Podcast Recommendation: Mike Duncan's Revolutions Season 12

I’ve been listening to Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast for years. Through the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the 1848 revolutions, the Russian Revolution — basically every time a group of people looked at their government and said “fuck this, we’re starting over,” Duncan has been there with 20+ episodes walking you through exactly how it went down.

So when Season 12 dropped with “The Martian Revolution of 2247,” I honestly thought: “Did Mike Duncan finally break? Is this what happens when you study too many revolutions?”

What Even Is This Thing?

Duncan has taken everything he’s learned from over 350 episodes of covering real revolutions and created a completely fictional “historical” account of a revolution that happens on Mars in 2247. But here’s the genius part — he’s presenting it exactly like his real history episodes. Same format, same scholarly tone, same references to “primary sources” and “academic studies.”

The result feels like you’re listening to a history podcast from 2400 about events that actually happened, even though none of it is real. It’s wild.

Why This Works So Well

Most sci-fi podcasts try way too hard. Dramatic music, elaborate sound effects, voice actors doing “alien” accents that sound like they’re from New Jersey. Duncan just… doesn’t. He tells you what happened in the same measured, slightly dry tone he uses when explaining why the Third Estate was pissed off in 1789.

And somehow that makes it infinitely more compelling.

When he talks about Vernon Bird’s slow descent into corporate senility while still running Omnicorp (the mega-corporation that basically owns Mars), or explains the economic exploitation that drove Martians to revolt against Earth, it feels completely real. Not Hollywood-real where everything is dramatic and shiny, but boring-history-textbook-real where you find yourself genuinely angry at people who never existed.

I Did Not Expect to Care This Much

Look, I went into this thinking it would be a fun novelty. Duncan does Mars, haha, let’s see how this goes. I did not expect to get genuinely invested in fictional Martian revolutionaries, but here we are and I’m having feelings about people who never existed.

Duncan has created characters that feel like actual historical figures — they make strategic mistakes, have messy personal lives, write letters to each other about policy decisions. When he talks about their correspondence or their political maneuvering, you can almost picture the primary sources sitting in some future archive waiting for historians to argue about them.

It’s like if Ken Burns decided to make a documentary about events from the 2200s, except somehow more believable than that sounds.

The Weirdest Part

Duncan started writing this story 2-3 years ago, and apparently some of his fictional plot points about incompetent leadership and corporate overreach are now happening in real life. People are tweeting at him that current events look like scenes from his made-up Mars revolution.

Which either means he’s really good at recognizing historical patterns, or we’re living in the stupidest possible timeline. (Honestly, probably both.)

Should You Listen?

If you’re already a Revolutions fan, this is a no-brainer. Duncan took everything that makes his historical storytelling compelling and applied it to a completely new context. The result is just as addictive as his real history episodes, maybe more so because you genuinely don’t know how it ends.

If you’ve never listened to Revolutions before, this might actually be a perfect starting point. You don’t need background knowledge to follow along, and if you get hooked on Duncan’s storytelling style, there are 11 seasons of actual history waiting for you.

Fair warning: you’re going to find yourself caring way too much about the political situation on a planet that doesn’t even have breathable air.

Season 12 started in October 2024, and new episodes just wrapped up. You can find it on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Just don’t get too attached to any of the characters.