THOMASTON, Maine — Although he’s loved the subject since he was a boy, Mike Duncan was not trained as a historian, which makes his success as a podcaster specializing in history all the more extraordinary.
Consider the numbers. Duncan’s first podcast, “The History of Rome,” has been downloaded tens of millions of times. He started it while working as a fishmonger, an occupation that made him a better storyteller.
“It didn’t actually require a great deal of intellectual capacity to cut fish and sell fish,” Duncan said. “So I could save all of that creative energy for working on the podcasts on the side. That’s what I would do on nights and weekends.”
If there are other successful writers of history who have followed similar paths, their names do not come readily to mind.
“I’d just sit there and cut fish and think about Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul,” Duncan added. “That was my life for many years.”
Duncan came to Maine for an event sponsored by the General Henry Knox Museum in Thomaston. He discussed the Marquis de Lafayette, about whom he’s written a biography called “Hero of Two Worlds.”
When the American Revolution ended, Lafayette — who was then, as the title says, a hero in both the United States and his native France — was still in his early twenties. But that was just the beginning of a life filled with dizzying highs and lows, much of which you almost certainly never learned about in school.
“In America, we often focus on this young, dashing, French aristocrat,” Duncan said. “But the truth is that he was involved in some of the most important political events in this age of democratic revolution from his birth until his death in 1834.”
Thanks to the overwhelming success of his books and podcasts, Duncan no longer has to cut fish to pay the bills. There is one part of that job, though, that he misses.
“I loved being able to walk out with fish basically for free. I never had to pay retail for any of the seafood I was eating,” he said with a smile. “That is by far the best part of working as a fishmonger.”