Dan Carlin: The End is Always Near - book review

A few historical events sprinkled here and there, from the Bronze Age to WW2, with little connection between them besides the general "end of the world" theme. More superficial than his podcasts, which is ironic (I love his WW1 series, "Blueprint for Armageddon", about 6 episodes, 26 hours in total - basically an in-depth book itself).

Just interesting enough to recommend to someone who doesn't read much history, but I doubt that it would satisfy a more advanced reader. I listened to the audiobook version, read by Dan Carlin himself - It felt like one of his podcasts, although his tone was even more overly dramatic here (it becomes tiresome if you listen for hours).

The most interesting parts for me were the beginning of the book and anything to do with the Bronze Age, it is a fascinating and overlooked period in history; and also the last two chapters circling around the atomic bomb, the Cuban Crisis and Kennedy's state of mind, the Allies' bombing of Germany and the skewed morality around it etc. But even so, it was mostly on the surface. If you take this book as a general overview and a guide on where to go deeper, it's a good introduction, but not more than that. I think this lack of depth shows Dan's limitation as an amateur historian, but it could also be intentional (he regularly admits in his podcasts he's just someone who loves to study history - "a history enthusiast" -, thus he's not a historian by profession).

It's an easy read and still more informative than 90% of non-fiction books nowadays, just don't expect anything groundbreaking.

Rating: 3/5