A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
A look at history and popular culture
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
For the next few posts (I, II, III), I want to take a look at how some 'tribal' peoples raised armies, in contrast to the way that ancient (or later) states raised armies. As moderns, we are so familiar with the way that states function that the far older systems of non-state organization and mobilization … Continue reading Collections: How to Raise a Tribal Army in Pre-Roman Europe, Part I: Aristocrats, Retainers and Clients
This is the second and final part of our look at Alexander III of Macedon (Part I), who you almost certainly know as Alexander the Great. Last week, we looked at the sources for Alexander's life, the historiography (that is, the history-of-the-history) of his modern reception and then he abilities as a military commander, both … Continue reading Collections: On the Reign of Alexander III of Macedon, the Great? Part II
This is the fifth part of our five part series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IIIc, IV, V, A1, A2) on the structure of the Roman Republic during the third and second centuries BC, the 'Middle Republic.' Last time we looked at the odd but very important role played by the ROman Senate as the central … Continue reading Collections: How to Roman Republic 101, Part V: The Courts
This is the first of a planned five-part series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IIIc, IV, V, A1, A2) looking at the structure of the Roman Republic as another example of civic governance structures in antiquity, to match our series on the Greek polis. As with that series, we're going to start by defining our community … Continue reading Collections: How to Roman Republic 101, Part I: SPQR
This is the third and last part of our three(ish) part series looking at the governing structures of the Greek polis (I, IIa, IIb, IIc, III). Over the last three sub-parts, we looked at the political structures created and manned by the politai. This week I want to look, briefly, beyond the politai themselves to … Continue reading Collections: How to Polis, Part III: People and Gods Beyond the Politai
This is the first of a planned three part (I, IIa, IIb, IIc, III) look at the structure of the ancient Greek polis, the self-governing 'city state,' as part of a larger series on civic governance in the pre-modern world. Since I argued, way back in June of 2019, that a noble house in Game … Continue reading Collections: How to Polis, 101, Part I: Component Parts
This week we're going to take a look at the worldbuilding of Amazon Studio's Rings of Power from a historical realism perspective. I think it is no great secret that Rings of Power broadly failed to live up to expectations and left a lot of audiences disappointed. In the aftermath of that disappointment, once one … Continue reading Collections: Why Rings of Power’s Middle Earth Feels Flat
This is the third part of a four part series (I, IIa, IIb, III, IV) examining the historical assumptions behind the popular medieval grand strategy game Crusader Kings III, made by Paradox Interactive. In the last part (in two sections), we discussed how CKIII attempts to model decentralized political power in the fragmented polities of … Continue reading Collections: Teaching Paradox, Crusader Kings III, Part III: Constructivisting a Kingdom
This is the back half of the second part of a four part series (I, IIa, IIb, III, IV) examining the historical assumptions behind the popular medieval grand strategy game Crusader Kings III, made by Paradox Interactive. Last time we looked at how the game tried to mechanically simulate the internal structure of the highly … Continue reading Collections: Teaching Paradox, Crusader Kings III, Part IIb: Cracks in the House of Islam