Behind the Bastards isn't a comedy podcast or a history podcast. It's a dissertation in defense of anarchy and abolition that we all should be talking about.
I would never have chosen to listen to the described podcast - but I am definitely interested now having heard your podcast about it. Great episode. Also you made me both laugh out loud and think - all within twenty minutes.
Yeah, it’s definitely a podcast I have a hard time recommending to people, despite how generally popular it is. For you in particular, I’d recommend the episode “Fritz Haber: The Man Who Invented Chemical Warfare” because it also talks about his impact on food science and climate change. You might also be interested in the episode he did about the FDA and the two episodes called “The Russian Scientist Who Helped Kill 30 Million People” — that has some incredible stories about food science in the Soviet Union and Mao’s China.
LOL yeah it’s HUGE. When I first started listening to it, I just checked out its episodes about the Romanovs and then decided I liked it enough to listen from the beginning.
Wow, Katie, as a big fan of what Robert Evans does, It's nice to see such a well presented opinion on something you may not always agree with. More commentators like you, Katie! Humble in your concessions and confident with your hubris. Truly, it was a great read.
Stumbled across this while looking for a particular BtB episode, and I gotta say, the headline and part of how you're hedging made me think you were going to be WAY more critical than this. I'm also a huge fan of BtB, and I agree with pretty much every point you made - especially about the seeming unawareness which sometimes happens about who's being represented in a conversation. There have been MANY times I've noticed men hemming and hawing over women's experiences, or inviting a non-Jewish guest to talk directly about the holocaust, or a non-autistic guest to talk about issues which directly touch on autism. Having that representation would be really great and really important to me, specifically *because* of what it would add to the conversation (see your point about not having an echo chamber).
That being said, I still love the show - though in 2025 it's getting harder to listen to - and I'm happy to see you do too.
Great piece, Katie. Loved these two passages in particular:
"We don’t need different opinions. We need different life experiences. If you’ve seen the movie Knives Out, – I promise this is relevant to the podcast – think about that scene where the family is arguing about immigration and children in cages. Yes, they had very different opinions, but they were two extremely wealthy white people with very similar lived experiences. They were talking all out of their head and not out of their lives. That’s an echo chamber. A whole bunch of words bouncing around the room, but changing nothing."
"Whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative, anarchist, – we all need to be thinking about our relationship to power and the kinds of communities we want to build. The kind of world that we want to live in."
I would never have chosen to listen to the described podcast - but I am definitely interested now having heard your podcast about it. Great episode. Also you made me both laugh out loud and think - all within twenty minutes.
Yeah, it’s definitely a podcast I have a hard time recommending to people, despite how generally popular it is. For you in particular, I’d recommend the episode “Fritz Haber: The Man Who Invented Chemical Warfare” because it also talks about his impact on food science and climate change. You might also be interested in the episode he did about the FDA and the two episodes called “The Russian Scientist Who Helped Kill 30 Million People” — that has some incredible stories about food science in the Soviet Union and Mao’s China.
Thank you! It's super helpful get targeted recommendations because there's no way I'm wading through that entire huge catalog.
LOL yeah it’s HUGE. When I first started listening to it, I just checked out its episodes about the Romanovs and then decided I liked it enough to listen from the beginning.
Wow, Katie, as a big fan of what Robert Evans does, It's nice to see such a well presented opinion on something you may not always agree with. More commentators like you, Katie! Humble in your concessions and confident with your hubris. Truly, it was a great read.
Stumbled across this while looking for a particular BtB episode, and I gotta say, the headline and part of how you're hedging made me think you were going to be WAY more critical than this. I'm also a huge fan of BtB, and I agree with pretty much every point you made - especially about the seeming unawareness which sometimes happens about who's being represented in a conversation. There have been MANY times I've noticed men hemming and hawing over women's experiences, or inviting a non-Jewish guest to talk directly about the holocaust, or a non-autistic guest to talk about issues which directly touch on autism. Having that representation would be really great and really important to me, specifically *because* of what it would add to the conversation (see your point about not having an echo chamber).
That being said, I still love the show - though in 2025 it's getting harder to listen to - and I'm happy to see you do too.
Great piece, Katie. Loved these two passages in particular:
"We don’t need different opinions. We need different life experiences. If you’ve seen the movie Knives Out, – I promise this is relevant to the podcast – think about that scene where the family is arguing about immigration and children in cages. Yes, they had very different opinions, but they were two extremely wealthy white people with very similar lived experiences. They were talking all out of their head and not out of their lives. That’s an echo chamber. A whole bunch of words bouncing around the room, but changing nothing."
"Whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative, anarchist, – we all need to be thinking about our relationship to power and the kinds of communities we want to build. The kind of world that we want to live in."