Empire - Podcast Rankings and reviews

Some podcasts become addictive, this is one. Any lover of history needs to give it a listen to hear for yourself. As someone who has enjoyed Dalrymple’s written works and lectures, this podcast with co-host Anita Anand is a pure educational entertainment. Huge Kudos!

Simply fantastic. The presenters are well spoken and don’t pretend that one of them is interviewing the other. They are both experts in the history of colonialism — particularly British colonialism in India — and weave their combined knowledge between them seemingly effortlessly. I’ve just finished their first series of episodes about the colonial histories of Britain and India and thoroughly look forward to their takes on other empires.

I am so happy I chanced upon this show a couple of years ago, and then my brother who also was listening to this podcast reminded me of this. So many book recommendations from this show, all absolute gems (happily, some I had already read). If I had one quibble—and this is about production issues, not quality—you two quite often speak over each other in your honest-to-goodness passion for these topics and may I request you to employ a good audio engineer who can make each of you audible (Hint! Hint! “Willy” needs his audio bumped up).

What a genuine delight! I am on 17 of 200 episodes as of this review, just a mere 183 more hours to go to catch up 😃.

I've heard William Dalrymple 1st time at Jaipur literature festival. Before that I read his book 'The last Mughal - Bahadursha Jafar. I love books writing by William, because they are well researched, with original reference documents from various archives and excellent writing style.

I have heard most of The Empire episodes & recommended it to anyone interested in the history. I listen it on my way to work or home or when I’m doing my weekend chores. I love it and have learned so much about world history in last many months. Didn’t know anything about Ukraine famine, took over six million lives, famine in Bengal- I knew about it, but got better knowledge. Recent episodes on pirates is also awesome. I tried to buy William Dalrymple latest book The Golden Road in America. But, I can buy from Indian bookstore websites & send as holiday gifts to my friends in India. Awesome podcast, and fun to listen & knowledge enriching. One should know history to be better citizens of world 🙏

The Male host’s voice is pretty inconsistent because he’s probably leaning away from the mic at some points so it’s very hard to hear him. They also mumble and randomly throw out names without context as if the non-british world knows who they are. Like why would anyone know about some British military general from the 1800s without context?? Maybe this is aimed for a British audience so they don’t care to provide additional info.