This is the third part of a five part (I, II) series covering some of the basics of fortifications, from city walls to field fortifications, from the ancient world through to the modern period. Las… | Continue reading
Welcome! As we’ve done once before, this week I am going to take a chance to answer a number of shorter questions by my patrons over at Patreon who are at the Patres et Matres Conscripti tier… | Continue reading
Since I finally got out to see Dune (2021), I wanted to take a chance to share some of my reflections on it and this week was a good time because I had nowhere near enough time otherwise to get the… | Continue reading
This is the first part of a planned five-part series covering some of the basics of fortifications, from city walls to castles and field fortifications! We are going to discuss what fortifications … | Continue reading
Fireside this week! We’re in that mid-semester crunch time with students turning in papers and exams which need grading, but fortunately Ollie is getting into the fall season: The pumpkin spi… | Continue reading
This week we’re going to break from our normal fare and take a bit of a lark. I thought I ought to substantiate the nearly endless shade towards Luigi Cadorna, Italian Army Chief of Staff fro… | Continue reading
Graduate school application season is upon us and so I wanted to take this as an opportunity to talk about it. Every year, I talk with undergraduate students who are considering pursuing a graduate… | Continue reading
A look at history and popular culture | Continue reading
Last time, we introduced the factors that created the trench stalemate in the First World War and we also laid out why the popular ‘easy answer’ of simply going on the defensive and let… | Continue reading
This week (and next) I want to build a bit off of our discussion of Victoria II and talk a bit about World War I and in particular the trench stalemate on the Western Front. That trench stalemate i… | Continue reading
This is the third and final part of a three part series (I, II) examining the historical assumptions of Paradox Interactive’s 19th and early 20th century grad strategy game, Victoria II. Last… | Continue reading
Fireside this week! This week was the first full week of class, so the chaos that implies has delayed the last part of our look at Victoria II, hopefully just until next week. I also wanted to note… | Continue reading
Last week, we looked at a model for what the countryside around an ‘ideal city’ might look like. Today we’re going to introduce some complications to that model (you will recall, … | Continue reading
This is the second part of a three part series (I) examining the historical assumptions of Paradox Interactive’s 19th and early 20th century grand strategy game, Victoria II. Last week, we lo… | Continue reading
This is the first post in a three-part series that will be examining the historical assumption of Paradox Interactive’s grand strategy computer game set in the 19th and early 20th century, Vi… | Continue reading
Welcome! This is going to be the first of a new sort of post we’ll do form time to time where I answer a number of shorter questions posed by my patrons over at Patreon who are at the Patres … | Continue reading
We’re going to talk about the comically nonsensical logistics of the “Battle of the Goldroad” from Game of Thrones (S7E4), commonly just called the ‘Loot Train battle.’… | Continue reading
This is the fifth and final part (I, II, III, IV) of our series asking the question ‘Who were the Romans?’ How did they understand themselves as a people and the idea of ‘Roman’ as an i… | Continue reading
This is the fourth part (I, II, III) of our series asking the question “Who were the Romans?” and contrasting the answer we get from the historical evidence with the pop-cultural image … | Continue reading
I hope everyone will forgive me taking this week to break from our normal diet of history-and-pop-culture (though we are discussing a key historical concept here – it is me after all), but it… | Continue reading
This is the second part (I) of a series asking the question ‘Who were the Romans?’ How did they understand themselves as a people and the idea of ‘Roman’ as an identity? Was… | Continue reading
Who were the Romans? How did they understand themselves as a people and ‘Roman’ as an identity? And what were the implications of that understanding – and perhaps more importantly… | Continue reading
This is the fourth and last part of our series (I, II, III) examining the historical assumptions of Europa Universalis IV, Paradox Interactive’s historical grand strategy computer game set in… | Continue reading
Note from the Editor: I’m excited that I have our first (hopefully of many!) guest post to share with you and it is a fascinating topic to start with. The history of medicine (and the history… | Continue reading
This is the third part of our series (I, II) examining the historical assumptions of Paradox Interactive’s grand strategy computer game set in the early modern period, Europa Universalis IV (which … | Continue reading
This is the second part in a series (I) that examines the historical assumptions behind Paradox Interactive’s grand strategy computer game set in the early modern period, Europa Universalis I… | Continue reading
This is the first post in a series that will be examining the historical assumptions of Paradox Interactive’s grand strategy computer game set in the early modern period, Europa Universalis I… | Continue reading
Fireside this week, since the last post in our series on pre-modern textile production is not quite done yet (I had a fair bit of other writing to get done this week). Before I dive into this week&… | Continue reading
This is the third part of our four part (I, II, IV) look at the production of textiles, particularly wool and linen, in the pre-modern world. Last time, we processed our raw fibers, removing extran… | Continue reading
This is the second part of our four part (I, III, IV) look at the production of textiles (particularly in wool and linen) in the pre-modern world. Last time, we took a look at the production of our… | Continue reading
This week we are starting the first of a four (?) part look at pre-modern textile production. As with our series on farming and iron, we are going to follow the sequence of production from the grow… | Continue reading
Fireside this week, but next week we are diving into our long awaited series on pre-modern textile production, though we will be particularly focused on the most important clothing fibers in the Me… | Continue reading
This is the third and final part of a discussion (I, IIa, IIb) discussion of the notion that there is a ‘universal warrior’ – a transcendent sameness about either the experience o… | Continue reading
This is the second part of a three part (I, II) discussion of the idea of a ‘universal warrior’ – the assumption that there is a transcendent sameness about either the experience … | Continue reading
This is the first part of a three part (II, III) discussion of an idea I am going to term (borrowing from one of its proponents) the ‘universal warrior’ – the idea that there is a… | Continue reading
It’s the first week of classes, so fireside this week. Next week, we’ll dive into a short series looking at the question of the ‘universal warrior,’ the idea – too oft… | Continue reading
So this week I want to talk about how what I know a historian influences how I am interpreting what I am going to call the Capitol Insurrection that happened on Wednesday, January 6 instead of taki… | Continue reading
Happy New Year! Good riddance 2020! Fireside this week. Next week, we’ll be finishing up our look at the Dothraki of A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones by looking at how they are show… | Continue reading
This is the third part of a four part (I, II, IV) look at the Dothraki from George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire and HBO’s Game of Thrones. We’re looking at, in particular, the d… | Continue reading
This is the second part of a four part (I, III, IV) look at the Dothraki, the fictional horse-borne nomads of the A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones series. We’re looking at, in particu… | Continue reading
This is the first part of a three part (II, III) look at the Dothraki, the fictional horse-borne nomads of the Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire series and the degree to which George R.R. Ma… | Continue reading
Hey folks! Fireside this week. A bit of a change-up in terms of the coming attractions. I had planned to start “Textiles, How Did They Make It?” next, but I want to do a bit more readin… | Continue reading
Quick Note: New Acquisitions is the category for more off-the-cuff or one-off posts. Whereas the Collections posts will come every Friday, New Acquisitions will show up irregularly. Warning: Spoile… | Continue reading
We’re going to be a bit silly this week (in part because the ending of this compressed semester has left me with little time) and talk about the recently released historical action-RPG comput… | Continue reading
This week, I want to talk about the discipline of military history: what it is, why it is important and how I see my own place within it. This is going to be a bit of an unusual collections post as… | Continue reading
This week, as an addendum to our four(and a half)-part (I, II, III, IVa, IVb) look at pre-modern iron and steel production, we’re going to look at two alternative regional processes, where th… | Continue reading
Hey folks! Fireside this week, but I promise we’ll see that promised addendum on pre-modern crucible steel and cast iron next week. In the meantime, as you are no doubt inescapably aware, the… | Continue reading
Today, in Part II of our three part series on War Elephants, we’re going to look at the drawbacks of war elephants. Last time (here), we discussed the factors that made war elephants so power… | Continue reading