Mania for Subjugation now available!
Hardcore History #71 is a multi-part series on Alexander the Great
So, after almost two decades of teasing it, we finally begin the Alexander the Great saga.
I have no idea how many parts it will turn out to be, but we are calling the series “Mania for Subjugation” and you can get the first installment HERE. (of course you can also auto-download it through your regular podcast app).
As you may know, we have talked around Alexander since show #1. That first show was a moral and motivations comparison between Alexander and Adolf Hitler. (available here ) After that we did a show on the “Funeral Games” scramble for power period that transpired after Alexander's death ( The Macedonian Soap Opera ), a show on his mother ( Glimpses of Olympias ) and of course he was a vital character in the latter part of our Kings of Kings series on the Achaemenid Persians ( Here ). So finally we do the show where his story is center stage.
And what a story it is! My go-to example in any discussion about how truth is better than fiction. It is such a good tale and so mind blowing that more than 2,300 years after it happened our 21st century people still eagerly consume books, movies, television shows and podcasts about it. Alexander is one of the great apex predators of history, and he has become a metaphor for all sorts of Aesop fables-like morals-to-the-story about how power can corrupt and how too much ambition can be a poison.
This first installment follows a standard biographical style of looking at Alexander's roots and background. We discuss his mysterious and titanic parents, the murderous, cut-throat dynastic environment in which he was raised and the geographic region of the former geo-political backwater that he and his amazing father will raise to military dominance.
One thing you can be sure of when I talk about subjects that have long fascinated me, there will be a decent amount of tangents and digressions in the narrative. A hard-to-avoid side effect when speaking extemporaneously and improvisationally Hopefully this is seen as a feature and not a bug.
Finally, before I drive some of you nuts, be forewarned that there will be a hard C pronunciation of Macedonian going on (as in “Makedonian”). This has been (I think) our default pronunciation throughout the entire run of HH...so
obviously we would try to be consistent about this. For details on why I am among the “Hard C heretics” on this issue check out the substack post where I discussed it: "To C or not to See"
And, as always, thanks a ton for all your patience and support
.