E93 Frank Herbert: The Dune Behind Dune

Gladio Free Europe

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The Dune series has gone through a revival of late thanks to the film adaptations of Denis Villeneuve, but what are we to make of it? In this episode we explore Dune through the lens of its author, Frank Herbert. His beliefs defy easy political classification according to today's preconceived notions, making him difficult to situate. Herbert was a libertarian who was deeply uneasy with market forces, a localist with great sympathy for indigenous and anticolonial causes, and a dyed in the wool environmentalist who voted for Reagan, on top of being a fiend for psychedelics and an inveterate JFK hater. What are we to make of all this?

In addition to Herbert's personal beliefs and political philosophy, we explore the many different real-world influences that filled in the details of Herbert's world. Although the series is set some 20,000 years in the future, traces of currently existing human cultures persisted and gave color to this world, from the martial spirit of Caucasian and North African liberation fighters to a liberal mishmash of Buddhist, Muslim, Christian, and other beliefs which continue to inform the faiths and actions of the peoples of this world.

So just who was Frank Herbert, how did this inform his writing, and what went into the worldbuilding of the Duniverse? Find out on this week's episode of Gladio Free Europe.

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