A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
A look at history and popular culture
Fireside this week! I find I have my thoughts more or less together for the last part of the Imperator series, but I have not yet gotten them into a satisfying order - a common hazard of writing - so they will have to wait for next week. It's not yet clear to me if … Continue reading Fireside Friday, August 16, 2024
This is the second half of the second part of our three part (I, IIa, IIb, IIIa, IIIb) look at Paradox Interactive's ancient grand strategy game Imperator: Rome which covers the broader Mediterranean and South Asia from the very late fourth century through to the end of the first century BC, the period of the … Continue reading Collections: Teaching Paradox, Imperator, Part IIb: Built in a Day
Hey folks. We're talking a mulligan this week, as the pedant household has gotten (one by one) whatever fresh COVID-19 variant is going around. Everyone is fine, but being sick left me pretty exhausted over the past few days with fewer productive writing hours available. Since I can't afford to let the book project slip … Continue reading Gap Week: August 2, 2024
This is the first half of the second part of our three part (I, IIa, IIb, IIIa, IIIb) look at Paradox Interactive's Hellenistic-era grand strategy game Imperator: Rome. I had hoped to do this part in a single post, but my book writing schedule intervened and so it became necessary to split it up. Last … Continue reading Collections: Teaching Paradox, Imperator, Part IIa: Pops and Chains
This is the first part of a three-part (I, IIa, IIb, IIIa, IIIb) series, examining the historical assumptions of Imperator: Rome, a historical grand strategy game by Paradox Interactive, set during the rise and collapse of the Roman Republic from 304-27 BC and covering the broader Mediterranean world and South Asia. This is also the … Continue reading Collections: Teaching Paradox, Imperator, Part I: Divisa in Partes Tres
Fireside this week! I had hoped to have the start of the Imperator Teaching Paradox series ready for this week, but it has been a bit stubborn and I do not want to derail my book writing/revising schedule in order to push it out before it is ready. So that will almost certainly come next … Continue reading Fireside Friday, July 12, 2024
It is once again the week of July 4th and so, as is customary here, I am going to use this week's post to talk about the United States or more correctly this week about the political philosophy the United States was founded on: liberalism. Now an immediate clarification is necessary, because in the United … Continue reading Collections: The Philosophy of Liberty – On Liberalism
Fireside this week! My hope in terms of the upcoming schedule is to have my usual July 4th post next week (we're discussing political philosophy in an election year, so I am sure everyone will be very chill; regardless let me repeat you will be civil) and then after that to dive into the Teaching … Continue reading Fireside Friday, June 28, 2024
This is the third and final part of our three-part (I, II, III) look at how some 'tribal' or more correctly, non-state agrarian peoples - particularly the Celtiberians, Gauls and also many Germanic-language speaking peoples on the Rhine and Danube- raised armies to fight the Romans (and anyone else who came knocking) in the third, … Continue reading Collections: How to Raise a Tribal Army in Pre-Roman Europe, Part III: Going To War With the Army You Have
This is the second part of our (planned) three part (I, II, III) look at how some 'tribal' or more correctly, non-state agrarian peoples raised armies to fight the Romans (and others) in the third through first centuries BC. Last time, we looked at the subsistence basis of these societies - they're agricultural - and … Continue reading Collections: How to Raise a Tribal Army in Pre-Roman Europe, Part II: Government Without States