A look at history and popular culture
Fireside this week! Ollie (left) and Percy (right) both resting after a hard day of being cats. For this week's musing, I want to consider the role the historian has in making judgements about the past, particularly - but not exclusively - about historical figures and their legacies. In particular, I very often encounter the … Continue reading Fireside Friday, June 23, 2023 (On Historical Judgement)
This week we're going to take a look at the process by which the Romans raised legions in the Middle Republic (c. 290-100 BC, think the age of Pyrrhus, Hannibal and the various well-known Scipios; this is also the period of Rome's initial overseas expansion and its great power wars), what the Romans called the … Continue reading Collections: How To Raise a Roman Army: The Dilectus
Fireside this week! We actually haven't had one of these in quite a while; we had a gap week in April but the last Fireside looks like it was in March! In any case, here we are and here's Ollie: Research Assistant Cat Ollie, doing his best impression of a bagel next to his toy … Continue reading Fireside Friday: June 9, 2023
This week we're taking a brief look at Roman roads because that was the topic which won out on the latest ACOUP Senate poll and on this blog we conform to the mos maiorum by following the Senatus Consultum. In particular the question here was from Matthew Runyon who asked, "What was so revolutionary about … Continue reading Collections: Roman Roads
This week on the blog we're going to talk about Cleopatra or to be more specific, we're going to talk about Cleopatra VII Philopator, who is the only Cleopatra you've likely ever heard of, but that 'seven' after he name should signal that she's not the only Cleopatra. One of the trends in scholarship over … Continue reading Collections: On the Reign of Cleopatra
This week, Michael Taylor, Associate Professor of History at SUNY Albany, returns to offer a continuation of his look at the work of British military historian John Keegan. Last time, he discussed Keegan's most famous work, The Face of Battle, while this week Michael turns to discuss what he argues is one of Keegan's best … Continue reading Michael Taylor on John Keegan, Part II: The Mask of Command
This week we're going to take a bit of a detour to talk about how we should imagine the warriors of Gallic/Celtic armies were equipped and fought. I wanted to write about the topic because the YouTube algorithm served me up a video on it, which isn't ever fully wrong but struck me as importantly … Continue reading Collections: Who Were ‘the Celts’ and How Did They (Some of Them) Fight?
This week we're looking at The Great War: Western Front, a hybrid turn-based/real-time strategy game about the First World War developed by Petroglyph Games, a renowned maker of real-time strategy titles. Petroglyph generally tend to do games set in science-fiction or fantasy settings, so when this product was announced I was immediately interested to see … Continue reading Collections: The Great War: Western Front, A Gain of Inches
This week we're going to take a detour into understanding the structure of academia, in particular the different kinds of 'professors' and their academic ranks in the American system, with a particular focus on 'non-tenure track' faculty (which is to say, as we'll see, 'most teaching faculty.') This is intended as the first in a … Continue reading Collections: Academic Ranks Explained Or What On Earth Is an Adjunct?
Real short update this week folks. Life has opted to intervene (as it does) and to do so on its own schedule (as it will) so there won't be a blog post this week. We should be back to the normal schedule next week - I have a couple of posts in drafts (one on … Continue reading Gap Week: April 20, 2023