just a voice reading a text […] Simon Whistler

The ultimate voice reading a text IMO. Specifically, a voice reading a text that it has clearly never seen before and where the producers have not even bothered to explain how to pronounce the names in it. IMO Simon Whistler is like Justin Bieber - essentially a product of the YouTube algorithm. In this case, a hipstery guy with an amazing beard and a posh authoritative accent talking confidently about… whatever. To me it just screams inauthenticity. But it’s obviously what people want so congrats to him for riding the gravy train.

BtB is my favorite, but that’s already been mentioned. Our Fake History is my second favorite and also very worth a listen!

Their angle on things is addressing points in history that, for one reason or another, have been misrepresented or misremembered, but they get into all sorts of topics, so that’s not always their explicit goal.

There is also This Podcast Will Kill You, which is more a science show than history, but they always have a history segment on whatever their subject is (mostly viruses, infections, diseases, and occasionally poisons and disorders). The hosts are both named Erin. That’s not relevant to the thread. I just think it’s funny.

BBC’s You’re Dead To Me is good if you want something a bit light. There’s a regular host who’s joined by a comedian and a historian. Covers a different topic each time.

Mike Duncan’s The History of Rome and Revolutions podcasts (particularly the French Revolution series).

Behind The Bastards isn’t a general history podcast, but what it covers is history.

Hardcore history is one of my favorites.

The Block back Podcast is a great one that goes into detail of the US doing fucked up evil shit around the world. Each season is a different country and they have Afghanistan, Cuba, North Korea, and Iraq.

Well There’s Your Problem has a lot of personality while discussing historic disasters.

Others have mentioned Hardcore History – probably the pinnacle of history podcasting, but the episodes are VERY long (a lot are upwards of 4 hours) and you’re lucky if he puts out more than 2 per year. He does other shorter Addenda episodes that come out more frequently, but they’re not the same format, usually interviews.

History of Rome – it’s older, but it basically started the “History of [nation/civilization]” podcast format. Does an excellent job tracing Roman history from the founding of the city up to the fall of the Western empire in the 5th century.

Revolutions – same host as History of Rome. After he finished HoR he started this one. Each ‘season’ tracks a different historical world revolution (English, American, French, Mexican, Haitian, Russian, and more). Overall, the entire series tracks large-scale western political history from the 17th century up to the early 20th. He ended the podcast after he finished the Russian Revolution. But then he restarted it a couple of years later, running a season on the fictional Martian Revolution of the 24th century. This is on going now, with 6 episodes left. He’s said he’s going back to pick up on historical revolutions after the Russian when he finishes with Mars, teasing Ireland and Iran as future seasons.

Behind the Bastards – Dives into various horrible people from history with a special focus on world dictators/authoritarians, cult leaders, grifters, and quack doctors. He tends to focus on more recent history (past 50-100 years) but sometimes goes into older history.

Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff – An inversion of Behind the Bastards from the same podcast network. Tends to focus on radical political history with a special focus on anarchists, women, and lgbtq people.

I am personally a big fan of Voices of the Past and Fall of Civilisations.

Voices is very specific in what it does. It doesn’t actually give you a historian’s perspective, it’s strictly primary sources translated into English and then read out as-is. Since it makes absolutely no attempt to account for material evidence or the biases of the authors it is much more about the perspective of individuals from the time than recounting accurate history, but I think that’s very interesting

As its name suggests, Fall focusses on the end of civilisations, ranging from the Greenland Norse and Rapa Nui to Han China and Byzantium.

It doesn’t hurt that the speakers in both have very pleasant voices

History of Everything is pretty good.

AltHistoryHub, while the main focus isn’t actual history obviously, but he gives a lot of context from the real history.

Tasting History is food focused but also gives you the historical context around the dishes he makes as well.

I really like the Short History Of podcast; the narrator speaks well, it’s interesting and well written.

Reallifelore covers both historic and current events, usually around 1 hour per video.

I also found these lectures+interviews with Sarah Paine very compelling https://youtu.be/LbkO84MsmyM

The fall of civilization is really cool

A real classic: BBC Radio 4’s History of the world in 100 objects

The Dollop comes to mind.