Mike Duncan (podcaster)

Personal life

Mike Duncan was born in Redmond, Washington and attended Western Washington University, attaining a degree in Political Science with a minor in Philosophy. He is an avid fan of the Seattle Mariners baseball team.

During the course of The History of Rome, Duncan married his wife Brandi and made a special THoR episode on Roman wedding customs in celebration. Mike and Brandi currently live in Madison, Wisconsin, with their son Elliott William and two pets. Brandi is a dedicated runner and has competed in the Austin Marathon. Aside from podcasting, Duncan is currently a stay-at-home dad, and has worked previously as a fishmonger. Duncan also occasionally creates political comic strips in collaboration with illustrator Jason Novak.

Interest in history

Duncan’s interest in Roman history grew from a “general interest in ancient civilizations”. As a child, he would often flip through his parents encyclopedia set to the entries on Ancient Egypt or Ancient Greece, the Mayans, the Inca, etc. The largest and most encompassing of those civilizations to Duncan was always the Romans. Mike became especially interested in Roman history while reading his grandfather's paperback version of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Describing himself as “a complete history geek”, Duncan also has a huge interest in American history. He believes the greatest difference between America and Rome is that compared to Rome, America has only spent a short time on the world stage. Despite studying political science in college, Duncan spent much of his free time studying ancient Greek and Latin texts. " I sort of stumbled into it, so I was reading a ton of Livy at the time, and a ton of Suetonius, and then I had just gotten into Tacitus."

Regarding modern history, Duncan has predicted that Silicon Valley may in the future be deemed as groundbreaking as the Renaissance was. He has stated “We have lived in the last twenty years through some of the most impressive advances in human civilization.”

The History of Rome

Mike Duncan began "The History of Rome," often abbreviated THoR in 2007; it is an award-winning weekly podcast which aired between 2007 and 2012. In the 2010 Podcast Awards, The History of Rome won best educational podcast. The podcast covers the time period from the origin of the Roman Kingdom to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, focusing on the most accepted chain of events according to historical consensus. The show is renowned for its concise style, historical depth, wit, and consistency.

Revolutions

A podcast called "Revolutions" was launched on September 15, 2013. The podcast encompasses some of the biggest revolutions throughout history in a varying number of episodes, including the English, American, French, Haitian, 1848, Mexican, Russian, Chinese, and Cuban revolutions. While Duncan initially planned to limit his podcast to 12-15 episodes per revolution, he ran over that self-imposed limit with the English Civil War and the American Revolution and decided to give up on it for the French Revolution, which ultimately wound up being 54 episodes not counting supplementals. The first section of Revolutions covered the English Civil War from the reign of Charles I to the Restoration. The second section covered the American Revolution, while the third, a history of The French Revolution, covered the period between financial crisis of the 1770s to the coup of 18 Brumaire which brought General Napoleon Bonaparte to power as First Consul of France in 1799. The Haitian Revolution was the fourth season, and then is being followed by a season on the Spanish American wars of independence. Following this, Duncan offered the listeners of the podcast a miniseries on the July revolution in France during 1830, or the Three Glorious Days. Duncan's Revolutions series mostly follow a chronological approach with one or two episodes at the beginning dedicated to the pre-history of the revolution and its causes, sometimes highlighting when and how the revolution could have been avoided. He also includes "supplementals" - special episodes not counted in the normal number of episodes and of more varying length compared to roughly half-hour normal episodes - which deal with a particular topic or person in depth and are sometimes verbatim reproductions of historical texts such as the American declaration of Independence or the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.

Like he had done with The History of Rome podcast, Duncan runs a series of tours to accompany the podcast which visit historical sites mentioned on the show.

Future endeavors

On several occasions, Duncan has mentioned turning his History of Rome podcast into book format, though he has expressed concern such a change could take significant rescripting, since he had geared his podcast to a spoken medium. On October 9, 2015, it was announced that Mike Duncan had signed a deal with a publisher to pen a book entitled "The Storm Before The Storm" where Duncan will examine Roman history between 135 B.C. to 80 B.C. Special attention will be given to the question: "If America is Rome, where are we on the historical timeline?". The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic will be published in October 2017 by PublicAffairs/Hachette Book Group.

On June 4, 2016, Duncan's book, "The History of Rome: The Republic (Volume 1)" was published. The book is a collection of edited transcripts from the first 46 episodes of the podcast, covering the time period from the founding of the Roman Kingdom through the breakdown of the Republic.