The Origins of A History Podcast With (James R. Early)

The Origins of A History Podcast With (James R. Early)

In this episode of the American Civil War & UK History Podcast, host Daz is joined by fellow podcaster and history enthusiast James R. Early for a wide-ranging conversation about all things history podcasting. From creating engaging content to sharing a passion for the past, they discuss what it takes to bring history to life through the microphone.

James R. Early is an American military historian, author, adjunct history professor, and podcaster best known
as the host of the Key Battles of American History podcast. He teaches history at San Jacinto College in Pasadena, Texas, and specializes in American military history.

He is also the co-host of several popular history podcast series, including:

Key Battles of the Civil War
Key Battles of the Revolutionary War
Key Battles of World War I
Presidential Fight Club

James's Podcast is available here
https://www.parthenonpodcast.com/

ACW & UK History's Website.
https://www.acwandukhistory.com/

ACW & UK History's Pages.
https://linktr.ee/ACWandUKHISTORY

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

To keep up to date with everything of American Civil War and UK history, head over to our website, ACW and UKhistory.com. And remember, this podcast has a PowerPoint presentation that goes along with the show. So if you would like to see the PowerPoint presentation, then head over to our YouTube channel at American Civil War and UK History. Cheers. Hello everyone, I'm Daz and welcome to American Civil War and UK History Podcast. This presentation is available as a video on our YouTube channel or as a podcast from wherever you get your podcast from. And if you're watching on YouTube, remember to hit that subscribe button and give us a big thumbs up. And check out our website, www.acwandukhistory.com, where you find podcasts, blog posts, and links to all of our social media pages. The link is also available in the podcast description. And joining me today, I'm pleased to say, is James Early. Now James is a professor of history at San Jacinto College in Pasadena, Texas. He is a published author, also, most importantly, a the co-host with Scott Orang of Presidential Fire Club. But most importantly, the key battles of the Civil War, key battles of Revolutionary War, key battles of World War I, and key battles of American history. Welcome, James.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Thank you, Darren. It's it's a pleasure to be on here. We've been planning this for quite some time. It's taken us a while to get together, but I'm excited to finally be able to sit down with you virtually and have this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Absolutely. Now, James, we're going to talk about your love of history and how you got into history and everything. So the most important question the first time on this podcast is how did you first became interested become interested, sorry, in history?

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Well, I've always been a uh history fan ever since I was a young child, and uh I read as much history as I could. I did not major in history in school, but then later at the age of 43, I went back and got a master's in history. It took me four years because I had to do it part-time. You know, I had a full-time job and four kids and all kinds of things going on. But I finished my master's in history in 2015, and then that fall I started teaching American history, uh a survey course, basically, like what you might call History 101, History 102, just the the uh the grand sweep of American history from Columbus down to the present. And I wanted to be in touch and communicate with and have discussions with more history fanatics like myself, so I started a group on Facebook in 2016 called American History Fanatics. And then I saw the strangest internet meme. I often say that my podcasting career started with an internet meme of all things. I I don't know what I was doing, I was just kind of going through Google and I saw this meme, and somebody had taken a photo from the American film Fight Club, you know, kind of a classic film that a lot of cult classic that a lot of people like. And they they so you had all these guys, you know, with these beefy chests and these just tough boxer kind of physiques, but they had photoshopped the heads of presidents onto the heads of the men in the photos. So you had like Lincoln looking like he was a boxer, all cut and ripped and everything, and you had Roosevelt in Washington and all that. So I looked at that, I thought, you know what? That would be really cool if you could just somehow mysteriously, magically take all of the presidents out of the past and bring them together into one room and pair them up and have them fight each other, you know, make sure they're all the same age so that there's no uh you don't have a 70-year-old fighting a 30-year-old or something, but make them the same age, make them at the peak of their physical health. And so I thought, you know what, I'm gonna set up a tournament. So I set up brackets and I grouped the presidents by the place of their birth, roughly, and so I made four brackets, kind of like the American college basketball tournament brackets that are so famous, and many other tournaments are and so I would pair up people like let's have uh John Adams versus John Quincy Adams, and then and so what I just then I thought, well, how am I going to decide who wins the fight? So I did it by a poll in my history group, American History Fanatics, on Facebook, and I just basically would put one fight up every day, and I would say, okay, everybody, take a vote. Who wins? John Adams versus John Quincy Adams. And so they would vote, and whoever got the highest number of votes would advance to the next round of the tournament. And we did this until we had a final four and then a final two, and then finally a grand champion. And fortunately for me, thank goodness, uh, Scott Rank, uh, who you mentioned earlier, he's a great podcaster himself. He has the famous History Unplugged podcast, which is one of the most popular history podcasts. Scott ran across my polls and he thought that was really cool. And so he contacted me. He said, Hey James, I would like to do your tournament, your presidential fight club tournament, as a podcast series. Would you be interested? And I said, Sure, why not? So what we did was we we basically made one short episode out of each fight or each match, if you will, and that turned into a fairly long series on history unplugged, and then Scott made it an independent uh limited series podcast called History Fight Club, and so that was my first podcast. Uh you mentioned it earlier. And it's kind of a niche thing, it's kind of goofy and silly and fun. It's not but what we did was we evaluated the presidents based on how physically tough they were. You know, their fighting prowess. Like, did and the members of the we we stuck with the polls that the members of the group, uh American History Fanatics, did. So we would look into things like did they serve in the army? Uh did they ever box? Did they wrestle like Abraham Lincoln? Did they were they into martial arts like Theodore Roosevelt, who was also a boxer, things like that. So it didn't have as much to do about their quality as a presidential leader or their politics or their policies, but it was all about their physical prowess. And so it was a lot of fun. And then later in the History Unplugged Facebook group, Scott Rank posted a poll and he asked the members of that group, I think I'm going to do a series on a war, because he tends to do just one-off episodes. He t he usually just does interviews with authors. But he said, I want to do something different. I want to cover an entire war. What would you like me to cover? And so there was a poll in the Civil War I, surprise, surprise, it's a Civil War and World War II in the US are the most popular wars to study. And so I had studied the Civil War quite a bit in school, and I've read a lot about it. I'm not a scholar or an expert necessarily, but I'm pretty knowledgeable about it. So I contacted Scott and I said, Hey, I can help you with that. You know, I can do a series. In fact, I'll write the episodes, and uh you and I could be co-hosts, and he said, Absolutely. So that ended up being another series on history unplugged. It was a series on the Civil War, and it was a very like high-level overview. I call it a 10,000-foot view. I wasn't trying to get into the weeds, I didn't want to have a hundred episodes, just a brief overview, Civil War 101. And so we did that, and then he spun that off as another podcast, a limited series podcast. And that was so much fun, I said, Hey Scott, let's do the American Revolution too. He said, Okay, so that ended up being key battles of the Revolutionary War. And then I said, How about World War I? Also, I just couldn't stop. I was having so much fun with this. And and he said, Okay, we'll do that. So we did uh key battles of World War I. And then he finally said, You know what, man, you need to have your own podcast because uh I like what you're doing, it's a lot of fun, but it it's kind of taking up all the space on my podcast, History Unplugged. And he he said, I'll help you with the first one, and after that, he was kind of like a mother bird shoving me out of the nest and having me fly. So that is how my current podcast, which is not a limited series, it's been going on for uh gee, five years now. Uh and it's called Key Battles of American History. So that's that's how I got from not even doing a podcast at all to having so many podcasts, but again, one uh Key Battles of American History that I consider my main podcast now.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Oh, fantastic. What a great story and what a great introduction to podcasting. So um, James, uh I I've I understand that you was uh was you teaching civil war at school as well. Is that what you was teaching? Or what what do you do?

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Well, I do I I it's I teach civil war, but everything, and and that's I'm glad you asked me that because that's one of my motivations for doing these fairly in-depth series. Again, fairly. I'm not, you know, I I if I cover the Civil War, it's gonna be like 25, 30 episodes, it's not gonna be hundreds of episodes like some people do. But the only course I teach at the college where I teach, I teach at a two-year college, it's a it's a community college, and uh it's a survey. So you have one semester, four months to go from say Columbus to the end of Reconstruction. Okay, and you as you can imagine, when you're covering that much material in just a brief amount of time, three hours a week, you know, a total of what, maybe 45 hours to cover all that. You don't get to go into much detail on any one particular topic. So so for example, when I talk about the Battle of Gettysburg, you know, I get 10 minutes tops, if that, you know, or I just don't get to go into the nitty-gritty at all. I I just get to say, okay, so Lee marched into uh Pennsylvania, he collided with the Union Army, they fought for three days, and after three days the Union prevailed, and Lee retreated back into Virginia. I mean, it's it's frustrating for a history nut like you and me. So that's that was part I wanted to I I wish I could teach a course on the Civil War or a course just on um the World War II or something, but that's just not done at the community college level. 99% of the history courses are survey courses in at that level. So uh that's part of why I wanted to get into podcasting because it's I think of podcasting as an extension of my classroom. I can do whatever I want. If I want to do a 25-week series on the Civil War or on the Revolutionary War or on whatever, I can do that, and I'm not constrained to the curriculum of the college. I I I kind of think of it as taking my taking my classroom to the world, or the world is my classroom, if you will. I don't know. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Yeah, absolutely. What I loved about it, and again, guys, I want to uh reiterate that um that I came across James's uh the key battles of the Civil War, and as as he said, it's a it's a high-level view, but at the time that's what I was looking for, and I think sometimes you know people need that entry-level uh kind of uh information, and then of course, if you want to go and delve deeper, you go and delve deeper. But what you did so good is give that really good overview with some really good points within that those episodes, uh, and it made you want to go and learn more, but it was just absolutely fantastic. I remember listening to the first episode, and I was like, I need to listen to it again, I need to listen to it again, and I ended up listening to it quite a few times each each episode. So, you know, how did you and um Scott come up with uh you know, uh, because obviously you're doing this together, how did you come up with how it would flow and how the the script kind of thing of how you was going to put this out?

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Yeah, that's uh good question. I basically we treated it as Scott is the host and I'm the guest, and I ended up doing most of the talking. I wrote 90% of each episode, but he would also add in a few thoughts, reflections, and notes and whatnot, and he would so he would ask me, he would say, Okay, so you know what happened first? Let's say the episode, the topic is is the first battle of Bull Run. He would say, Okay, so what's the background to Bull Run? As if he were interviewing me on it, and I would basically just uh go over what I had in my notes, I would discuss it, and then he would maybe uh react, reflect on that, and then he would say, Okay, so after that, you know, you know, after this, then what happened, and so on. So that was the structure for all of the the collaborations I did with Scott Rank. Since then, my format has evolved somewhat. You know, we all when we do something for a long time, we we gradually change things. We think of we tweak, you know, we think of better ways to do things. And so my format is is quite different now than it was back in the days of key battles of the Civil War, key battles of the American Revolution, and so on.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Yeah, absolutely. And uh I would say as well, because I think you said uh when we was discussing before we started recording, obviously, you know, that you you're that that podcast came around about 2018. Now this is but people don't realize this is before sort of podcasts really start taking off. Uh I would say they're around, but so you're you guys are one of the first sort of you know, to go into that sort of market in that area, aren't you, in a way?

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Yeah, I mean there had been quite a few history podcasts, but as you suggested, they hadn't quite exploded yet. You know, they I would say around 2020 is when it just seems like we have a phrase in America, everybody and their dog, I don't know if you say that in Britain, but but everybody and their dog, it just feels like, and you can you can vouch for me on this, it feels like you know, obviously, well, let me back up and just say in 2020, obviously COVID hit, we're all sitting at home, people get bored, they're looking for stuff to do, and it seems like everybody and their dog started a podcast, you know. So and so podcasts, the number of podcasts, including history podcasts, has just exploded since about 2020 or 2021. Uh, but yeah, so we got into it fairly early. Uh, you know, we're not like Dan Carl and History of Rome early, not like that, but uh we were kind of I would say in the second wave of history podcasters.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Absolutely. Okay, so I'm gonna ask you a few questions uh and uh so what do you enjoy most about doing a history podcast, James?

SPEAKER_01 14:33

Well, there's two things I enjoy the most. The first thing I enjoy the most is well, the one of the two things I enjoy the most is just how much I learn. As I mentioned earlier, I'm not a PhD, I'm not an academic, I'm not somebody who's studied the Civil War or World War II or you name it all my life. I my knowledge tends to be uh a mile wide and an inch deep, as we say here. So I know a little bit about a lot of things, and so one of the reasons I like to do the podcast is because as I research and write, my knowledge gets a little deeper, you know, and I learn more. I'm always learning new things. I love learning new things. I mean, I'm sure you do too. All all history nuts do, and and most people like learning new things in general, but especially us history fanatics, we always want to you know learn one more thing. If you walk through a graveyard, we you know we stop, we read the headstones, what who is this person? And so, or if you see a monument, you stop. Uh, we always want to learn more. And so I have learned so much about the Civil War, about World War One, World War II, you name it. All the wars I I all the world's sorry, all the wars that I've covered, uh my knowledge has just greatly increased. I so I part of the reason I do the podcast is for my own benefit as well. I want to learn and then I want to share what I've learned. And I would say the second thing I enjoy the most is just the conversations that I have with people. In my podcast, I all I almost always work with a partner. Occasionally I will do a one-off or episode where I just uh cover something on my own. But again, I really enjoy working with a partner. I like the podcast to be a dialogue, a discussion. You know, I I always say this to people when they ask about my podcast, like, what do you do? What's it like? And I tell them the vibe I'm trying to present is that I'm sitting down at a table with somebody, maybe with a cup of coffee, and we're talking about a battle or something, and and somebody else walks by and hears us and sits down and joins us. So the the podcast listener is like that person who walks by and says, Oh, what are they talking about? and sits down and listen to us. It's just it's a dialogue, it's a conversation between two people uh that that uh I want to share with the world as a whole.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Yeah, fantastic. And uh um I'm the same, yeah, exactly the same. Um so what do you enjoy least about uh podcasting?

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Uh what do I enjoy least? I probably just like the the technical side of it. I don't do my own editing, thank goodness I have a person that edits for me. But I do sometimes have to do things like you know, like you make mistakes. You have to go back and listen to the episode and and and where did I, you know, where did I fumble up or where did I s where did I screw up? Where did I go blah blah blah but you sometimes you get tongue-tied, and so going in and finding those and m marking the timestamps and telling the editor what has to be cut out, things like that. So uh just the technical nitty-gritty details I don't always find enjoyable.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

And I I'll agree with you there. Um, yeah, technology's uh the bane of my life. Um I had to learn editing myself. My wife edited the first couple of episodes, but I did actually have to teach myself, and then of course, you know, social media as well is difficult minefield as well. Um but yeah, no, fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Okay, so yeah, reading another if I can jump in, another thing I don't always enjoy is reading the comments, you know, I because there's always, you know, anytime you put yourself out there, anytime if you're whether you're a singer or an actor or a dancer or whatever, and you put yourself out to the general public, there's gonna be critics. And you just have to prepare yourself for that. And no matter how hard you try to put out a quality product, you know, a qu uh somebody's gonna get offended or somebody's gonna trash you. I don't know if you ever saw the uh the American, have you ever seen the American TV show, The Muppet Show? It came out in the late 70s, and the Muppets would always put on like this variety show, and there were two grumpy old men who would sit up in a balcony and you know who I'm talking about, they'd always they'd always like harass and heckle the people and and but they were part of the act, it was so funny. But but they would always say, Whoa, they would tell them, You're terrible, that that was just so bad, and all that, and things like that. But and that was it was funny, but I sometimes I feel like some of these people that put one-store reviews and negative comments, they're like those two guys, like you can't please them no matter what you do, and yet they keep coming back, right? It's like you don't like my show, but you keep coming back anyway. And uh, so but you have to have a thick skin, you have to realize um, you know, these I don't know. I you just can't please everyone. Uh you have to go into it with that mindset and don't let it get you down too much if you get a one-star review. And people will say the craziest things, they'll you know, they'll say, Well, you said such and such. Like, no, I did not say that. I I never said that. Well, are you listening even to the same podcast that I put out? You know, you have to, you know, Jesus said, For father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And so you have to kind of have that mindset as well. Uh, you have to just roll with it, roll with the punches, and keep going.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Absolutely. And I would say uh at the beginning it was very hard for me to not respond, and I've learned and I have got a thicker skin. But what one thing you've got to remember, guys, is these people are pushing our algorithms. So all I'm gonna say to them is thank you very much. And like you said, they keep coming back. So, you know, thanks for that. Every comment counts, whether it's negative or positive, it doesn't matter. You are making me grow. Thank you very much. Um, yeah, go and sit out in the sun or something, maybe that'll cheer them up. Um, okay, so this is obviously an important one, and again, now uh from my point of view, this question I would so this is how how you would choose your topics now. The way I do it is I will literally, I have got the next 12 months planned in my brain. Then the next thing I will do is write a note on my phone and go, right, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna cover that. So, how do you go about choosing your topic? Uh I mean, obviously, you had the Civil War one, that was easy, and the other genres, uh like you said, the limited series. But when it comes to the American, uh, you know, the American uh uh key battles, how do you choose that topic? Do you choose whatever you fancy, or how do you go about that?

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Pretty much whatever I fancy uh is the short answer. Uh uh for a longer answer. I started with the Pacific Theater of World War II, which I've always wanted to study in depth. My father actually served in the Marine Corps uh during World War II, and he was in Guadalcanal. He fought uh for a month in a very uh risky mission, very dangerous mission behind enemy lines called the Long Patrol. And then he was uh at Tarawa, he was also at Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and so I I've always been highly interested in the Pacific War, but just didn't know a ton about it. So I wanted to start with that. And Scott Rank was my co-host for that one. After that, I just I you know, just whatever I guess pops into my head, my goal is to over time to cover excuse me, to cover all the American wars. And you know, you would think I'm gonna run out of things pretty soon, but actually not, because I also not only do I do battle by battle accounts of the wars or overviews of the wars, but I also I also do author interviews from time to time. I don't do a ton of those, but uh so uh in between series I fill in space by doing author interviews and I'll do one-off topical interviews. I have people that support me on Patreon, and people who support me at a certain level or higher get to commission an episode on a topic of their choice. So I've had people commission episodes on things like uh medical care during World War II. That was an interesting episode. I had somebody else ask me about uh the mail, how did they handle the mail service in World War II? Uh I had one uh on the Quana Parker, who is a famous Cherokee leader in the in the 1800s and just different things like that. So so part of what I cover is guided by my patrons and and sometimes I'll ask for input, like what would you guys like to hear next? But uh and it kind of also depends on my co-hosts availability. I like to use a rotating group of co-hosts, I don't have the same co-host all the time. I'll I've used uh Scott Rank, I've done a couple series with Scott Rank, I've done several series with a fellow named Sean MacIver, I've done uh I've had other people. So so yeah, just kind of whatever whatever just pops into my head. I've and again, uh I also have the the listeners have some input as well.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Mm-hmm. And again, I know you you mentioned World War II there, but like um obviously sometimes you know there might be a a a topic that I would cover and I'm not overly enthusiastic about it, but then at the end of it I'm like, oh, actually, I want to learn more about this now. Have you ever had that that issue?

SPEAKER_01 24:19

Yeah, I did um I did the Vietnam War, which is a very painful war to discuss, especially for Americans, because it's it's really I mean, somebody could get technical with me on this, but I this really the only major conflict that we've been in that we lost. You know, we got beat badly and it was just mismanaged in many ways, and it's it was painful to discuss, but it's important because it carries implications and after effects that last right down to the present. You know, the Vietnam syndrome and things like that, the War Powers Act, and and it was really the beginning of American skepticism about government in general prior to the Vietnam War. Most Americans trusted the government and thought the government was was their was a force for good, but since then uh the opposite is the case. So you have to do the good and the bad. Eventually I'm gonna do the uh wars against the Native Americans, and that's gonna be another painful one because uh so many atrocities were committed by the US Army. Uh really both sides, but the US government's policy was I mean, let's be honest about it, the US government's policy was to move the Native Americans off of their land, to clear them out, so to speak, for white settlement. So uh I I will do that eventually. Uh I'm not chomping at the bit to do it. It's again because it's just a painful topic to discuss. It's easier to discuss topics such as World War II, you know, the so-called good war, where the US was definitely the good guys. Uh not that everything they did was good. Obviously, there were a lot of individual uh atrocities and things like that, but yeah, it's just uh you gotta take the good with the bad and and and I'm trying to do everything, good or bad.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Yeah. Well I'm gonna quote Sherman, uh war is hell. Um yes, it is, you know.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

You know, every war, every war, I mean, the purpose of war is to kill more of your enemy than they kill of you. And and what from a personal standpoint, I'm I'm a pacifist. You know, I don't I don't own any guns. I don't like guns, I don't fire guns. Actually, I did fire uh one weapon, but it was a Civil War rifle. You know, I did a little reenacting back in college, it was a replica of a Civil War rifle with blanks in it. I don't condemn anybody who does. Uh I don't I don't condemn people who are into guns and all that. It's just not for me. I've never served in the military. Uh not because I'm anti-military, it just never seemed to be the right thing for me to do. Uh so I'm even though I'm personally a pacifist, I do find war fascinating. I I I find I mean I find all history fascinating, uh, at least most history, but I find war especially interesting because there's so much um there's so much bad that is done, there's so much evil that is done in war. I mean, you think about it, like I said, your purpose as a soldier is to kill as many of the enemy as possible and to not be killed. But there's also so much drama, so much human war brings out the best and the worst in human beings, I think. And and and I'm sure you you you have several stories you could name where people helped somebody on the the enemy's side, people saved lives. Um there's just it's just so interesting. And then I mean I'm I won't even get into like spy craft and espionage and psychological warfare and deceptions, things like that. It's just so interesting because it's about human beings. Human beings are complicated, human beings are fascinating, human beings, their actions you can't explain them sometimes, they just don't make sense, and that's why I find them so fascinating. And to me, wars are the stories of individual humans uh magnified to the thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands.

SPEAKER_00 28:16

And it's shaped us as humans, as you as you sort of alluding to there. Absolutely. Yeah, and uh, you know, again, another thing is technology. You look at how wars come along and technology changes. Uh say, for instance, let's use the American Civil War as a thing. I know they had Crimean World IV, but when it comes to the medical side of things, we start learning a bit more about you know um disease and all those kind of things. So when you get the next war, they they don't really learn anything about tactics because we get to World War I and they're still doing frontal assaults. But you know, you you that each time they learn something new and technology changes, and so you know. I mean, look at today, you know, modern day war is not really fought with a person, it's fought with a drone or or or you know, something automated. So it's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Yeah, definitely. That was a long answer to your question, by the way. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

I don't mind you a lot longer than about. Okay, mate. So um how has podcasting changed how you see history, would you say?

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Um I don't know that it's changed how I see history, uh, other than it's given me a much more in-depth understanding of history and and a more nuanced understanding. You know, we people tend to think of wars as good guys and bad guys, okay? So I was raised in school to take the American Revolution. I was raised to think that the Patriots, the Americans, if you will, you know, Washington, John Adams, John Hancock, Jefferson, people like that, that those were the good guys, right? And the British were the bad guys, no offense. Yeah, nothing. Well, I'm I'm yeah, I'm I'm moving, I'm gonna I I promise I'm gonna move away from that in a minute. But that's the whole point is I was raised in school to think that. But as you study more and more, you realize that you know, if the Americans, the Patriots, so were the good guys and the others were the bad guys, there's a lot of bad guys on the good guy side, right? And there's a lot of good bad guys, if that makes sense. I mean, think about the loyalists. You know, I was raised to these were the loyalists, of course, were uh people born and raised in the American colonies, but they stayed loyal to the king. They didn't want to participate in any kind of revolution. I was raised to think that though they were traitors, like they were bad guys, right? But the more I study the revolution, the more I have sympathy for the loyalists. These are people who were Americans, but they just wanted to be loyal to their king. You know, they they they appreciated all that Britain had done for them, and they they returned they showed that appreciation through their loyalty. But unfortunately for them, they paid a steep price for that. Many of them were stripped of their property, stripped of all their rights, many of them were forced to uh leave, and they ended up in Canada or in Britain itself, and places they'd never even been, they'd never lived before. That was a different culture. And and they were forced to do all this simply because of their loyalty to their own government. So so I yeah, maybe uh maybe I would say that then. I I think the greatest thing is the nuance that you get from an in-depth study of a war and an open-minded study. You know, there's it's never as simple as good guys and bad guys. Uh there's always it's a lot more complicated than that.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

Yeah, absolutely. And uh, you know, I'd I'll use another example, and again, guys, uh so from from my standpoint, I would agree with you there. You always so say for instance, if you was pitching the American Civil Ward someone who doesn't know anything, and you say to them, Well, it was uh blue and grey, you'll get the answer of, oh, weren't the grey the bad guys. You know, you get that, you know, and because obviously they haven't studied it and they don't understand. Now, like you said, from my perspective, what I've learned myself is you've got to look at it from the middle. You can't just look at one side or the other. I mean, there are some wars where, like, say for instance World War II, that you know, it's it's pretty obvious who the bad guys are, but most war, and also going back to the Rev War, like you said, you know, this was really technically a civil war, you know, with in America, you know, North America. Absolutely. Um, you know, so again, I've got sympathy for them, but what I love about uh learning about all these things is is the the characters and some of the stories that come from it. You you could, you know, I mean, you you've got a Hollywood script right there with some of the characters from the American Civil War, say for instance, you know. I mean, it's just fast fantastic. So um that's what I would say is I've learned that you know you've got to look at things from you know from the middle and not in and broader sense, you know.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

Yeah, the I mean not every to to piggyback on what you just said, not every person in the Confederacy was a horrible, evil person. You know, they were not all a bunch of mini Hitlers. These were people, and again, I'm I'm not defending slavery, so listeners don't misunderstand me. How slavery is terrible, it was evil. However, you know, a very small percentage of of white Southerners own slaves. Um I don't know the exact percentage, and I don't think anybody knows it for sure, but it I've seen estimates around 25%, which means 70, if that's correct, 75% of white Southerners did not um own slaves. So they weren't really fighting to hold on to their slaves because they didn't have any slaves. They were fighting because you know one Southerner was actually asked, you know, why are you fighting? by a he was captured by the Union Army and he was made a prisoner, and he said, Uh we're fighting because you're down here. Right? Yeah defending their homes and their families. Uh if you've seen the movie Gettysburg, there's a funny, I'm sure you have there's a Yeah, I was actually thinking of that, James.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

Go on, say the quote.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Yeah, the the uh uh Tom Chamberlain, uh Colonel Chamberlain's younger brother, who's a lieutenant, he asked these prisoners, well, why what are you fighting for? And one guy says, This is so funny. He says, We're fighting for a rat. Yes, rats, and he says, You are rats. What do you mean fighting? Why are you fighting for rats? He's thinking about the little furry animal with the tail, right? That everybody hates. And and no, our rats. Oh, he finally realized, oh, he's saying his rights, okay, because that's like an extreme uh you know, southern uh hillbilly accent.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

It's hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

They were fighting for what they saw as their rights, and so uh and and people today can say, well, I would not have done that, I would have been a unionist and I would have freed my slaves and all that. Well, that's easy to say 150 years, 160 years later, you know. But but you have to interpret history uh by the standards of the time. You can't we can't look at it through the lens of our morals today because things were very different back then.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Oh, 100%, yeah. I totally agree with that. Yeah, absolutely. And uh yeah, okay, so um what makes a great history podcast, James?

SPEAKER_01 35:27

Well, I think the the most important thing is good storytelling. Um I I I as I said, I always have a guest. I like podcasts that are a dialogue between two people because I like the banter, I like the joking, I like the occasional silliness, and I don't want too much of that. You know, I don't want people to just sit there and laugh the whole time and yuck it up. That I find annoying, but but a little of that I think is good. However, I you know, well, let me let me just say I like well let me go in another direction here. The inspiration for or the primary inspiration for the format of my podcast is a British podcast called Rex Factor. Have you ever listened to Rex Factor? No, I haven't though. Oh man, you're missing out. You should give it a give it a cut. It's Rex as in Kings, right? And so these two guys went through all of the kings and queens of England and then later Great Britain and the UK, and basically gave an overview of their life and their career, and then raided them, right? They and they decided do they make the cut into the final round? And so that's kind of where part it's kind of where I got the idea for uh Presidential Fight Club too. But the the back and forth between these guys is so entertaining. They later went into they then they after they finished all the English and British kings, then they went into Scottish, which I didn't find quite as interesting because I didn't know as much about the topic, and then they went into like queens and royal consorts and things like that, which I found less interesting, so I stopped listening to it. But the part when they do the actual kings and queens, so they go all the way from Alfred the Great down to Elizabeth II, who at the time was the reigning monarch when they started the series. I just love that series. So so I love a I love a good two-person podcast. Uh I I don't listen to a lot of history podcasts where it's just one person because to me it ends up becoming too much of a lecture. Um that's just my taste. I know there are podcasts and podcasters who are a one a one-man show or one-woman show, and they're very popular, like Dan Carlin, uh, you know, Mike Duncan. I think I said Dan Carlin and the Roman Empire earlier. Mike Duncan. But people like that. Dan Carlin gets away with it because he's such a great storyteller, and there's others as well. Greg Jackson, who does the uh History That Doesn't Suck podcast, which I love. Um I mean, that guy has you on the edge of your seat all the time. So so, first of all, the a good podcast has to have engaging storytelling, whether it's with one person or two people. I think if you have more than two, it just gets to be kind of chaos, but I I I've seen it done occasionally, but for the most part, good storytelling. Uh you need to have a topic that's that's of general interest. Okay, so you could do like I'm gonna do the history of bookmaking in Kazakhstan. You know, that I mean that may be a fascinating topic, however, I don't think you'd get that many listeners. It's not of enough general interest. Um one other thing that I think makes a great podcast is I I think it's good to have humor. I don't you you have to you take your subject seriously, but not too seriously. You don't want it to, again, seem like you know, that boring history class you had in college or in high school where you were always falling asleep and looking at the clock, thinking, when am I going to get out of here? You want to have and human interest as well. You want to tell just tell a story and talk about individual people from time to time and their lives and their backgrounds and their struggles because we can relate to that. We are human beings, at least most of us, I think. Most podcast listeners, I believe, are human. Uh who knows? Maybe there's some AIs that listen to podcasts now, but but we connect with other human beings and we can relate to people. If you talk about, you know, this guy always wanted to like think about George Washington. He wanted to be an officer in the regular British Army, uh, but he just they wouldn't take him. You know, and he was frustrated about that. We all understand the frustration of wanting a job, but being denied that job, and that's just one of many, many examples. So those those I would say, just to sum up the answer to your question, good storytelling, human interest, and preferably a little humor, don't be too serious.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

Absolutely, fantastic. Okay, so James, where do you think History Podcast is heading?

SPEAKER_01 40:16

Well, I don't really know. I I I can't see the future, obviously, but I I can reflect on some trends that I've been observing. Uh more and more people are doing it, but at the same time, I think it's becoming increasingly professionalized. You know, you people it seems like almost every famous person now, celebrity, whether they're a TV radio hostio host, that's a contradiction, a TV host or a radio host, or uh you know, even like movie stars and uh sports people, it's everybody's starting a podcast now, and and so the the market is becoming more crowded, the field is crowded, and you're starting to get podcasts that are sponsored by corporate entities, and because big companies are noticing, they've taken notice, and they realize a lot of people listen to podcasts, and and there's money to be made there. So I think it's becoming increasingly uh a financial thing for people and a um professional. I think it may be harder now for just an average Joe to start uh his own podcast or her own podcast uh in their garage or their bedroom or whatever. Uh it and it's hard to get your your product out there, it's hard to get noticed because the the internet is so huge and and the world is such a huge place, and I constantly run into people that uh like I myself I post on Facebook what every week I post a link to the episode of the week, and yet I still have people that come to me and say, Oh, like they're Facebook friends of mine, and they'll say, Well, you have a podcast? I didn't know that, what is it? And I'm sitting here thinking, Well, I post it every week, but but you know, social media is so weird and algorithms are crazy, and like you you may have a thousand friends, but you actually see posts from ten of them, perhaps, and and then you get ads and recommendations and all this other junk. So it's it's hard to get noticed, and I I it it's getting to where I think if you're not part of a network, at least, uh, as I am, I am blessed to be part of a network, the Parthenon Podcast Network, which Scott Rank started. If you don't have a staff, you know, people, marketing people and editors and things like that, it's increasingly hard to get noticed, I think, and to increase your listenership.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

Absolutely. And yeah, so I mean, also I would reiterate that, you know, um, so I've been going about five years, and you know, I wouldn't say you know, I'm I'm not a huge or anything, but you just got to keep plugging away, and uh yeah, uh social media are very frustrating because sometimes you you you believe that you've produced one of the best podcasts ever, and uh yeah, all of a sudden nothing happens, and it's very frustrating, you know. Very frustrating, but at the end of the day, this is a this is a hobby for me. Um, I'm doing what I love, and that is talking about history. So, you know, for me, never mind. It's not if one person listened to it, that's good enough for me.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

Yeah, I mean, most of us are not in this for the money, we're in this because it's a hobby, and as you said, we like we love to talk about history, and we're trying to find other people that want to talk about history, and because you know, for history nuts like us, it's it's sometimes you start talking to somebody and their eyes just glaze over. You took the words out of my mouth, and I just talk about yeah, it's like, can we talk about Survivor or some other reality thing or whatever? And I'm like, No. So so w people like you and me want to connect with each other and listen to what each other had to say.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

Yeah, it makes it makes me laugh when somebody asks you the question, don't they? Go, uh, what so so you oh you do a point. What's it about? Uh tell me about whether I'm not and you start going off on one, or they ask you about a subject, and you just see that, like you said, their eyes glaze over and you think, Oh, yeah, I've lost this person. I have to bring them back to the room. Sorry, you did ask the question, don't ask. I want the answer, because you will get the full answer. Right. I've been there many times. Funny. Yeah. Especially with the civil war, like they ask you about a term battle and they get the whole chronic chronological battle, you know, in order. But anyway, never mind. So yeah, it's fantastic that we can, you know, that there's this community. Well, I really do like the community that I've um that I get to interact with myself personally.

SPEAKER_01 44:52

Yeah, and again, I'm with you've got a great uh Facebook group, and I uh my group I is very good. It's very uh uh a lot of different topics are discussed, things like that. So it's fun to be able to I I thank I literally thank God for the internet because you know, without that, who would we talk to about history? You'd have to, I don't know, you'd have to maybe go start a club and a pub or something.

SPEAKER_00 45:19

And and we wouldn't be sitting here talking now with you being in Texas, me and being in sunny folks, then it wouldn't have happened, would it? You know, so okay, mate, so fantastic. Um so I've got to ask you a question. Now, you the the the key battles has been very successful, hasn't it? I would say it has. I mean, you know, so did you ever think that it would be as successful as it has?

SPEAKER_01 45:45

Well, no, because at first I didn't even know it was even gonna happen, period. I just I never thought I would become a history podcaster, and I'm I'm very thankful to Scott Rank for uh giving me my start and you know, kind of showing me the ropes, showing me how it's done, helping me uh hone my skills, learn how to write, learn how to record, things like that, and then uh then kind of as I said, shoving me out of the nest and and letting me uh do things on my own and giving me a forum where I and a network that I can be a part of. So no, I I I never dreamed that this would be and I I love it so much because I I get I I mean I I'm not like a one of the top history podcasts. I'm not like Dan Carlin or Greg Jackson or Mike Duncan or anybody like that. I don't have billions of listeners, but but I have enough to where constantly, like at least once or twice a week, I'll just get a uh you know, I'll get a message on Facebook out of the blue, or I'll get an email and somebody will say, Hey, I love your podcast. I was listening to your series on World War II or your Civil War series or whatever, and I just um I appreciate what you're doing so much, and it it it means a lot to me. And and that that makes it all worth the while. You know, that really warms my heart, literally, and and not that I'm burning out, I'm it's not like I'm burning out and about to give up or anything, but but it just gives me more strength to just keep going and and to know that I'm making a difference and helping people out. I'm I'm helping people learn history in an entertaining and an engaging way. Uh I've had so many people say if I had just if my teachers in school had taught history the way you're teaching it and the way you're explaining it, uh it would have been so much better. And so that makes it all worth the while. Even if I don't make a dime off of it, uh that alone keeps me going.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

Absolutely, totally agree with that. And again, like I said earlier, if uh e even only one person listens to it and they go away and uh you know makes their day better. For me, I've achieved my goal. But not only that, you know, hopefully that will lead them into something else and want a deeper dive and stuff. So again, that's my goal as well. You know, it's it's not about money, it's not about fame, it's not about any of that, it's about passion and wanting to share that with other people. And again, like you said, thank God that you know the internet was created, otherwise, none of us would be doing any of it at all.

SPEAKER_01 48:17

So yeah, that's that's one of the things too that's so rewarding about it is you meet so many fascinating people and and cool people, people with interests similar to yours, but also who are very different in many ways, and we can learn from each other. And it's I I just I never even knew, for example, that there were Civil War reenactors in Britain, you know. And I think I just think that's the coolest thing, you know. I I would I would have never known that if if you and I hadn't uh met up and found each other on Facebook and then through the podcast. It's just you you meet so many fascinating people and good people who who are on the same page as you about history, and it it just it's just a very fulfilling thing.

SPEAKER_00 49:00

Yeah. And I think people will be uh quietly surprised. So here in the UK, firstly we have one of the oldest roundtables, so formed in 1953, actually started off as a thing called the Confederate Research Club, and then for the uh the hundredth uh anniversary of the Civil War, it changed to the Roundtable UK, so that's been going well over 50 years, and the Southern Skirmish Association, which was formed in 1968, but is believed that that started way before that. We do actually have two associations here in the UK. We have the American Civil War Society, which covers Northern England, and the Southern Skirmish Association, which covers Southern England. So, yeah, 1968. The heyday, of course, was the 90s after the movie Gettersburg and Ken Burns. Uh, but nowadays we'll struggle to get you know a hundred people to an event. But um, I think that's reenacting in in the States as well. I know obviously big events people will come out and you get a lot you know more people. But yeah, so that's a little bit of history about the reenacting scene in the UK. But I actually started off doing English Civil Wars. Uh that was my uh my niche. Um let's uh let's talk about um your um okay, James. So let's talk about your podcast. Obviously, you've got your limited series, like we said, the uh the the key battles of World War One, the key battles of the Civil War, and uh key battles of the Revolutionary War. Where can people find these if they want to listen to these, James?

SPEAKER_01 50:30

Well, uh you can for Key Battles of American History, which is the one I would ask you to start with, maybe. Well, uh maybe you should start with the others, I don't know, but because they're shorter. But uh if you just go to w dot key battles of American History dot com, that'll take you to the page for Key Battles of American History. Um and as you mentioned, just to clarify why somebody may ask, well, why do you have so many different ones? The the first three there, World War One, Civil War, Revolutionary War, those are all limited series. They have about twenty-five episodes, and they only cover that war. Whereas Key Battles of American History, I could in that podcast, the plan is to eventually cover all the American wars. So far, I've done World War II, both Pacific and uh Europe. I've done World War One. I and by the way, the World War I series in Key Battles American History is better than the other one. So Key Battles of World War I has kind of been superseded, but of course, feel free to listen to it still if you want. But in Key Battle of American history, I've also done the French and Indian War, or this you know, the uh you would know it as the Seven Years' War, the American portion of the Seven Years War. I've done the War of 1812, I've done uh the war with Mexico in 1846 to 48, I've done the Texas Revolution, I've done the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Barbary Wars, you know, so a lot of different wars from different time periods. Uh so that's why they're that's why they're different. As far as the other ones, if you just Google like key battles of the Civil War podcast, you will get to the website. And you can also find all these on any podcast platform such as Apple Podcast or Spotify. Those are the two big ones that most of my listeners use. But others as well. Google Podcast, uh Stitcher, you name it. So that that's how to find 'em.

unknown 52:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:30

And again, so as far as the key battles of American history, how uh off the top of your head, how many episodes would you say you've done in that genre of uh oh, I think I've probably done almost 400 now.

SPEAKER_01 52:43

Wow. Yeah, I I put out usually uh usually about two a week, sometimes just one a week, but I have never missed a week in five years of doing it, so I'm kind of proud of that.

SPEAKER_00 52:54

Oh, nice, yeah, that's really good, mate. Okay. In a very humble sort of way. Oh, yeah. So what what is next? Um we obviously you don't want to give too much away sometimes with what what's coming, but what what's next? What can your listeners um you know look forward to uh with the key battles of American history?

SPEAKER_01 53:13

Uh it's a surprise. I'm not gonna tell you. Oh, brilliant. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 53:19

Wait and see, children. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:21

The very next series I'm gonna do, I'm gonna keep a surprise, but it you'll you'll enjoy it. It's gonna debut on July 4th, 2026.

SPEAKER_00 53:32

So maybe there's a little bit of a I've got an idea. I've got an idea.

SPEAKER_01 53:36

Yeah, you got a theory.

SPEAKER_00 53:37

Uh, so coming up. I don't like talking about it. It's a sore subject.

SPEAKER_01 53:43

Coming up fairly soon. Also, I I want to do the Spanish American War, which is very little studied, very important. Yeah, it is, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:51

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 53:53

And then the uh the Spanish American War was followed by uh the Philippine War, which is almost no Americans have ever heard of. And that's kind of an extension of the Spanish American War when the U.S. established control of the Philippines, took them away from Spain, the the Filipinos rebelled, at least a lot of them did, and there was a guerrilla war for another two or three years after that. I want to discuss the Boxer Rebellion, especially the American involvement in it. And another topic that I'm gonna do hopefully fairly soon is the U.S. involvement in the Russian Civil War, which again that's something that almost no American even knows happened, but the US actually sent troops into Russia uh toward the end of World War One, and they were there for several years fighting on the side of the so-called white Russians, the the non-communists against the Red Army. And so that's another uh I I I know almost nothing about that, so I'm partially doing it for selfish reasons because I want to learn about it. Uh eventually I will get to I will do a uh revised and expanded version of the Civil War. Uh what else? I eventually I will probably do the the Indian wars, so to speak, the wars against Native American. As I said earlier, very painful topic. I want to do the ban the so-called banana wars, the US wars against a lot of the republics in the Caribbean and in Central America, uh, even in South America in a case or two. And then uh probably the last series I will do will be the Gulf Wars, you know, uh Desert Storm, uh the first the second Iraq War, Afghanistan. I guess I've got a new one now to cover too, huh? So the war with Iran. Yes, we never run into wars. And and there's there's plenty of other things to discuss, and I I I there will be continued author interviews and topical episodes, and um I don't think I'm gonna run out anytime soon.

SPEAKER_00 55:56

Oh, certainly not. Certainly not. And uh okay, so um just to to to finish off this podcast, a couple more questions, just two more. Um, so I want to ask you now, one of my best memories of your um key battles of the civil war was your cat that interrupted the show. Now tell us a little bit about that, and God bless it, rest his soul, he's no longer with Yeah, he's gone on to his eventual his final reward, so to speak.

SPEAKER_01 56:26

Yeah, this is a cat I had named York, and he was uh gosh, he we got him in 2001, so I think this was the Civil War series, maybe. I don't know, I can't remember, but he would have been like in his late teens by the time the podcast was done. And I had the door open and he walks in, and he was senile by then, and he was doing the senile cat thing. He was going and I'm sitting here like I'm not trying to no no be quiet. Of course, a cat's not gonna you know be quiet just because you tell him to be quiet. So I I figured, well, let's just roll with it. I'll work him into the episode, you know, make him a part of the the show. So I said, I sorry everybody, that's my cat. Yeah, and I've got a lot of feedback about that too. A lot of people said I think it was so funny that your cat decided to jump in and join the show.

SPEAKER_00 57:16

If I remember rightly, you had to get up and shut the door. If I remember rightly.

SPEAKER_01 57:20

Yeah, I've I've done that a few times, but I think that time he was too far into the room, I couldn't get him to leave.

SPEAKER_00 57:26

Okay, well, the last thing is now your fa when I first came across you on Facebook and we started communicating, um, on a regular basis you would put up quite a few very, very good dad jokes. So, James, to close the episode, uh off the top of your head, give it your best shot.

SPEAKER_01 57:48

Well, you have to know a little bit about baseball, American baseball, to uh get this one. But so I was sitting in the stands uh in the outfield and I was watching a ball game and the batter hit the ball, and I couldn't understand why the ball just kept getting bigger and bigger. Then it didn't work.

SPEAKER_00 58:07

And then he then they went in an ambulance, probably.

SPEAKER_01 58:10

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:12

I've got to say, James, that's a pretty good one. You're very good at your your dad jokes. Well, and I I would call him at the time I was saying to refer him to Christmas cracker jokes. Um to write that for a quick yeah, go on, couple more.

SPEAKER_01 58:25

One more quick one. So so a man walks into a bank and he's wearing a trench coat, you know, and he looks all suspicious, and everybody's looking at him like, is this guy gonna rob the bank or something? And he he throws off his trench coat and then he says, Everybody, be quiet and get out, and he starts slowly uh tearing off the sleeves of his shirt. And of course, everybody thinks this guy's crazy, and they uh you know, why did you tear your sleeves off your shirt? They grab him and they put in jail and they ask him about it. And he they said, Why did you do that? He said, I was exercising my right to bear arms. Oh dear.

SPEAKER_00 59:02

That one should be banned.

SPEAKER_01 59:05

Second Amendment.

SPEAKER_00 59:07

Right. Well, we'll sign you up for um next year's Christmas cracker jokes, and you can make some money on the time hustle. Because I tell you, mate, you've got a future in uh comedy as well.

SPEAKER_01 59:17

Yeah, be sure to provide the crowd with plenty of rotten tomatoes.

SPEAKER_00 59:21

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Right, well, James, it's been an absolute pleasure. Again, thank you so much for that fantastic, you know, podcast series, uh, the key battles of the civil war. It's shaped me as a podcaster and a person back in the early days. So thank you, and of course, Scott, as well. Um, but at this stage, my friend, all that is left to say is cheers.

SPEAKER_01 59:45

Thank you.