Mike Duncan

Michael William Duncan (born February 14, 1980) is an American political history podcaster and author. After not finding any Roman history podcasts in 2007, Duncan began The History of Rome, a narrative podcast chronicling events from the founding of Rome until the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. The podcast concluded in 2012. A year later he began Revolutions, which ran for ten seasons over the course of nine years, covering the American, French, and Russian revolutions, among others. The series' second phase ended in July 2022 and was followed by a nearly two-year hiatus before the series returned on 22 October 2024 with a fictional account of a prospective Martian Revolution. On 16 December 2024, Duncan announced that he was continuing work on the Revolutions podcast, declaring that the Martian Revolution season would be the "intermission" of the podcast and that he would return to telling the stories of real revolutions afterwards.

In addition to podcasting, Duncan is the author of two history books. In 2017, Duncan wrote The Storm Before the Storm, which was well reviewed and appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list. His most recent work, 2021's Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution, received similar praise, earning its own spot as a New York Times Best Seller.

Personal life

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.

Before starting the History of Rome, he worked as a fishmonger; he was in the fish trade most of the time he was recording the podcast. During the recording of Revolutions, Duncan lived in Madison, Wisconsin. Duncan also occasionally creates political comic strips in collaboration with illustrator Jason Novak.

In 2018 Duncan relocated to Paris, France in order to do research for his 2021 book Hero Of Two Worlds, a biography on the Marquis de Lafayette. In April 2021, with Duncan's work on the book completed, he returned to the United States.

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 Maya, and the Inca. 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 Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Describing himself as "a complete history geek," Duncan also has an 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 be seen in the future as groundbreaking as the Renaissance was, stating that "we have lived in the last twenty years through some of the most impressive advances in human civilization."

Podcasts

The History of Rome

Duncan began The History of Rome in 2007, after failing to find any good podcasts about ancient history. The project turned into an award-winning weekly podcast which aired for 179 episodes until 2012 and was downloaded more than 100 million times.

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.

In the 2010 Podcast Awards, The History of Rome won best educational podcast.

Stage One and Stage Two

Revolutions aired from 15 September 2013 to 3 July 2022. The podcast covered modern political revolutions, beginning with the English Revolution. Each season was dedicated to one revolution or revolutionary wave and discussed the revolution through a chronological narrative approach, as in his podcast The History of Rome, but the shorter time periods and longer episode length for each season allowed greater detail for individual events. Seasons began with one or two episodes dedicated to the pre-history of the revolution and its causes, sometimes highlighting when and how the revolution could have been avoided. Initially, Duncan planned to limit his podcast to 12-15 episodes per revolution, but 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 ended up being 54 episodes (not counting supplemental episodes). The series covered the English Civil War, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, Simon Bolivar and Gran Colombia, the July Revolution, the Revolutions of 1848, the Paris Commune, the Mexican Revolution, and finally the Russian Revolution, ending its run of narrative episodes in July 2022. This was followed by a series of thirteen retrospective episodes, taking a broader look at the structure of revolution.

Revolutions also featured supplemental episodes, excluded from the normal count of episodes, and of varying length (compared to roughly half-hour normal episodes). Some of them focused in depth on a particular topic or person, while others were verbatim reproductions of historical texts such as the United States Declaration of Independence or the French Declaration of the Rights of the Man and of the Citizen.