The End Is Always Near

Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

By: Dan Carlin

Narrated by: Dan Carlin

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 listeners 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.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2019 Dan Carlin (P)2019 HarperAudio

DC for life

Dan Carlin never misses.. maybe my favorite voice ever. seriously wait on pins and needles for whatever he does next

History Brought to Life With Color & Feeling...

Like many folks out there, I’m a devoted listener of Dan’s amazing podcast, Hardcore History. He really is “America’s favorite history professor,” and brings life, color, nuance, and perspective like a master artist to even the most boring, “black and white” topics throughout history.

So when I heard that Dan had written a book, I immediately went to my Audible app to download it (I mean, why wouldn’t I get the audio version? Dan is always so great on his podcast, so it was like 10 hours of HH, or 2.5 episodes for fans of the show).

And of course, the book was amazing!

I will say, at the start, it was a bit like Dan was just reading one long quote from a book in “HH”--that was just his delivery, and it makes sense given that when he’s typically reading from a book on mike, that’s what he’s doing.

But after a half hour or so his delivery settles in nicely, and there’s really no difference between the audiobook and an episode of Hardcore History.

Of course, that also means that there are plenty of thought-prokvoking concepts in there, such as:

-What REALLY led to the Bronze Age collapse? And how did it come on so suddenly even though these were the most powerful empires of the day?

-Should we feel AT ALL secure at our position atop the “food chain” so-to-speak as a resident of the U.S.? Or is it just a matter of time (maybe even a short time) before we’re set to go the way of the Roman Empire?

-A thoroughly skin-crawling look into plagues throughout history, including their devastating effects on the population, and how they utterly decimated early civilizations, and

-Perhaps most importantly, a history of aerial warfare from WWI through the present day. He does a good job of “leaning in” with enough incredulousness as to how killing civilians with aerial bombardments became downright commonplace, and just how horrific this really is.

Left unsaid, though, is what things like cruise missiles, drone strikes, and other ostensibly “smart” weapons we have today are doing to jade folks around the world. For example, when civilians are killed as “collateral” damage in a drone strike in the Middle East, are we protecting American lives by taking out the terrorists? Or are we creating new armies of terrorists who lost a friend, relative, or other loved one in an American drone strike.

At the end of the day, THAT’s what I think I admire the most in Dan’s work: the ability to crawl inside someone else’s head, across continents and centuries, and really FEEL what it was like to be that person. And in the most balanced, “see it from their perspective too” way as well.

Highly recommend this audiobook!

Updated blitz editions

If you heard most of the blitz editions of Hardcore History, this is an updated version. It reflects especially well on the topics from the very early episodes, like "Darkness Covers the Bronze Age" and "Bubonic Nukes", which were very short. Definitely loved those parts the most. Expanded theories and possibilities for the Bronze Age collapse are fascinating. I hope we'll understand what happened better sometime in my lifetime. Most memorable part of it was Dan's comparison of the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse. He talked about it being a "mini-dark age". As someone who was born in 1993 and grew up in the 90s in Russia, looking back at it from a different decade and a different country... it was kind of like a dark age. But I didn't know any different. For me that was what life had always been. It was hard for my parents who lived their life in stability and security, but I was oblivious. That might have been the same for the people living in the aftermath of great empires collapse, in the distant past. As for the nuclear weapon part, it was actually shrunk down to fit into the book. If you want to hear about it more, check out the "Destroyer of Worlds" episode. It's 6 hours long, very in depth, and has the added benefits of small excerpts of audio where you can actually hear J. Robert Oppenheimer, Curtis LeMay and Dwight D Eisenhower speaking in their own voices and their own words. It's eerie to realize that all that happened not that long ago.

Carlin always delivers

Loved every word. I only wish there had been more of them. When is the sequel?

good AF

i love the book, dan has is nice to listen to.
get IT 100% worth

It's Dan Carlin....

5 stars is to be expected.

Felt like a pulling together of some of his best podcasts. Makes for a great introduction to Dan Carlin.

Dan delivers gold

A civilization’s worth of history delivered to you in a thrilling and clear way by the author himself.

Brilliant - This should be required reading

Carlin masterfully explores the unique oddity of modern times and historically likely challenges confronting humanity.

Dan Carlin should be required.

Once again Dan teaches about history in a way that most people will gravitate too. He always claims he is not a historian but, he really is!

Loved it

If you love the podcast, you will love the book. Very interesting material. Carlin never disappoints.