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    The End is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses
    The End is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses
    The End is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses
    Audiobook7 hours

    The End is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

    Written by Dan Carlin

    Narrated by Dan Carlin

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    The creator of the wildly popular award-winning podcast Hardcore History looks at some of the apocalyptic moments from the past as a way to frame the challenges of the future.

    Do tough times create tougher people? Can humanity handle the power of its weapons without destroying itself? Will human technology or capabilities ever peak or regress? No one knows the answers to such questions, but no one asks them in a more interesting way than Dan Carlin.

    In The End is Always Near, Dan Carlin looks at questions and historical events that force us to consider what sounds like fantasy; that we might suffer the same fate that all previous eras did. Will our world ever become a ruin for future archaeologists to dig up and explore? The questions themselves are both philosophical and like something out of The Twilight Zone.

    Combining his trademark mix of storytelling, history and weirdness Dan Carlin connects the past and future in fascinating and colorful ways. At the same time the questions he asks us to consider involve the most important issue imaginable: human survival. From the collapse of the Bronze Age to the challenges of the nuclear era the issue has hung over humanity like a persistent Sword of Damocles.

    Inspired by his podcast, The End is Always Near challenges the way we look at the past and ourselves. In this absorbing compendium, Carlin embarks on a whole new set of stories and major cliffhangers that will keep readers enthralled. Idiosyncratic and erudite, offbeat yet profound, The End is Always Near examines issues that are rarely presented, and makes the past immediately relevant to our very turbulent present.

    Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateOct 29, 2019
    ISBN9780062868077
    Author

    Dan Carlin

    Pioneering podcaster Dan Carlin is the king of long-form audio content. With his Hardcore History shows sometimes topping out at over six hours long, Carlin humanizes the past and forces the audience to “walk a mile in that other guy’s historical moccasins.” Hardcore History has been downloaded over 100 million times.

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    Reviews for The End is Always Near

    4.5/5

    349 ratings20 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I had to stop listening to the book to catch my breath. Basically, we are doomed to all die.
    • 5/5
      This should be a requirement for high school students. We all could use a better future.
    • 4/5
      For people that have never heard of hardcore history this is a great gateway drug onto it. However for fans like myself, This is almost a summary of all hardcore history podcasts. Nevertheless it is still a great book.
    • 5/5
      Big fan of Mr. Carlin and all his work. Thanks for talking about History, especially ancient times, in a way that makes it feel so approachable and relatable.
    • 5/5
      Dan Carlin is the greatest story teller of the 21st century
    • 5/5
      Dan Carlin never disappoints. My all time favorite Podcaster and Amateur Historian was able to, so eloquently, walk you through a journey throughout history of near apocalyptic incidences or near-misses. Whether it’s a major regional empire falling from grace, catastrophic volcanic eruptions, plagues, or nuclear catastrophes, the human civilization always managed to recover, but for how long? For hardcore history fans like me, this book may not feel as brand new information with no chronological order of events, but the way Dan managed to tie the entire human history to one theme is brilliant. For first-timers this book is a must-read/hear.
    • 5/5
      I just love the enthusiasm of Dan Carlin and how he present history!
    • 5/5
      I love history books that connect things overtime. We are all creatures of habits and history doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes!

      Do yourself and favor and listen, you'll hold on a bit more tighter to your loved ones.
    • 4/5
      Wow, depressing! Loved it.

      The 20th century stuff wasn‘t really what I was interested in, and it made up quite a big chunk so that‘s why its four instead of 5 stars.
    • 5/5
      Dan Carlin is unique, love his podcasts more than anything
    • 5/5
      3 thumbs up! Dan Carlin is a legend. Loved it all.
    • 5/5
      Listening to this in late 2021 after covid-19 is quite surreal.
    • 5/5
      Very serious and well thought out perspective of mankind and human nature. Also, chillingly prophetic; having been written just months before this current pandemic!
    • 5/5
      Was easy to follow, narration outstanding, asking many questions to make one think. Educational, enjoyable, worth a double listen
    • 5/5
      Always love Dan Carlin. However, most of the stories and themes are better covered in his Hardcore History podcast.
    • 5/5
      Fabulous book!Highly recommended!Thanks to the author and to the reader!
    • 2/5
      The first two chapters are awful, and while the rest is more interesting, there are more enjoyable and efficient ways to learn the material.
    • 5/5
      Posses relevant and interesting questions to be discussed in our time, while give many interesting anecdotes on history to better understand today.
    • 5/5
      In "The End Is Always Near", Dan Carlin muses upon the many times in the history of humanity, and particularly Western civilization, that "we" (the dominant empire of whatever era) has suddenly crashed into ruin. Usually the downfall of the superpower of the time is followed by a long age of chaos and barbarism- and then new empires rise to assume the mantle of civilization. Carlin points out that terms like "civilized", "dark ages" and "barbarian" are highly subjective and relative to the point of view of the chronicler of events and later historian.His chapters are essays in roughly chronological order, starting with the fall of the Bronze Age empires of the eastern Mediterranean and Mesopotamia between 1500 BC and about 1200 BC (the age of the Trojan War and the explosion of the mega-volcano on the island of Thera in the Aegean Sea), to the Atomic Age- when we achieved the power to eradicate civilization entirely.The book was published last year, 2019, before the Covid-19 Pandemic, but Carlin includes an especially interesting chapter on the history of pestilence as a threat to civilization. The golden age of Athens in antiquity was brought to an end by its long, ruinous war with Sparta, but the Athenian Plague of the fifth century BC also played a major part in the decline of the city-state from dominion over the Greek world. The bubonic plague that ravaged Constantinople in the reign of the Emperor Justinian prevented him from reasserting Byzantine power over the lost provinces of the West and reuniting the Roman Empire.The Black Death of the 1340's swept through Europe, killing at least a third, or as much as half. of the population. One effect was that it greatly weakened the hold of feudalism. The surviving peasantry, mostly held in serfdom before the plague, were emboldened to claim abandoned lands and to defy the surviving aristocracy. The last great pandemic, before the current one, was that of the Influenza of 1918-19. Starting, probably, in the U.S. Army training camps of the Midwest in the spring of 1918, it was carried on troop ships to Europe with the American "doughboys" of Pershing's army. It spread rapidly among all the armies and civilian populations of Europe. In the nations at war, news of the contagion was suppressed by wartime censorship. In neutral Spain, the deadly flu outbreak was freely reported by the press. Thus, it became the "Spanish Influenza". After a lull during the summer of 1918, it came back in a much more deadly second wave in the autumn. It was far worse in those American cities that did not shut down public events and close theaters, schools, bars, etc. The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19 killed at least 50 million people worldwide, over twice the death toll of the Great War.Carlin goes into some detail in his account of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, the time when humankind came closest to Armageddon. He praises the Kennedy brothers, President John F. and Attorney General Robert F., for not heeding the advice of their military "experts", including General Curtis LeMay, who would have gotten us into World War III, in which case I would not be here to write this and you would not be there to read this. Carlin notes that we survived the Cold War, but the nuclear arsenals are still with us, as lethal and potentially apocalyptic as ever. He does not have much to say about the existential threat of climate change, but that awaits the judgment of future historians.
    • 4/5
      I love Dan Carlin's 'Hard Core History' Podcasts. So I picked this up. It's equally good, but I can't help but think I would have enjoyed it more as a podcast? It's fine for what it is and it covers a decent number of little-known historical facts combined with the theme that society is always on the brink of collapse. Cheery stuff, really. If you read this and like I advise you listen to 'The End Of The World' podcast with Josh Clark.