Dan Carlin

Carlin’s mother, Lynn Carlin, was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the 1968 film Faces, and his father, Ed Carlin, was a film producer; he grew up in Toluca Lake and Calabasas in the San Fernando Valley.⁠[1]

While his mother was filming in England, he received his first history book, R.J. Unstead’s Looking At History.⁠[2]

He studied history and political science at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he was deeply influenced by modern German history professor Robert Pois, graduating in 1989.⁠[2]

He recalls coming to Eugene, Oregon, from Los Angeles in 1992 for a job as a television reporter.⁠[3]

He later hosted a show on Eugene talk station KUGN, discussing politics from what he calls a “Martian” perspective.⁠[4]

In the late 1990s he and five friends formed a startup to host amateur content made by the public, something like what YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry later became.⁠[1]

In 2005 he launched Common Sense, a current-affairs podcast that grew out of his radio show.⁠[4]

He says his mother-in-law suggested turning the gory history stories he told at dinner into a podcast; the first Hardcore History episode ran 16 minutes and compared Alexander the Great with Hitler; in 2008 he released his first episode over an hour and recorded an apology, only for listeners to reply that “we have pause buttons.”⁠[5]

In late 2014 he was recording the fifth part of his World War I series Blueprint for Armageddon, calling it his greatest challenge; Hardcore History, recorded in his home studio in Eugene, had been downloaded nearly 70 million times and was named Best Classic Podcast in iTunes’ Best of 2014.⁠[3]

In 2015 historian Graydon Tunstall said his account of the Somme missed major points, and Leif Jerram praised his command of evidence but found little analysis of historical forces; Carlin often says he is not a historian and calls himself a “popularizer.”⁠[4]

A December 2016 recommendation noted that Wrath of the Khans, on the Mongol conquests, ran five parts and about 16 hours, and the World War I series Blueprint for Armageddon about 24 hours; most older episodes were sold, the former for $9.99.⁠[6]

Podtrac ranked Hardcore History the fifth most-downloaded podcast of 2017.⁠[2]

In March 2019 the Tribeca Film Festival named War Remains, his collaboration with MWM Immersive, to its immersive program; combining VR with a physical set to recreate the Western Front of World War I, it was directed by Brandon Oldenburg, developed by Flight School Studio, with audio by Skywalker Sound; he said he had jokingly asked to “make a time machine.”⁠[7]

It premiered at Tribeca that May; he said he chose World War I because of its centennial and its emotional closeness to people today, noting that his grandfather fought in the war.⁠[8]

On October 29, 2019, William Collins, part of HarperCollins, released the e-book of his The End is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses, on the tipping points of collapsing civilisations; the publisher notes that Hardcore History won Best Educational Podcast at the 2015 Podcast Awards and Best History podcast at the 2018 iHeartRadio Podcast Awards.⁠[9]

A review describes the book as moving from the Bronze Age collapse, the fall of Assyria and the so-called fall of Rome to the mass bombing and atomic bomb of World War II, with chapters on the Black Death and the Spanish flu.⁠[10]

In 2020 he spoke at the University of Colorado Boulder’s virtual commencement, recording his speech remotely from home.⁠[11]

On November 3, 2020, he appeared on episode 136 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, discussing the nature of evil, whether war is inevitable, the Eastern Front in World War II, Putin, journalism, Genghis Khan, whether Hitler could have been stopped, whether civilization will destroy itself, advice on podcasting, and Joe RoganJoe RoganJoe Rogan is an American podcaster, stand-up comedian and UFC commentator whose long-form interview podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, launched in 2009, is among the most listened-to podcasts in the world; he hosted the NBC reality show Fear Factor, and his show’s content and political statements have repeatedly drawn controversy.Open the full entry, SpotifySpotifySpotify is an audio streaming subscription service offering on-demand music, podcasts, and audiobooks through a free ad-supported service and a paid Premium subscription. Its parent company, Spotify Technology S.A., is incorporated in Luxembourg, has its principal operations in Stockholm, Sweden, and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker SPOT). It helped move the recorded-music business from buying and owning music to on-demand streaming and is one of the largest audio streaming subscription services by users.Open the full entry and the future of podcasting.⁠[12]

By December 2020 his series on Japan’s road to World War II, Supernova in the East, had reached part five; it opens with Hiroo Onoda, the Japanese soldier who laid down arms only in 1974, and reviewer John Phipps called Hardcore History “the world’s greatest podcast.”⁠[13]

In early 2024 he toured Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Portland and New York with question-and-answer live shows; he said in an interview that history shows how things have gone sideways in the past but does not teach the simple lessons many people want from it.⁠[14]

On June 7, 2024, he released the first episode of Mania for Subjugation, a new series on Alexander the Great.⁠[5]

As of October 2026 Hardcore History had reached episode 74, Mania for Subjugation IV, after the two-part Twilight of the Æsir.⁠[15]

His official site says his shows have hundreds of millions of downloads, with single episodes running up to about four hours and no guests or sound effects; he also runs a Substack newsletter and a YouTube channel.⁠[11]

His official site describes him as a veteran journalist who looks at current events and history from a Generation X, non-partisan, “neo-prudentist” outlook.⁠[16]

Personal website: Public link: https://www.dancarlin.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[11]

X: Public account: https://x.com/HardcoreHistory (opens in a new window)⁠[11]

YouTube: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/@dancarlinpodcaster (opens in a new window)⁠[11]

University of Colorado Boulder: Official website: https://www.colorado.edu/ (opens in a new window)⁠[1]