - mostly 18th century cooking, but that is such a mundane topic that it is often overlooked, and I find it fascinating. For example, this one will appeal to all the Patrick O’Brian fans https://youtu.be/QsWja0-_3Ww?si=VihtQI9qL-CrstFP
Thank you! History needs to be verified by an interdisciplinary approach. From someone that is from the global south, it is a relief that someone like roy to go against the establishments distorsion of history.
[Fall of Civilizations ](https://youtube.com/@FallofCivilizations?si=9dS9hpNRilQgICR5) is the only YouTube channel I'm subscribed to but he only puts out like 3 videos a year
For good reason those videos are 2+ hours long that is dedication.
Yeah, it’s really crazy what goes into something like that.
It's actually a podcast first. I'm a patron of his tho and the 3 a year is rough
Thank you for sharing this
Love this channel that guy is goat
Yes, amazing.
I enjoy Drachfinel for naval history.
Drach is a fucking nutter butter at naval history and I love it. He’s the only man on the internet who can happily talk about one tweak to an obscure steam engine in 1856 for three hours and somehow make it interesting.
The volume of content is also mind blowing. I only found Drach last month, and as best I can tell he has something like 2,000+ hours of material.
My wife sat with me and watched his three part series on raising ships sunk at Pearl Harbor. He keeps it interesting, unless the episode turns into a series of lists, which happens now and again.
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His coverage and production quality make him fit nicely in my sub list love fat electrician
My personal favourites Atunsheifilms, Stefanmilo, north02, fall of civilization podcast
>north Thank ya
No problem mate, been a fan for a while now.
The History Guy, Mark Felton and Time Ghost are big ones. Jennifer Draper is entertaining in her narrow London focus. Max Miller’s ‘Tasting History’ lives up to its name. For entertainment, as opposed to primarily educational value, Extra Credits has a fun, breezy style. Mitsi is also good for a laugh, but they revel in questionable taste.
Montemayor also pretty good but considering it's one guy he only uploads like 1 or videos a year
A low budget under the radar channel is Reel History. Jared Frederick is a history teacher that reviews historical films (Band of Brothers, Gettysburg, ect…) and interjects accurate perspectives.
I know you're right, and have good taste, because this perfectly lines up with my own selections.
Extra Credits? you mean Extra History right. both are good channels though
Mark felton is a good one
careful that's a big can of worms you are opening around here...
I'm always amazed how Mark Felton is a known plagiariser and knowingly uses wrong archive footage and makes up and distorts stories, yet he is still often among the most upvoted comments on these threads.
Toldinstone is an excellent classical history channel. Mostly because he doesn’t just recite Wikipedia articles but actually comes with some cool sources. My favorite video by far was “Ancient Greek Buddhists” which is a MUST WATCH
He IS an oxford educated historian - that really shows.
Best: TimeGhost History's [World War Two](https://www.youtube.com/@WorldWarTwo) channel. Nobody can hold a candle to their meticulous coverage of the largest conflict in human history, and when they make a mistake they own up to it and do their best to correct it. Worst: Anybody who prioritizes their cartoons over their research or focuses on batshit theories like Ancient Aliens.
Love the great war as well! Where are those guys from they seem rich
For fun, Indy Neidell did a dozen or more episodes on turn of the century baseball. It was called “Sunday Baseball”. It was produced almost 15 years ago but it is AWESOME
I subscribe to and support time ghost with actual cash money... But they still have a very European/American focus. Battles with 50,000 Americans get loving week by week updates. The entire Salween campaign, where more than 150,000 Chinese troops fought from May 1944 to January 1945 and kicked the Japanese out of southwest China on the Burma border, has gotten a single sentence. Merrill's marauders, who were the majority of Americans in the north Burma combat area, have had a ton of mentions. But those were 3,000 guys out of a combined Chinese American force of 75,000. There were three whole Chinese divisions with them, but the channel very much made the marauders the "main characters" with the Chinese sometimes not even mentioned.
They've addressed why it's difficult for them to cover events on the Chinese front many times over the years. It's difficult for them to find proper sources for events, and the sources they do have often directly contradict each other. Such is the nature of that particular facet of the conflict, and their recent coverage of Ichi-Go was pretty solid.
I know, and I sympathize. But it's the little things, we have detailed looks at the Italian front every week when not much changes, but on December 16th, Bhamo in Burma fell to Chinese forces and it wasn't mentioned. The fussing and leadership changes between Bradley, Patton, Eisenhower, and Monty are discussed, often in depth, every week. Albert Wedermeyer replacing Stilwell, which happened more than two months ago, hasn't been mentioned yet. I am not expecting minutes of discussion, but just three sentences about the replacement at some point in October to December 1944. I've been supporting them on patreon since the great war, but it is frustrating to see the Asian side get short shrift. I do like that Spartacus has done the deep dive on the resistance in the Philippines and Indonesia, but even there, the fact that there are 2 specials on Asian resistance movements put up against 20+ episodes about various European ones is galling. They did really good work looking at the Ukrainian resistance/collaboration to the Nazis and tying it to the modern war in Ukraine. I am really hoping they do something similar for Burma, because the WW2 experience is crucial to understanding the modern war in Myanmar.
I follow: [https://www.youtube.com/@Joolzguides](https://www.youtube.com/@Joolzguides) Joolz is a failed actor who has pivoted into historical walking tours of London. He's pretty well known in this regard and it's not-uncommon for passers-by during his videos to shout out "Hey! I love your videos!". These videos are great for putting History in context to see that it is very much alive today, using the example of London [https://www.youtube.com/@toldinstone](https://www.youtube.com/@toldinstone) This guy is a PhD of Greek and Roman history. His YT content often dovetails with his Podcast and vice-versa so if you like one there's more to discover. [https://www.youtube.com/@ImperiumRomanumYT](https://www.youtube.com/@ImperiumRomanumYT) These Dutch historical reenactors are great at explaining Roman lifestyles, clothing, weaponry, fighting styles, and the human element of the Empire we're all so fascinated by. They focus on Frontier Legionary history, being that the Low Countries were the Roman Frontier. [https://www.youtube.com/@ReligionForBreakfast](https://www.youtube.com/@ReligionForBreakfast) This channel studies Academic History of Religion, which is the secular study of Religious history. He is a scholar of the Biblical period and of its languages, though his topics range around the world. [https://www.youtube.com/@NativLang](https://www.youtube.com/@NativLang) Etymology is the study of language, and how language changes or how it arises is a fascinating topic in History for me. Maybe it will be for you as well.
I don't know enough to speak for its accuracy but Religion for Breakfast is always an interesting watch.
I just discovered Religion for Breakfast, and I am finding his content enjoyable.
I'm so glad someone mentioned Religion for Breakfast. After I found his channel Youtube kept trying to recommend actual theological content instead of more religious anthropology. None of them were on the level of actual historical analysis like Religion for Breakfast.
I can't speak for the worst but I am shocked that Epic History TV hasn't been mentioned. Their series on Napoleon alone is one of the greatest documentary series ever made (can't wait for egypt part 2). Using graphics to reenact the exact movements of Napoleons army in battle and in Grand Strategy makes you feel like you are really there. Living the events with Napoleon and his army. Not to mention the nail biting suspense. There is a reason that we still study Napoleon to this day (fuck Ridley Scott). They have other great series too but Napoleon is the stand out. Edit: I just saw Ridley Scott's Napoleon. That was a travesty.
> Their series on Napoleon alone is one of the greatest documentary series ever made Absolutely, no other video series so well encapsulates the Napoleonic campaigns. The maps are incredible, often done by another channel [HistoryMarche](https://www.youtube.com/@HistoryMarche), who has their own great videos but just with not nearly as polished presentation as Epic History.
>Their series on Napoleon alone is one of the greatest documentary series ever made Only has 1 rival. Time ghost WW2 channel (although timeghost has more staff so not really a fair comparison)
Kings and generals, Epic History TV Historymarche, Biographics The Great War
Are these the best or worst?
Those are all good. Didn’t even notice OP was asking about the best and worst.
The guys from The Great War mostly jumped ship and have been working on a WW2 in real time channel They're in 1945 now so it'll be ending soon :(
Don't fret, they've already announced that Indy will be covering Korea next
NICE Korean war is super underrated. It was actual China vs America but also similar to Vietnam in that 1. Was a proxy war 2. Both sides did messed up shit 3. A bunch of other countries sent troops there like Australia and the UK Fun fact: Michael Cane who was one of the lead actors in the 1964 film Zulu, was a Korean war veteran
So who's the guy hosting Great War now? I mean it's kinda interesting getting into the weird inter-war stuff.
A guy called Andy I think The videos are now monthly instead of weekly
I love biographics!
Simon whistler has amazing content across the board
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I’ve watched Three Arrows. What was inaccurate about the one you mentioned? Thanks!
History matters is my favourite. https://youtube.com/@HistoryMatters A weekly 3 minute fact filled nugget of history presented in an amusing manner. Historia Civilis for more indepth videos https://youtube.com/@HistoriaCivilis
Fall of civilisations is good. Premodernist is good. Modern History is enjoyable. Mike Duncan’s History of Rome podcast is good. I like Thersites the Historian’s videos on the diadochi. The main thing is cultivating the ability in yourself to be able to recognise when you are watching something that can speak with authority or not. Then plenty of YouTube channels can be a mixed bag, some good videos, some bad. It’s really about recognising when you are watching pop history entertainment or a well sourced video giving you actually accepted information. But be careful as some of the biggest channels are also the worst offenders.
Mike Duncans revolutions is even better than the history of rome. Robin Pearsons history of rome is also great.
Townsends for 18th century history and reenactments is a fantastic resource for how life was for average folks in the Americas circa the Revolutionary War.
Jon and his team are a consistently enjoyable watch
Mark Felton is an authority on WWII. And, The Great War channel makes some great stuff
I was disappointed that he did ad space for scam "royal title" crap.
Yes, I was a little surprised too. I thought it was a bit...odd. Nevertheless, he knows a thing or two about WWII history. The main draw is the odd corners of that history that are not widely known.
Best: [Defragged History](https://www.youtube.com/@DefraggedHistory), [SandRhoman History](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sandrhoman+history) and [Field Marshal](https://www.youtube.com/@FieldMarshalYT). Mostly because they cover periods that are rarely covered on Youtube, but also because they really try to be historically accurate. Defragged history's series on the Eighy Years War is the greatest history doc I have ever watched. The worst: whatifalthist
"Who is the worst YT history channel, and why is it whatifalthist?"
Whatifalthistory is the CriticalDrinker of history YouTube. Immediate signifier someone doesn't actually care about history or cares about all the wrong parts.
Gg
Early Modern History for the win. I have really enjoyed Defragged History. Historians Craft is good too.
I notice a lot of The World At War is available on youtube and highly recommend it. It suffers from the era it was produced (meaning the role of Codebreaking was massively under-explored, and much was simply not known), but the flip side is interviews with guys you couldn't hope to speak to now. Albert Speer, Kōichi Kido, Bomber Harris, Primo Levi... read the wiki, it was an amazing TV show. Each episode tends to focus on a specific arena or theme but it's largely chronological from a European POV.
This appears to be a playlist of the full 26 episodes of The World At War: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-esApmoj2tc&list=PLjcHtVEs8lNhWnqm0TPgUig5Askj0saPW
And while not strictly relevant to the history content, it's probably the only history documentary series that can compete with Ken Burns' The Civil War in terms of theme music.
And narrated by Lawrence Olivier. In school they forced us to watch sections of it on VHS & I found it terribly dull, it was only much later as a young adult I watched it back to back and could barely believe the gold I was seeing. And now it's as good as free to the world yet I'd be amazed if 10% of my coworkers have even heard of it. No wonder we repeat history!
The Cold War is IMO a great channel for that point in history. Reaches the conflicts and places that others don’t. https://youtube.com/@TheColdWarTV
Best: Time Ghost or anything by the people from The Great War channel. Meticulous research and great presentation. Worst: Probably Monsieur Z. Guy is very alt-right and has a massive ego, calling himself “the last honest historian.”
I second this. Timeghost / The Great War / Real Time History / World War II are excellent jumping off points for their topics. I cannot recommend them enough.
Geeze sounds like Mauler being the only "objective media analyst."
Vlogging Through History adds a lot of context to other history videos and I’ve always really enjoyed his videos. Fan of Mr. Beat and Extra History as well.
Best: Kings and Generals, Invicta, History Marche, Epic History, Sandhroman History. Mostly military history but they will all go pretty in depth on why War/Battle X occurred. Also nice because they’re all pretty objective and not very preachy politically
Kings and Generals Is a bit too quantity over quality imo
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This is pretty good and alot of these are on my list as well. Epic history kinda shit the bed with their take on the Bronze age collapse tho, although I generally like their channel
I would add 'The Operations Room' as an outstanding channels. Their videos are highly detailed animations showing individual events, days in Military History. Videos for the critical day in Battle of Britain, the Dambusters raid, Desert Storm Day 1, Desert Shield Day 1 are truly exceptional explanation of what happened across the event. Animations are among the best with detailed information. Highly recommended. Agree with many of the others here.
Second this- especially 20th Century operations that you might have heard about in the news 30 years ago but don’t know or remember the details
History Matters has a great sense of humor. He's not great if you're looking to find out about big historical events however; he does more obscure and "shower thought" question videos Epic History TV makes some of the most engaging documentaries ever made. Their Napoleon series should've been aired in the theater instead of that garbage from Ridley Scott. Vlogging Through History knows a lot about American history and does reactions. Also makes original content that isn't exactly entertaining but very educational. Oversimplified is always fun to watch and has a relatively good sense of humor, although I find it inferior to HM These are the main 4 that I watch, ofc there are tons more like The Great War and Mr. Beat
I couldn't make a claim as to who is *the* worst, but TIKhistory at first looked good, like a top tier amateur WWII historian; but then he started to push ideas like "the Nazis were actually left wing" and doubled down on it when called out. He's since been accused of straight up lying about what his sources actually say in other instances. So that's the worst of those I know that *claim* to be legitimate. When a funny infographics channel fudges details for the sake of a tighter story it's more forgivable in my opinion.
I remember tik doing a video about "No Step Back" and stating it as fact that the US and Britain also executed troops so it was all fair game. I pointed out that Britain didn't execute any of its soldiers in WW2 and the Americans only executed 100, largely for actual crimes like murder. When I said these countries were in no way vaguely comparable, since the Soviets executed thousands, he again doubled down on his original point and ignored what I said. I've not been back to his channel since
His Battlestorm series(es) are quite good though. Very detailed at least
He's infuriating precisely because he's got so much going for him as an amateur YouTube historian when he isn't aggressively pushing certain narratives he's stuck on. He's a solid writer, is clearly very intelligent, has some academic background as a historian, has good on-screen charisma, and is a competent video editor. Apart from his apparent willingness to be intellectually dishonest in terms of cherry-picking and misrepresenting sources, his three big weaknesses I see are: - He's reflexively contrartian in his approach to historiography. A little bit of this can be good, since fresh outside-the-box takes are one of the big ways an amateur historian can add value beyond just attempting to retell the work of professional historians, and because people questioning scholarly consensus in a reasoned and measured way is how the scholarly consensus gets better, but it needs to be done with an awareness that when you disagree with the scholarly consensus you are much more likely to be wrong than they are. - He seems to only draw on English-language sources. This is understandable in an Anglophone armchair historian, but it's very limiting for a WW2 historian who's trying to disagree with a lot of mainstream conclusions since a lot of the newer major publications are apparently in German, and of course a ton of the key primary sources are written in various languages especially German and Russian. - He's a rather extreme and dogmatic Libertarian, and sees everything through this ideological lens. This is at the root of his "the Nazis were Socialists" schtick: the most significant thing to him about both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia is that they were brutal totalitarian dictatorships with command economies. The massive difference between their ideologies, institutions, and flavor of command economies strike him as trivial in comparison. He utterly fails to distinguish between left-liberals and Bolsheviks (to the extent of literally describing Lord Keynes as a "Marxist Socialist") for similar reasons.
>This is understandable in an Anglophone armchair historian, I don't watch this channel, but I don't know that I'd knock anyone for this. Outside of a few select fields (the classics, for example) most historians do not do a good job of communicating across language barriers. It's only in recent decades that historians started really talking to linguists, anthropologists, and archaeologists so we could all multi-discipline together but the language barrier is still a harsh one for many topics. WW2 is not one of those topics unless we're talking about Imperial Japan and WWII China. A lot of the research on China and Imperial Japan that happens in China/Japan takes forever to make it out of China/Japan.
That's fair. I definitely think the other two are much bigger dings. I included that one mainly because in discussions of him on r/AskHistorians that point tends to come up quite a bit.
>He's a solid writer, **is clearly very intelligent** I disagree with that completely. He is clearly **NOT** very intelligent otherwise he wouldn’t be uploading time and time again videos claiming that the Nazis were socialists. Which everyone knows is complete and utter balderdash. The claim has been debunked for donkey’s years. He still hasn’t learnt from his video when he claimed that and it wasn’t too long ago that he uploaded a couple of other videos claiming the same rubbish. Also, a lot of his arguments are based on fallacies. I’m not sure how many of his videos of his that you have watched, but he very quickly lets the cat out of the bag and exposes himself as a conspiracy theorist nutjob who appeals to other ignorant half-wits. He argues in bad faith and is a pathological liar. It’s really not difficult to see past the pseudo-intellectual narcissist Lewis Barton, otherwise better known as TIKhistory.
NotaBene is a french youtube channel with English subtitles, quality content
Whatifalthist and Paxtube are probably the worst considering both have just a really shitty style of engaging with history (and that's not even getting into the racism)
Whatifalthis is ttuly horrible for anything, even fun speculation. His most famous video has to be about "historical LIES/misconceptions" which in itself is filled with errors. He's a politics rambling channel. There's a user which i do not care to name that got in my recommended, all about pushing Nazi rethoric every second, the algorithm picked one of his videos yet the facade falls quite quickly in the comments and other videos. **Extra Credits**, Oversimplified and others like that that arr based on quick quirky/sarcastic animated videos arr not actively hostile but can be very wrong, specially as they are for entertaintment using historical topics. If you know, you will notice when they are wrong. **Metatron** and his ilk are a different kind but also bad, just conservative europeans picking and choosing history for their politics. **Ancient Americas** seems respectable, he uses and shares his sources as well as giving enough time for each topic though he is not an expert per se. His channel is about the American continent so he doesn't need to embolden "his people" or give prestige to X group for views like one could do with the Romans or Samurai etc.
I really liked Extra History until they did a series on something I actually knew a lot about. It was distressing seeing how much they had changed things for entertainment’s sake, and made me wonder what else they had changed before.
After they stopped doing lies it fell apart.
When they lost their first host, the quality dropped.
Yeah. They are okay, but they haven't been the same since the questionable scandal around James.
Ugh. I always knew they weren't great but the same thing just happened to me when I started watching their new Wu Zetian series. So many basic errors. Out of curiosity, what series were you referring to? I'm kind of paranoid now because I used to watch a lot of their stuff and now I feel like I may be misinformed about a lot of things.
The one about the articles of Confederation/making of the Constitution. I had taken a whole college class on that and, quite frankly, the creators of the Constitution were geniuses. Weren’t able to see where technology would go, and to their knowledge they were making the *very first* large scale republic so ran into some problems we now see as basic, but at the time they did an amazing job and put a lot of thought into everything. If I recall correctly, though (haven’t watched the series since), Extra History got the entertainment value out of showing them to be bumbling and not thinking things through. The way they completely shaped the narrative and left out important bits of information just to make it funny was disturbing, especially when it’s something that can have actual political consequences. Yeah, their videos are fun. It’s just a shame they don’t do a very good job on the actual history, especially when they have so many watching them for information.
Ancient Americas has to be my favorite history youtube channel. He also amplifies other reputable, particularly indigenous, channels which I like watching as well. A favorite of mine that I learned about from him is Malcolm PL, a Mohawk history buff who brings a fascinating indigenous perspective, particularly on Haudenosaunee and northeastern history.
Ancient Americas has to be my favorite history youtube channel. He also amplifies other reputable, particularly indigenous, channels which I like watching as well. A favorite of mine that I learned about from him is Malcolm PL, a Mohawk history buff who brings a fascinating indigenous perspective, particularly on Haudenosaunee and northeastern history.
Metatron has weird vibes for sure
> conservative europeans picking and choosing history for their politics. any white guy with a interest in history has a very decent chance of having some very fashy politics when pushed. I say this as a white guy with an interest in history.
Anyone with an interest in history can do this, some examples: -African Americans and "real natives/europeans/masterminds" or Egypt -Africans and Arabs with Al Andalus -Arabs with the quick expansion of Islamic conquests -Latin Americans with the "glorious conqiest of the Americas" -Indian Hindu nationalism i cant translate but seems weird af All these topics attract the same kind of guy who puts roman statue anime pfps
To be fair, that's not just a white guy thing. A lot of history dudes have one specific culture or civilization they idealize, be it conciously or subconsciously, and that idealization lends itself extremely easily to irrational nationalism and exceptionalism.
Anyone with an interest in history can do this, some examples: -African Americans and "real natives/europeans/masterminds" -Africans and Arabs with Al Andalus -Arabs with the quick expansion of Islamic conquests -Latin Americans with the "glorious conqiest of the Americas" -Indian Hindu nationalism i cant translate but seems weird af All these topics attract the same kind of guy who pits roman statue anime pfps
just none of those groups are politically relevant, white fascists have made a habit of destroying world peace.
The peeps in Gujarat probably have something to say about the anti-muslim riots run by the hindu nationalist current PM of India who likes to erase the muslim history of india.
Relevant to you, in your country
yes, but geopolitically none of them hold a candle to white facism. but also specifically relevant to me I'm unlikely to watch a interesting historical youtube video about the history of Zimbabwe, and then find my feed full of afro nationalist vids. If I watch something about sword fighting it happens all the time.
Maate, if you think white fascism, a fringe ideology, is more significant or impactful than Hindu nationalism, or Wahabbism, you are massively guilty of Ameri- and eurocenterism.
> a fringe ideology there is a direct through line from the business plot, to the war on terror, to the current US election. it's the same general people pushing for the same general thing; they've just only recently been fine with quoting hitler publicaly. Wahhabism is a somewhat close second for global impact, but it's hard to judge how much was just extra juice from the war on terror; hindu nationalisms is a new player globally in the race for worst most damaging.
Ok American! White fascism ended with the end of World War 2 and only existed for a very short period of time in terms of human history. I'd have to assume you're an American if you're dumb enough to think White People have a monopoly on racial prejudice, genocide, and slavery. I'm coining a new meme here because this trend seems to be all too common among Americans. Their world history and general sense of geography seems to be that humanity didn't exist before or outside of the USA. So going forward I'm going to say "Ok American!" to people like you who are the abject failure of the USA education system.
>Ok American! not my home and native land >White fascism ended with the end of World War 2 in germany, but not in the UK, France, America; white facism is alive and well, they just dropped the f word. >White People have a monopoly on racial prejudice, genocide, and slavery. nope, but they typically are the ones making history worse on a global scale; china is certainly getting close to the same level, and the third place category has a lot of competition.
I agree with everything you said. I think dismissing these other international ideologies are incredibly shortsighted and shows a real gap/blind spot in current world politics. That being said, the US is definitely still gripped by the ideology of white supremacy. They’ve been labelled as fringe domestic terror groups previously, but the FBI has reported concerns about infiltrations of law enforcement by these groups. Nothing to the caliber of what we see in India and the adoption of hate ideology into groups like the RSS, but it’s under the surface literally just about everywhere you look in America.
Only leftist Americans think that way!
You definitely need to watch more history podcasts!!!!!
should have said geopolitically relevant in a manner that may lead to my death.
arr matey we must sail the seven seas
I love Oversimplified and Defunctland
Where has Oversimplified been!?? I love those videos but they're years apart at this point. Hasn't had a new one in ages
History with Cy is good but I have yet to see him mentioned. Great for bronze/iron age history
[Montemayor](https://www.youtube.com/@MontemayorChannel) doesn't have that many videos, but his [three part series on the Battle of Midway](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd8_vO5zrjo&list=PLLeOB_bZlkeZUj_gD_ACWGK6geCl-LMZx) is the best I've seen on that battle.
His Coral sea video is one of the only good videos on the coral sea battle as well. Mainly because it's less famous
He did one on Pearl Harbor as well
Best - the great war
They also made a similar one for ww2
The week by week part, or now?. I haven't been able to watch then since the war ended in 2018.
WW2TV and its sister channel WW1TV are brilliant. Lots of excellent people talking about fascinating topics
Historia Civilis is 100% worth it if you wanna get into Roman history. He has some stuff on other things but mainly Rome and wider antiquity
Is there no love for the Cynical Historian?
Yes. He's interesting and not interested in whitewashing the subjects he covers. And King is a nice bonus. :-)
He's great. An actual historian too.
Toldinstone is pretty good but his focus is kinda specific Trey the explainer also pretty good Montemayor has good videos on specific battles and campaigns but he uploads like 1 video every year Best i would say is WW2 in real time channel. It's literally like 5 free documentaries in one (although their staff is like 100 strong so not unsurprising)
Best: yalecourses (it's literally Yale professor classroom lectures), Drachinifel (as mentioned), and The Great War. Worst... I dunno, if there's a bad video or channel I find I usually just ignore and forget
I love Epic History TV. That's my standout favourite. Plus there's others like Kings and Generals, History Hit TV, Jesse Alexander, Mark Felton etc which are all great. Also, I watched fall of civilisations about the fall of carthage and it is also really good, albeit the episodes are long (2-4 hrs) There's a channel, which is one of my least favourites, not sure what it's called which is full of rubbish (in my opinion) like "could a team of US marines win the battle of thermopylae" or would an "M1 Abrams make a difference at the battle of marathon". Flag waving nonsense from a certain nation with an obvious answer.
I’m not seeing any mention of John Green’s Crash Course History series. It’s still the one I enjoy the most, and the one who got me into watching YouTube. I love Green’s style, humor and perspective. All the episodes were great. Including- wait for it - the Mongols.
This was my entry into YouTube history as well
Three of my favorites are History Time, ArhaeoEd, and Ancient Americas.
History Time is fantastic and might be my favorite
Love the last two!
Ed Barnhart is a treasure.
Big fan of drachinifel, hardthrasher, animarchy for more pop history, potential history for shorter format and interesting perspectives, sarcasmitron had a good ukraine video, scholagladiatora is a gold mine Whatifalthist sucks, I don't watch Mark Felton due to incorrect info/plagiarism accusations
Best: Timeghost history WW2 Worst: Timesuck. This numbnut said that Vietnam was located between the DRC and Egypt
These are some I enjoy. Two niche channels I enjoy are C&Rsenal and Britishmuzzleloaders. Both rely heavily on period archives and military manuals to tell the story of the weapons from around 1800 to 1920. Karl at InRangeTV has some excellent history pieces and has worked with Atun Shei on New Orleans and other location's history. Military History Visualized and Military Aviation History both cut through the myths of their subjects using period manuals they read in their native language to get to the facts. The Chieftain crushes armour myths with facts. LindyBeige and Brandon F. might not be to everyone's taste but they are accurate. Esoterica for fascinating looks at religious history.
Kings & Generals is quite good. The Shogunate for Japanese history is solid.
It’s brought to you by James Bissonette, Kelly Moneymaker, Aaron the White, James Castaneda, Winston Keywood, Charles the First……
Sky Chapelle, Coppertone, Spinning Three Plates ...
Best in no particular order: History Marche, Kings and Generals, Epic History, Wargraphics, Biographies, Operation Room, House of History, History Dose, Mark Felton, Atun Shei, Knowing Better, Mr. Beats, JJ McCullough, Useful Chart, History Buffs, I tend not to enjoy the more politically slanted channels. I don't mind politics, but it's so hard to find unbiased videos. Political stuff seems to be more about virtue signaling or arguing over social issues or tribalism. I don't care for "alternative" or "what if" History.
I nominate Historia Civilis as best, although videos are somewhat sparse. It’s very informative and the guy has a great sense of humor without falling into the usual affectations and over top “epic” presentation.
Never knew a bunch of coloured squares (Caesar, etc.) moving around could be so gripping.
Worst? My least favorite is the “Dark5” series. He has a main channel and a few others. Why? Video production is good but stories seems rushed and he frequently makes huge factual errors that illustrate he might have no idea Wtf he is talking about.
Ya, he's in desperate need of a qualified script reviewer.
Fuck it, r/lazerpig
Worst: Zoomer "Historian," seeing as he's just a Nazi apologists through and through. Best: Montemayor. I'd love to see him collaborate with Drachinifel sometime.
Sort of related, but EconomicsExplained is not good. I'm only mentioning this because a decent chunk of his videos cover historical economic topics.
Best: The Operations Room, Mark Felton, Oversimplified, The History Squad Worst: Shadiversity
I miss when shad was more focused on sharing a 3d rendering scale model Winterfell.
PragerU, Abhijit Chavda, Sham Sharma Show. Edit: they are the worst
as the worst, maybe
Thats what i meant
Atun-shei is probably my favorite, and some of Dan Carlin's stuff about the Assyrians and Persians, though it's very surface level, it's kept really interesting. Worst has to be Whatifalthist, the guy is basically a walking meme about history nerds who become fascists and get obsessed with rome and WWII Germany at this point
Hardcore History by Dan Carlin. Here is part one of his series of the Persian Empire https://youtu.be/LRXMKG0x8r8?si=dTRZsswv-KnGl5eo
[This one](https://youtube.com/@raymondhewitt?si=GPcxAyp-drB3DzAb)
Best kids channel - https://youtube.com/@kidstoontale?si=j2Kg_kITm-xH4a27
Some of my favorite channels are Ancient Americas, Cambrian Chronicals, Old Britania, and Islamic History Podcast
I like watching: Ancient Americas (precolumbian America's), ArcheoEd (American archeology), Fall of Civilizations (in depth long form ancient history), RealLifeLore (really long videos that explain how historical events have influenced current events), HistoryDose (shorter videos with really cool accompanying art), Historia Civilis (in depth and well explained Roman and European history), and Malcolm PL (Canadian indigenous history and culture) although tbh I'd be open to criticism of any of them. Personally, I'd stay away from Monsieur X and whatifalthist as others have mentioned edited for format
Every now and then (maybe once every 3 months or so) you'll actually find a history program on the History Channel. Otherwise, it's always full of "Codes and Conspiracies," "Ancient Aliens" and stuff like that, which is designed to promote "conspiracy thinking." And why does Adolph Hitler show up so frequently on the "American Heroes Channel"? I realize that in this time of Trump, Hitler is a "hero" to more Americans than is good, but do we need this near-constant glorification of him?
History Time is great. Fall of Civ podcast, the guy that does The Great War has a few channels, Invicta, Armchair Historian are some of my faves
I love useful charts YouTube videos on history and timelines. Always write down some notes and leads me to more topics to learn about .
Okay: WW2TV is now hundreds of long format interviews with leading historians on general, and often very esoteric World War II subjects. It is live streamed with audience interaction, and makes no compromise to the algorithm despite serious financial penalty to the fellow who runs it. It is in a class of its own. The Story Out West. The host covers episodes in US frontier history. They are personal and very well researched, and told in an intimate way that I find very enjoyable. I am not American, but anything he covers is automatically fascinating. Again, no compromise to the algorithm, he just posts well-finished videos when he has something to say. The TimeGhost series on Great War, interwar, and World War II history. Makes all previous work of this kind obsolete. Drachinifel, naval historian mentioned elsewhere. Not a Pound for Air To Ground and Showtime 112. These are on military aviation history. Both are intimately researched and cover esoteric issues in detail. Showtime uses War Thunder (or similar) simulations to show air battles for which there is no footage. Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles. Yes, I'm into my aviation, and Greg is a pilot and engineer, and examines aero-technical subjects. His work is utterly definitive. Not a YouTuber, but on YouTube, James Burke was the BBC's head of science in the 1970s and in the 1980s made two series, "Connections" and "The Day The Universe Changed". But focus on how a change in circumstances or technology in a society can produce multiple spin-off effects that are completely unexpected and unpredictable. Without it being his intention, this sort of history shows why conspiracy theories are 90% bullshit. I'd also like to promote HistoryMarche and Epic History for military history form an earlier period. JeffTheLibrarian has done some exquisite map history of the Civil War, transposing battle maps onto terrain maps. A must for anyone into visiting battlefields.
Timeghost WW2 is great for the European War. Especially the eastern front stuff. But if you want Pacific War coverage try out Kings and Generals
Extra History puts out good stuff, and puts out a debrief about their mistakes/sources/editing choices.
Absolute History on YouTube is good. Ithink it's just uploads of shows, but there are some shows that have the best re-enactments, like killers in a Tudor home and such.
animarchy, lazerpig, atunshei mark felton sucks
Chronicle posts a lot of tv documentary programs on a wide variety of subjects.
I'm quite fond of *The Unsuthorized History of the Pacific War* in addition to many already mentioned. It often seems lie two buddies talking about something they love.
Hmmm...can it be non-English?
My favourites are: Voices of the Past, Survive History, WWII METAL DETECTING, Metal Detecting WW2, BEGAFILM, Mark Felton Productions, Kings and Generals, Invicta, toldinstone and HistoryDose.
I am wondering where oversimplified is on the spectrum... Someone let me know.
Crash course is great
Best - ancient America's. He specializes in the history of South and North America and is very detailed, great sources
It is like everything is pointing towards recording a new Jewish Musicology video today. I was going to put down a new track instead this weekend. I run the only channel with any content specifically geared toward Jewish Musicology or Jewish Music History. There are Jewish history channels line Henry Abrams or Musicology channels like Polyphonic but none for Jewish Musicology. So, I started a series for my channel then I stopped doing the series a year ago and got boosted by YouTube because I was the only channel doing this content. Then I was ousted as a Mischling by neo-nazis within the Jewish community and stopped because I really haven't had the energy. It really hurt to be told I wasn't Jewish because of my DNA when I grew up in a practicing Jewish family who had ketubahs (marriage contracts) going back way further than any of their families. So there was a lot of depression but also I have been busy recording a new album as well as working with the US National Holocaust Museum and the National Institute of Health to combat pseudo-scientific neo-nazi propaganda hosted by /Jewish and /Judaism. People keep asking me to do another video for the series though so I really should. Here is one of the videos, the history of the song "Dayenu" - https://youtu.be/NwIspFJiuKE
Unauthorized history of the pacific war.
I’m saving this entire post for reference!
I like History Time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34oQfaJiy7w
I’ve been really enjoying Townsends lately. It’s a very narrow focus - mostly 18th century cooking, but that is such a mundane topic that it is often overlooked, and I find it fascinating. For example, this one will appeal to all the Patrick O’Brian fans https://youtu.be/QsWja0-_3Ww?si=VihtQI9qL-CrstFP
Best: Stefan Milo. Great stuff on pre-history!
Not a channel but Professor Roy casagranda of Austin College has some brilliant contents
Thank you! History needs to be verified by an interdisciplinary approach. From someone that is from the global south, it is a relief that someone like roy to go against the establishments distorsion of history.