Ep 605 - Arctic Cannibalism (feat. Buddy Levy)
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Who is Buddy Levy and what are his notable works?
wild wild west all right we're live we're live buddy levy thank you for coming it's levy or levy it's levy levy hell yeah i got it right thank you for coming hey my pleasure i've been i've been using your books to fuel the patreon and uh well thank you for that I appreciate it, man. I mean, I guess we do have a symbiosis going here, but it's really, dude, they're there. First of all, I thought, like, you know, I read the books. I'm like, man, this historian really is a good writer. I would like read. I'm like, this guy can really kind of really turn a good sentence. And then I learned you studied as a creative writer. Yeah, that's true.
I actually published my first story when I was 14 years old. And it was a bird hunting story about me, you know, killing a chukar partridge, which no one knows about. But, you know, once I saw my byline for the first time, I was, you know, because I grew up in this, in the shadow of Ernest Hemingway in Ketchum, Idaho. And I was like, I just like telling stories, you know. And it was, so I... I wasn't ever good at anything else.
What inspired Buddy Levy to write about historical expeditions?
I ended up being an English major. So I just followed that path, you know, from the time I was a kid.
Well, that's why I really like the books. And I was talking to you before we came in here. I was like, how did I, I don't know how I heard about the book. I was like, maybe it was from someone I follow. It might've just been like a random search. I genuinely don't remember. I do think it's from the Josh reads books thing. but i forget um that was conquistador but that was the thing i was reading it and i'm like man this this history book is like it's just focused on the narrative itself rather than just like it's just i get drowned in facts reading history where i'm like dude just tell me the story tell me the story and then and then what you do is what's nice is you give the occasional historical zinger where it's like actually this thing was that and it's like okay it's kind of cool to know
Yeah, I got to say it was I got to I got to tip the hat. First and foremost, it was the books are great.
Well, and I've really enjoyed listening to you guys make things like human ritual sacrifice and smallpox funny. You know, that's, you know, because when I'm writing it, I'm thinking, you know, this isn't really comedy.
You guys crush it.
How does survival in extreme conditions impact human behavior?
There is something very funny about, you know, we're talking obviously about the Aztec conquistador thing, but there is something just that I thought was funny about never meeting a certain type of people before, because the way they like brought them into their temples, like, yo, this is cool. Check this out. And it would just be like a dead dog with his skull crushed in and like a dead kid they're eating. And you'd be like, what the fuck? What is this? They're like, well, you don't think this is cool? Like, we think this is cool. And they're like, no.
That's terrible.
That's the worst thing you can do. Like, no, this is like the coolest thing you can do. And then the civilizations clashed. So it is funny to be like, yeah, I want to show you something very important to me. We were eating teenagers. And you're like, no.
What lessons can be learned from the encounters between cultures during exploration?
Yeah.
Yeah. And when I write these books too, it's always like people are like, you know, why do you focus so much on this, this darkness, all this stuff, you know? And I'm like, well, I just, I like to see, as you say, you know, different cultures coming together and also what happens to people when they're on the edge of survival. Like how are they going to contend with with this new world or this new place. Um, and it really intrigues me to see what, you know, to what degree people, especially back then, you know, like we're able to figure it out and just, um, and move on, you know?
Yeah, it's pretty, uh, it is pretty wild because it's like, especially the food thing and all that, like in conquistador and all those books, like these guys are going on these missions and like, yeah, you only have so much food and they run out. And now it's like, we got to drum up food in a place we've never been to.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who is Buddy Levy and what are his notable works?
0:00–1:05
2
What inspired Buddy Levy to write about historical expeditions?
1:05–2:08
3
How does survival in extreme conditions impact human behavior?
2:08–2:49
4
What lessons can be learned from the encounters between cultures during exploration?
2:49–3:53
5
How does the concept of cannibalism appear in historical narratives?
3:53–4:34
6
What are the unique challenges of Arctic expeditions compared to tropical ones?
4:34–5:07
7
How do myths and legends shape our understanding of indigenous cultures?
5:07–6:06
8
What are the implications of modern exploration on historical narratives?
6:06–1:09:22