A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
A look at history and popular culture
Since the WordPress archives are far from the easiest thing to navigate and it can be difficult to find what you are looking for even though it is, I am putting together a couple of ‘index’ posts linking to things I’ve written on this site on a given topic. This one is Resources for Teachers. … Continue reading Resources for Teachers
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
Today we’re starting the first part of our three part series on War Elephants (by reader request!). In this first part, we’re going to talk about how elephants performed in battle: how did they fight and what was their battlefield purpose? The second two parts will focus on the (as we’ll see) far more important … Continue reading Collections: War Elephants, Part I: Battle Pachyderms
Fireside this week! I’m back home now from PDXCON2022 so it is back to work. I know there have been a number of requests to know if the historians panel with Eleanor Janega and myself was recorded; it was and the recording is set to be uploaded shortly, but there are a number of turning … Continue reading Fireside Friday, September 9, 2022
This is the seventh part of a series taking a historian’s look at the Battle of Helm’s Deep (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII. VIII) from both J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers (1954) and Peter Jackson’s 2002 film of the same name. Last time, we looked at the weapons and armor of the film … Continue reading Collections: The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part VII: Hanging by a Thread
Today, in Part III of our series of war elephants, we are going to look at the place war elephants held in society through two lenses: what war elephants meant to the societies that used them and what they often mean in popular culture – as we’ll see, these are connected topics. Previously in this … Continue reading Collections: War Elephants, Part III: Elephant Memories
This week, we’re taking another trip, this time through a medieval author, in this case looking at a selection of passages from Dhuoda of Uzès, Duchess of Septimania’s Liber Manualis (“Handbook”) for her son William and discussing the model of noble relationships it presents. Dhuoda is a fascinating figure both for the ways she is … Continue reading Collections: A Trip Through Dhuoda of Uzès (Carolingian Values)
Today, I just want to talk a little about what I’m doing here on the blog and how you might want to read the posts I’m making. I’ll finish up with a sense of what’s in the pipeline. This is going to be less of a prepared mini-essay and a bit more of a fireside … Continue reading Miscellanea: A Brief Discussion of History and Scope, or What Am I Doing Here?
This week, we’re going to talk about armor effectiveness, comparing the value of body-armor before gunpowder with what gets portrayed in fiction and broader pop culture. What does it take to defeat armor? What weapons were effective at defeating armor – and what kinds of armor were they effective against? I should note that I … Continue reading Collections: Punching Through Some Armor Myths
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. Last week, we used the Romans as an example to see how the needs of a given fortification changed its structure … Continue reading Collections: Fortification, Part III: Castling
