A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
A look at history and popular culture
Fireside this week! We've just moved and I am settling in to my new home office, but the slow process of unpacking all of my books has delayed Logistics, Part III. I can, however, give you a picture of the new Fireside, albeit unlit because it is Augustus in the Carolinas and that means it … Continue reading Fireside Friday, August 5, 2022
Fireside this week! I had hoped to have the next post in the logistics and foraging series ready to go for this week but we are also moving house next week and a number of things related to that have gotten in the way. One of those things was Ollie: Ollie 'helping' me pack my … Continue reading Fireside Friday, July 22, 2022
Fireside this week! I expect to lean a bit more on Firesides than in the next few months as I am hoping to use the summer to make progress on my book project, which of course is going to impact the speed with which I can deliver you all the 5000-9000 word essays that tend … Continue reading Fireside Friday, June 10, 2022
Fireside this week! Next week we'll be diving into a series (I am imagining four parts) on pre-modern generalship (with a particular emphasis on the broader Mediterranean world in classical antiquity and the middle ages) and the ways that it was shaped by key constraints which are often removed in modern imaginings of command (particularly … Continue reading Fireside Friday, May 20, 2022
Fireside this week! We're in the last few weeks of the semester, but semesters tend to 'crescendo' rather than 'wind down' so there has been a lot going on. I'll probably be posting a gap week for next week (Friday, April 29) because I'll be at the annual meeting of the Society for Military History … Continue reading Fireside Friday, April 22, 2022
Fireside this week! It's been a while, eight weeks in a row without a fireside. For what's coming up in future weeks, I'm working on a longer discussion of Expeditions: Rome and how it treats Roman history. After that, we'll have a look at the art of pre-modern generalship as compared to the remarkably 'frictionless' … Continue reading Fireside Friday, April 8, 2022
Fireside this week! I am still working on "Decline and Fall?" Part III and should have that ready for you all next week. Part III is going to deal with economics and demographics (and also briefly, the question of non-elite literacy), which will hopefully make a lot of you happy since questions about those issues … Continue reading Fireside Friday, February 4, 2022
Fireside this week! The Spring semester is now in full swing and - knock on wood - so far seems to be proceeding without too much in the way of disruption. I'm hoping to have part II of "Decline and Fall?" for you all next week but in the meantime I wanted to take a … Continue reading Fireside Friday, January 21, 2022 (On Public Scholarship)
First fireside of the new year! Percy (right) had been fully hidden under the tree-skirt, but Ollie's continued investigations found him out. For this week's musing, I'm in a mind to talk about the tension between preparing for different kinds of war, in particular between counter-insurgency (COIN) and large-scale combat operations (LSCO), in part because … Continue reading Fireside Friday: January 7, 2022
Fireside this week! I had hoped to have the next part of the fortification series done by now (its coming along), but between the ends of semester crunch, a few unexpected time-sensitive projects and it being the week of Thanksgiving, that will have to wait. Home Librarian Oliver helping me organize my books. For this … Continue reading Fireside Friday: November 26, 2021