Final Episode- Adieu Mes Amis

December 25, 2022

36 min episode · 2 min read

Episode

36 min

Read time

2 min

AI-Generated Summary

Published Dec 25, 2025

Key Takeaways

✓Scope expansion: The podcast grew from a planned 3.5 years and 15 episodes per revolution to 9 years with 190 total hours, demonstrating how depth and complexity should override arbitrary constraints when passion drives the work.
✓Career transition framework: Duncan gave himself one year to replace day job income through full-time podcasting while his son turned one, proving calculated risk-taking works when building on proven success from prior projects like History of Rome.
✓Historical perspective shift: Studying the Haitian Revolution transformed Duncan's worldview, revealing how figures like Washington and Hancock were colonial elites and showing all Atlantic revolutions as interconnected theaters rather than discrete national events.
✓Ideological evolution: Moving from narrow political liberalism focused solely on constitutional rights to recognizing the social question, Duncan now views political freedoms as necessary skeleton requiring economic justice as meat for healthy society after studying post-1848 revolutions.

What It Covers

Mike Duncan concludes the Revolutions podcast after nine years, 342 episodes, and 1.5 million words covering major revolutions from 1789-1917, announcing his next project with historian Alexis Coe.

Key Questions Answered

•Scope expansion: The podcast grew from a planned 3.5 years and 15 episodes per revolution to 9 years with 190 total hours, demonstrating how depth and complexity should override arbitrary constraints when passion drives the work.
•Career transition framework: Duncan gave himself one year to replace day job income through full-time podcasting while his son turned one, proving calculated risk-taking works when building on proven success from prior projects like History of Rome.
•Historical perspective shift: Studying the Haitian Revolution transformed Duncan's worldview, revealing how figures like Washington and Hancock were colonial elites and showing all Atlantic revolutions as interconnected theaters rather than discrete national events.
•Ideological evolution: Moving from narrow political liberalism focused solely on constitutional rights to recognizing the social question, Duncan now views political freedoms as necessary skeleton requiring economic justice as meat for healthy society after studying post-1848 revolutions.

Notable Moment

Duncan experienced his self-described greatest day ever on September 28, 2015 when his daughter was born and six hours later received the call that his first book had sold to a publisher.

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