Today I’m joined by historian, author and podcaster Tristan Hughes. When I was in the early stages of creating the concept for The Comfortable Spot, I always had Tristan on my list as a guest. Tristan’s podcast, The Ancients, is an amazing series that not only covers vast swathes of early history, but also perfectly manages to do this without ever taking the listener for granted as it explores subjects in an easy to follow format. Tristan is crucial in the series because of his bounds of enthusiasm, and his choice of guests is astounding.
Recently Tristan has published a book, The Perdiccas Years, 323-320 BC, which covers the fallout from the sudden death of Alexander the Great and we chat about the story behind his book, as well as about a number of great topics including a review of some of Hollywood’s attempts at depicting ancient history. I knew that this was going to be a longer conversation than normal, simply because we had so much ground to cover, so I hope you are sitting comfortably and happy to stay with us.
I was really looking forward to talking to Tristan and we started our chat by discussing how other podcasts cover history (02:00) before moving on to exploring vast ancient timelines (02:50). I asked Tristan what peaked his interest in history (04:30). Our next topic was how ancient times are covered in popular culture, in particular, in cinema and television (07:10). I was keen to ask Tristan about learning from history and whether there is anything we can take from the ancient periods (22:56). Next up was a chat about Tristan’s recent publication, The Perdiccas Years, 323-320 BC and the story behind the concept of his book (36:00). We then talked about History Hit, the production company that Tristan works for and how it evolved from concept to reality (44:30). My last question for Tristan is about what he is reading and watching at the moment (52:30).
Show notes
- Tristan Hughes at History Hit
- The Perdiccas Years, 323-320 BC.
- The Ancients Podcast
- Tristan on Twitter
If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe, review and rate: Spotify and Apple Podcasts
The Comfortable Spot Podcast 
This is a superb episode. Very interesting conversation about how we’re still so influenced by the ancient world to this day. Great banter between you and Tristan. Great interview, am loving this podcast series!
LikeLiked by 1 person