# The End is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

I love the author’s podcast, Hardcore History - Carlin goes amazingly deep on varied historical subjects, but always through the lens of making it personal. So I was very excited to read this book.

This book is fine. Many chapters are abbreviated stories from the podcast*. Chapters vary wildly in their scope** and include frequent footnotes of varying interest***. Portions of the book are fascinating like the Bronze Age collapse, but many others left me scratching my head as to their inclusion.

I enjoyed it and if you’re curious about the grim possible fates of humanity, it’s a great read. Otherwise, start with his podcast Hardcore History and then perhaps come back to this if you love it like I do.

• • at least he chose great episodes like Fall of the Roman Empire or Logical Insanity.

** - a general history of plagues in one, a personal retelling of the Cuban Missile Crisis in another.

*** - his podcast is heavy on tangents just like this. It’s one of the ways he makes it personal, but these tangents translate to book form as many, many footnotes. Some are interesting but the sheer quantity makes it distracting in a way the podcast isn’t.