(Source Question) What are good non-lecture based YT channels for history?

by matcauthon678

Throughout my historical adventure and recent venture into r/BadHistory, I have realized that a vast majority of HistoryTube are not very good educational due to at the very best some biased sources used in the videos and at the very worst none. Because of this, I was just wondering what are the good HistoryTubers out there?

The_Chieftain_WG

What subject are you interested in?

I would, obviously, advocate my own if you're interested in military equipment. For more general military history, Bernhard who runs Military History Visualized and his "not visualized" channel has a masters' in history, and it shows: All his videos directly quote/cite his sources. Similarly WW2 Channel's relatively neutral in fact, though they make no bones about the messaging behind the channel with regards atrocities against humanity. They also are academically trained.

If there is one problem with Youtube, it's that the better channels often are not the ones with all the hits. The Youtube algorithms combined with casual viewer tendencies will often promote the 'lite' history channels, or channels which are fifteen minutes or less per video. Not that you can't cover certain things in 15 minutes, but I assure you I am in a very small minority of history Youtubers who routinely have hour-long videos. (Short, snappy videos instead of long ones are also more profitable financially on Youtube). Put it this way: Contrast the success of "The History Channel" as a commercial enterprise, vs its reputation as a place to learn good supported history (even a few years ago, before it utterly lost the plot).

You will find that oftentimes institutions will place lectures and the likes on Youtube, such as the National WW2 Museum, the Pritzker Military Library, or on occasion you'll also see lectures put out by academia such as the Army Command and General Staff College. These invariably are hard to find because they do not have much of an audience and thus don't gain the clicks to bring them to mass public awareness. There will be folks who will tell you that Youtube is not a reliable source and should be ignored. I would qualify that by saying that not everything on Youtube is reliable and must be evaluated, but that is no different than books. Plus at least on Youtube, you can also scroll down the comments before watching videos. Normally if there is an error in fact, the comments will bring it up and there will be a discussion which will attract your attention. You don't get that from books.

Of course, given my own area, I focus on the military channels, institutions, etc. I'm sure other areas have their own equivalents.

curtyfresh

Actual scholars usually make the best youtubers! /u/toldinstone and ReligionForBreakfast are both really well researched.