A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
A look at history and popular culture
I generally try to avoid having Twitter disputes spill on to the blog. Generally what happens on Twitter is best left on Twitter and in some cases not even that. However this past week I was pulled into a Twitter debate with Noah Smith about the validity of the way that historians offer our knowledge … Continue reading New Acquisitions: On the Wisdom of Noah Smith
This week we are taking a look at the latest winner of the ACOUP Senate poll, which posed the question "Why didn't the Roman Empire have an industrial revolution?" To answer that, we need to get into some detail on what the industrial revolution itself was and the preconditions that produced it, as well as … Continue reading Collections: Why No Roman Industrial Revolution?
This week I want to do something we haven't really done before and look back at one of the older series, This. Isn't. Sparta. (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, Gloss., Retrospective), as I write this now reaching its three-year-anniversary, which seems a good time to make that sort of a retrospective. In particular … Continue reading Collections: This. Isn’t. Sparta. Retrospective
This is the third part of a three part (I, II, III) look at some of the practical concerns of managing pre-industrial logistics. In our last post, we outlined what 'foraging' actually entailed - how armies got supplies both from friendly populations but also from neutral or hostile populations. In particular, we focused on the … Continue reading Collections: Logistics, How Did They Do It, Part III: On the Move
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