Earlier this month, Robert Evans along with Joe Kassabian discussed some of the earliest examples of genocide in history on his podcast Behind the Bastards. From his humble origins as a Cracked editor, Robert Evans has come a long way in the world of journalism to the point of covering active war zones. It was this journalistic instinct combined with a love for history that led him to Behind the Bastards.
A show that entails the profiles of some of history's greatest monsters and the impacts they had while adding in occasional levity to balance out the subjects' bleakness. Since its inception, there seem to be other examples that know how to execute that same balance while tackling such a heavy subject matter.
Lions Led By Donkeys
Joe Kassabian, Army veteran and grad student of Holocaust and genocide studies, heads the aptly named Lions Led By Donkeys, a military history podcast. With his frequent co-hosts, Nick and Rich, together they go back in time to cover the most inept and hilarious military blunders of all time. No stone is left unturned from discussing Rhodesian fanboys to all the political angles that would lead to the Russo-Japanese War.
For bonus content, Joe and crew will also air the occasional commentary track of major Hollywood war films. From Red Dawn remakes, this allows for a nice breath of levity in the midst of retelling some of history's dumbest and bleakest moments.
Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff
As the title suggests, host and author, Margaret Killjoy dive into history's most outlandish and wildest rebels in history who would dedicate their lives for the sake of progress.
From union-strikers to anti-fascist movements, Margaret relays the overlooked and thankless heroes that often aren't taught in most textbooks. This is the response to Behind the Bastards by providing a podcast that steers away from the worst of the worst and instead focuses on those whose actions led to a positive development in history.
Age of Napoleon
While most of these entries tend to cover a wide variety of historical figures and events, the Age of Napoleon seems to have a more narrow focus than that by setting its sights upon one historical "bastard" alone, Napoleon Bonaparte, and the events he was directly involved with or helped influence.
From his rise to the Emperor of more than half of continental Europe to his hard fall from grace following his humiliating defeat in Russia, this podcast manages to cover it all in fantastic detail. Since Kubrick didn't get to make his Napoleon film, this is the next best thing to study the controversial French leader in of media accessibility.
Megacorp
While Behind the Bastards has dabbled in covering corporations and their evil deeds in history, Megacorp makes it their mission to solely discuss this topic with Amazon being the focus in their first season. Amazon is the fourth-largest company in the world and is only continuing to grow ever since the high demand for online shopping during the height of the pandemic.
Through investigative journalism and conducting interviews with former workers, host/journalist Jake Hanrahan uncovers the amoral practices Amazon and its head, Jeff Bezos employ in everyday operations as well as their attempts to sway the labor force away from unionizing.
The Dollop
Comedians, Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds spearhead this series by recounting some of the most absurd tales and characters of U.S. history. Although their program pre-dates BTB, they still share a lot in common in the topics they choose as well as sharing an anarchistic view of politics. Through these similarities, Robert Evans would invite them to co-host a six-parter segment on Henry Kissinger, which arguably may be the best Behind the Bastards has to offer.
But what the Dollop holds over BTB is their ability to pick up more well-known guests outside of the podcast world like film and tv actor Patton Oswalt for instance. His appearance for their two-parter on Ronal Reagan is a true standout, with the ever-knowledgable Oswalt adding in old Hollywood tales from hell.
Q Clearance: The Hunt for Qanon
Another Jake Hanrahan project, Q Clearance is another singular focused series that has its sights set on one of the most damaging misinformation campaigns of all time. Those that fall under Qanon's influence tend to fall for the most outrageous conspiracy theories out there that make Inside Job feel sane.
Hanrahan goes to great lengths to uncover the impact Qanon has had over the continental United States and beyond. Breaking down and disproving most of their baseless claims is one thing and can be accomplished through research but to try and understand the root cause and purpose of Qanon is another and Hanrahan seems to have accomplished that in this incredible series.
Zealot
Right up there with serial killers, cults are another popular topic in podcast culture. Robert Evans even discusses a few cults in his series but Jo Thornely is fully devoted to them in their series. From the allure of a higher purpose to the charisma of its leaders, cults are one fascinating topic to tackle and it seems that there is no short supply to study.
While Robert would be more inclined to discuss the most infamous cults like L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology, Thornely has a knack for the more unknown as well as the most known, like Jared Leto's cult and Warren Jeff's Netflix famous FLDS sect respectively.
Behind The Police
In the wake of George Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis Police, outrage sparked across the nation leading to numerous Black Lives Matter protests that would be met with harsh rebuttals from local police forces. Portland became one of the most infamous cases of violence against protestors by a police force so in response, Behind the Bastards host Robert Evans decided to create a series dedicated to the complete history of the United States police forces.
From unionization to militarization, no detail is skimmed on when discussing one of the most controversial institutions in the U.S.
Behind The Insurrections
Much like Behind the Police, Behind the Insurrections is another Robert Evans series that was made in response to a recent traumatic event. For this case, it was the Jan. 6th storming of the capital in 2021. Inspired, Robert looked through history and compiled six events that mirror Jan. 6 in more ways than one.
By making direct connections to history's past insurrections perpetrated by fascist movements such as Mussolini's march on Rome and the irreparable harm they caused going forward for their societies it can grant audiences a clearer view of how avoidable these situations can be and how to stop the next insurrection from happening. "History may not always repeat itself, but it certainly can rhyme."
What A Hell Of A Way To Die
Hosted by military veterans and frequent collaborators of the Lions led by Donkeys podcast, Nate and Francis host this self-described left-wing military podcast. Utilizing some of the same political beliefs that are shared by Robert Evans, Nate and Francis use it as a critical lens in their open discussions on veterans' affairs and military culture.
While not necessarily a historical podcast as the others on this list, What A Hell Of A Way To Die still taps into those same subject matters as the others share such as state-sponsored violence to the dangers of toxic masculinity that could lead to individuals or groups becoming a topic on Behind the Bastards themselves.