Aug 18, 2026 · 58 min · 21 segments
This week Robert sits down with James Stout to weave the story of the worst military leader in human history: Francisco Solano Lopez. Also known as 'El supremo', he nearly annihilated his own country…
Robert EvansHost
James StoutGuest[upbeat music] Coolzone Media.
Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the podcast where we tell you everything you don't know about the very worst people in all of history.
But before we get into that, let's introduce our guest, someone who's probably not a bastard as far as I am aware.
He's not.
Dr. James Stout.
Um, previously only used it for, you know, credit card companies and people who are rude to me.
James, you are currently the co-host, uh, of, um, one among several, uh, that do-
Mm-hmm.
And you have a new podcast coming out, something sexy and exciting and did I say new? New.
Yeah, coming out on the 17th of August where all good podcasts are given away for free.
Um, and we're gonna be talking about going outside, uh, specifically, like, the politics of going outside-
Yeah.
It's, it's not-
... it's just like an ASMR meditation app.
[laughs]
James, what are some-
... early episodes folks can look out for?
I wanna look at cyclospora, the cyclospora outbreak, which we've seen across the Midwest now, uh, spreading further west.
Yeah.
Uh, and what that could tell us about the rights of farm workers, about where our food comes from, and the people who decide if it's safe.
Uh, a lot of those folks, I think, maybe got missed out of the big fire story when, well, by the time it got into suburban areas.
Uh, but we're gonna look at what we can learn from indigenous people about living with fire.
Uh, I wanna talk about how your raincoat could be putting little bits of plastic inside fish.
So funny.
Uh, I like javelina, but I, I mainly like eating them mixed with other more palatable meats.
I- if you know what you're doing, you can make a pretty decent sausage with that as one of the ingredients.
You, you, you want them golf finished if you're gonna make sausage out of them, you know?
You know, James, it's, it's appropriate that you've got a show about going outside, because our subject for this week is a man who should never have gone outside.
Have you ever heard, uh, of former dictator of Paraguay, Francisco Solano López? Do you know who this guy is?
I've heard the name, yeah, but I'm not infinitely familiar with the lore, so this is exciting for me.
What- what's interesting about him is we've had a lot of dictators, and we've had a lot of dictators-
... who've started wars, and we've had a lot of dictators who started genocides.
Mm-hmm.
But we haven't yet had a dictator who accidentally did a genocide against his own people without meaning to while trying to carry out a successful war.
It's like one of the most complete as, like, a percentage of the total population genocides we've ever covered, and he does it entirely without meaning to, because he is so bad at running a war.
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[upbeat music] Coolzone Media.
Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the podcast where we tell you everything you don't know about the very worst people in all of history.
But before we get into that, let's introduce our guest, someone who's probably not a bastard as far as I am aware.
He's not.
Dr. James Stout.
Um, previously only used it for, you know, credit card companies and people who are rude to me.
James, you are currently the co-host, uh, of, um, one among several, uh, that do-
Mm-hmm.
And you have a new podcast coming out, something sexy and exciting and did I say new? New.
Yeah, coming out on the 17th of August where all good podcasts are given away for free.
Um, and we're gonna be talking about going outside, uh, specifically, like, the politics of going outside-
Yeah.
It's, it's not-
... it's just like an ASMR meditation app.
[laughs]
James, what are some-
... early episodes folks can look out for?
I wanna look at cyclospora, the cyclospora outbreak, which we've seen across the Midwest now, uh, spreading further west.
Yeah.
Uh, and what that could tell us about the rights of farm workers, about where our food comes from, and the people who decide if it's safe.
Uh, a lot of those folks, I think, maybe got missed out of the big fire story when, well, by the time it got into suburban areas.
Uh, but we're gonna look at what we can learn from indigenous people about living with fire.
Uh, I wanna talk about how your raincoat could be putting little bits of plastic inside fish.
So funny.
Uh, I like javelina, but I, I mainly like eating them mixed with other more palatable meats.
I- if you know what you're doing, you can make a pretty decent sausage with that as one of the ingredients.
You, you, you want them golf finished if you're gonna make sausage out of them, you know?
You know, James, it's, it's appropriate that you've got a show about going outside, because our subject for this week is a man who should never have gone outside.
Have you ever heard, uh, of former dictator of Paraguay, Francisco Solano López? Do you know who this guy is?
I've heard the name, yeah, but I'm not infinitely familiar with the lore, so this is exciting for me.
What- what's interesting about him is we've had a lot of dictators, and we've had a lot of dictators-
... who've started wars, and we've had a lot of dictators who started genocides.
Mm-hmm.
But we haven't yet had a dictator who accidentally did a genocide against his own people without meaning to while trying to carry out a successful war.
It's like one of the most complete as, like, a percentage of the total population genocides we've ever covered, and he does it entirely without meaning to, because he is so bad at running a war.