Is Genghis Khan Harder Than Jocko Willink? - Dan Jones | Modern Wisdom Podcast 380
Dan Jones (guest), Chris Williamson (host)
In this episode of Modern Wisdom, featuring Dan Jones and Chris Williamson, Is Genghis Khan Harder Than Jocko Willink? - Dan Jones | Modern Wisdom Podcast 380 explores dan Jones Explains Medieval Power, Plague, and Why Genghis Won Historian Dan Jones joins Chris Williamson to discuss his new book *Powers and Thrones*, a sweeping history of the Middle Ages from the first to the second sack of Rome. They explore why Rome fell, why no one quite replicated its empire, and how figures like Genghis Khan and early Islamic caliphs wielded power. Jones unpacks medieval archetypes like monks and knights to show different forms of power—military, religious, institutional—and draws parallels to modern corporations and media. Along the way they detour into Peloton cults, hard men like Jocko and Goggins, pandemics, medieval technology, and Jones’s fiction and TV work.
Dan Jones Explains Medieval Power, Plague, and Why Genghis Won
Historian Dan Jones joins Chris Williamson to discuss his new book *Powers and Thrones*, a sweeping history of the Middle Ages from the first to the second sack of Rome. They explore why Rome fell, why no one quite replicated its empire, and how figures like Genghis Khan and early Islamic caliphs wielded power. Jones unpacks medieval archetypes like monks and knights to show different forms of power—military, religious, institutional—and draws parallels to modern corporations and media. Along the way they detour into Peloton cults, hard men like Jocko and Goggins, pandemics, medieval technology, and Jones’s fiction and TV work.
Key Takeaways
The Middle Ages balance the alien and the familiar, making them uniquely compelling.
Jones argues the era sits between the near-contemporary feel of the 20th century and the almost unrecognizable Bronze Age, offering both relatable human constants and utterly strange beliefs and practices.
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Rome’s fall was driven by climate shifts, migration pressures, and imperial overreach.
He links a downturn after the 'Roman Climate Optimum' with drought-induced Hun migrations, Gothic pressure on borders, and the structural instability of an oversized empire, culminating symbolically in the sack of Rome in 410.
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Medieval power wasn’t just kings and armies; institutions like monasteries rivaled states.
Cluniac monasticism, for example, amassed wealth, influence, and cross-border networks, resembling today’s tech giants in their stateless yet system-shaping power.
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Personal toughness—being 'hard'—is an under-discussed but real historical factor.
Jones half-jokingly suggests that leaders like Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun likely radiated an intimidating physical and psychological hardness that mattered alongside climate, technology, and institutions.
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Medieval pandemics were world-shaping, but evidence quality varies dramatically.
The Black Death can be quantified reasonably (killing roughly 50–60% of Western Europe), whereas estimates for the Justinianic plague range wildly because chroniclers are biased and hard data is sparse.
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Technological progress in the Middle Ages was real and transformative, not an extended slump.
Innovations like the stirrup, improved armor, windmills, better ploughs, astrolabes, gunpowder, and ship design drove military revolutions, agricultural productivity, and long-distance navigation well before the Renaissance.
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Modern history content is booming outside traditional TV, even as broadcast budgets shrink.
Jones notes that while network documentary budgets have fallen, podcasts, YouTube channels, and platforms like History Hit have created a vibrant, accessible ecosystem for serious but engaging history.
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Notable Quotes
“The Middle Ages sits between the totally alien and the totally familiar.”
— Dan Jones
“The answer to why Genghis Khan built that empire isn’t just because he was hard… but the guy must have just been double hard.”
— Dan Jones
“Cluniac monasticism is like Facebook, Apple, Google, Amazon – a stateless institution bending the world that political leaders have to consider.”
— Dan Jones
“Treadmills are dangerous. People with kids, don’t let your fucking kids near your treadmill.”
— Dan Jones
“Dick Whittington was like a super-don oligarch with a conscience.”
— Dan Jones
Questions Answered in This Episode
If 'hardness' is a real leadership factor, how should historians responsibly incorporate such intangible traits into serious analysis without trivializing events?
Historian Dan Jones joins Chris Williamson to discuss his new book *Powers and Thrones*, a sweeping history of the Middle Ages from the first to the second sack of Rome. ...
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
In what concrete ways did institutions like medieval monasteries exercise power comparable to modern tech corporations, and where do the analogies break down?
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How might European political and cultural development have differed if the Black Death had never occurred or had been far less lethal?
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What are the biggest misconceptions the public holds about medieval technology and innovation, and which single invention from that period does Jones see as most underrated?
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How does writing historical fiction about brutal medieval warfare (as in *Essex Dogs*) allow Jones to convey truths about the period that conventional non-fiction cannot?
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Transcript Preview
Someone said, "Okay, well, why did Genghis Khan put together the greatest contiguous land empire seen in the Middle Ages?" And like, the answer isn't just because he was hard.
(laughs)
But that, I went through like a whole, like, "Well, the structure of Mongol tribal society in the late 12th century was such and such, and there were some climate factors probably at play. And, you know, the relative organization of Genghis Khan's meritocratic, uh, reorganized Mongol army be- versus the decadent imperial societies of the..." Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I didn't mention the guy must have just been like (laughs) double hard.
Dan Jones, welcome to the show.
Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
Do you ever think about how much time people that are really, really stoned have spent watching you walk around great British castles?
I haven't like broken it down into, um... I, like, segmented it according to intoxicants. I mean, I'm aware, dimly, that there's, like, a weird number of people, not just in the UK where I live, but worldwide, who've watched Secrets of Great British Castles. Um, I hadn't given much thought to, like, to, to as a stoner thing. Are you going to tell me otherwise?
I think you'd be surprised. I have a burgeoning group of students that work for me, many of whom I know their go-to program, if they're blazed out of their mind, is to get Secrets of Great British Castles on.
Wow, that's, that's pretty weird. That does weird me out, Si.
(laughs)
I mean, it doesn't, I'm not, not in a bad way. But, um, that would, that would definitely ruin my buzz, I think.
(laughs)
It's been a long time. It's been a long time. Uh, so I, I don't... I'm sort of out of touch with my, um, with my blazed mind. But I... Well, of course it would, naturally it would freak me out.
Yeah. Well, I think you'd be surprised, man.
I, I can't, I can't give you, I can't give you a, um, like an objective view on this.
Soft, sultry tones. No fast movements.
No. There was a lot of... There was good camera work.
Yep. Good color paletting. Nice, nice presets. Nice LUTs on it. I reckon, yeah, I reckon lean into it for the next one. Find the most psychedelic castle that you can.
I love that your optimism we'll ever get another series of that show. It's been a long time now.
Wh-
You know, I made that show back in 20... When we did the first series. I think that was like 2013, '14, '15, that kind of time we did that and, and that's now getting to be a while ago. Like, I think I might have been in my... Now I can't have been in my 20s when I started it, but I was only just out of them.
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