One of my professors was so impressed with my work that he invited me to apply to participate in the 2019 Missouri Valley History Conference this spring as an undergrad. The project that I had been working on regarding the U.S. Army's World War II casualty replacement system that was on indefinite suspension is now full steam ahead, albeit in a shortened form (10 pages), and depending on if I get accepted, which he thinks is pretty much a slam dunk; the only issue is the Society for Military History finding a panel to put me on since my project is pretty unique.

I found one of my publications cited in another historian's work for the first time this week! Big thrills.

Hello all-

congrats to the previous posters on the undergrad conference and publication reference - those moments of validation make all the research worthwhile

Speaking of which....

I hope the good people of this thread will forgive a self-endorsement, particularly since I've been plugging the same thing all over reddit for the past week (including an AskHistorians reply yesterday). But, like so many historians, I've managed to convince myself that everyone is (or really should be) as interested in my work as I am.

Last year, I taught a course at the University of Michigan called "A History of the Ancient Mediterranean in Fifteen Buildings," which used the eponymous fifteen buildings to explore moments and themes in Classical history (e.g. the Parthenon became a point of departure for discussing Periclean Athens).

A few months ago, I had the idea of applying the same approach to a single city - and as a Roman historian, I naturally settled on Rome itself. So, instead of working on my book manuscript or something else that would actually advance my career, I created A History of Rome in Fifteen Buildings.

The idea of the "History of Rome in Fifteen Buildings" is to tell the whole story of the city of Rome, from its legendary beginnings to the nineteenth century. Each of the fifteen buildings is used to explore a period of the city's history and one or two larger topics. So:

The Hut of Romulus (legend and history surrounding the foundation of Rome)

The Rostra (rhetoric and the late Roman Republic)

The Forum of Caesar (the career of Julius Caesar)

Ara Pacis (the age of Augustus)

The Colosseum (the games and the Flavian Dynasty)

The Pantheon (Hadrian and Roman concrete)

The Column of Marcus Aurelius (Marcus, the Marcomannic Wars, and Stoicism)

The Baths of Caracalla (the Severan Dynasty and Roman bathing)

The Arch of Constantine (Constantine and the rise of Christianity)

Santa Sabina (the fall of the Western Roman Empire)

Santa Prassede (early medieval Rome and the rise of the Holy Roman Empire)

Santa Maria in Trastevere (the Schism of 1130 and the medieval papacy)

San Pietro in Vincoli (Michelangelo and the Roman Renaissance)

Sant'Andrea al Quirinale (Bernini and Baroque Rome)

The Keats-Shelley House (the English Romantics in Rome; Rome in the era of the Grand Tour)

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Each of these pages has three parts: a YouTube video (also available as an audio file), which situates the building in its broad historical context; a carefully-researched story of dubious literary merit, intended to immerse readers in the world of the building; and a photo essay that illustrates the building’s most interesting features.

I apologize profusely (though I guess not sincerely, since I posted it) for the plug.

All the best

slowly gaining progress for my MA on The Grizzled aaaaa

I just really want to thank the moderation team here, you guys are really awesome, and it was a really cool thing to do the WWI Amateur AMA. I got to discuss my favorite topic which is always a great thing :).

As well, on the 11th I picked up 19 books for 45 bucks at a local used book shop who had a 50% of military history sale that day. Probably the most important book I got is one I've actually been looking for - an original copy of Admiral William S. Sim's Victory at Sea which is about the United States' Naval involvement in European Waters in WWI.

Sims was essentially the Commander in Chief of USN forces in European Waters, and his book is pretty important to my own research so I'm happy I finally got a copy (and only at $2.50!)

Has anyone listened to "The History of Ancient Greece" podcast? I'm a few episodes in and I've started noticing some small things that I'm pretty sure are incorrect which is kind of making me question the credibility of the whole thing. For example, in one section the host quotes Homer as saying Helen had "the face that launch'd a thousand ships." Only Homer didn't say that – that's from Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe. He also implied that the so-called Dark Age of Greece is called that because bad things were happening. I was under the impression that the term referred not to the darkness of the events but the fact that we know very little about the historical period.

Anyway, that, along with a few other smaller things I've noticed, are making me doubt the credibility of the other assertions the host has made of which I'm not as well-equipped to judge the veracity. Anyone with more Greek knowledge than I know if the podcast is worth listening to? Are there any alternative podcasts that tell a cohesive narrative of Ancient Greece?

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Thank you!

On the podcast today we had two interviews about Open Access. It's definitely worth a listen and feel free to ask me any questions you have!

A bit of excitement this week. I follow a couple of Kinsey Institute researchers on Twitter, and one of them posted some Tijuana bibles - cheaply produced pornographic mini-comics, most popular during the 1920s and 30s, also known as "8-pagers" because of their length - which commonly took existing comic strip and cartoon characters, or even actors and other celebrities, and put them in fanciful erotic scenarios. The length and the crudeness of the printing meant they were never works of high art, but they have their charm and collectability nowadays...anyway, I digress.

The particular booklet that caught my eye was Red Sonja and Conan - "Hot and Dry" - which the institute mistakenly attributed to "c. 1935." However, Red Sonja wasn't created until 1973, and didn't get her distinctive chainmail bikini until a few years later; the cover is a deliberate homage of a Frank Thorne illustration of the character. What is exciting to me though is just the fact that it exists: nobody has heard of this thing, as far as I'm aware. I've never run across it in any collection, it's not in any of the comic literature I've read on Conan and Red Sonja...and that's just neat that it's come to light like this.

What are our favorite history podcasts? I've been enjoying Tides of History lately.

Something I was thinking about: are there any computer games that give a good feel for the size and geography of historical cities, towns or villages? Not any specific place - it could just as well be a fantasy setting with the right feel to it.

I often find it hard to imagine just how large settlements were in the past, how dense or spacious, what the edges were like, what they would have felt like to walk around. I can imagine specific locations, but struggle to grasp the totality and feel of a place.