Well, the new 'biggest authoritative synthesis' in my subfield, by two of its titans, is coming out in late June--but my copy arrived Wednesday. To my relief, I'm cited in the necessary places, although it's annoying that Cambridge UP did away with the comprehensive bibliography in favor of a brief 'select' one (seriously, Cambridge?). It's a weird kind of academic angst, hoping that people remember that you've been out here for 20 years as the authority on a part of the field, but I'm glad for the recognition. Hopefully it will mean wider consultation. This year's already been pretty good for me in terms of building academic networks.

In addition, Taylor & Francis / Routledge have been sending me complimentary books that are actually relevant to me. Why is this? I ordered the ebooks, got the ebooks, but they're sending me hardcopies anyhow. Very strange, but maybe I'll give those to our library.

Why are people interested in a particular period of history?

When a person whose grandfather was in WWII, it probably has to do with lineage and wanting to know one’s origins. 

But often it’s a French guy with interest in Byzantium, a Nigerian dude who is crazy about the Edo period, and so on. 

I’ve tried answering this question for myself too. Since a year or two, I’ve developed a downright addiction to medieval Europe. I’ve never really had an interest in history, nor game of thrones, nor medieval battles or whatever popular culture you can think of, but here I am reading about the Carolingians.

I’ve tried thinking though what elements of the Middle Ages have caused me to be so interested in it. Sure, I love imagining what life would be like in another period, and think that learning about any period gives insight into our psychology and motives, but that’s no reason for being interested specifically in the Middle Ages.

I think, for me, it might have to do with imagining myself as a medieval Christian. As a modern person, I feel as if I have no innate morality. With our knowledge of cosmology and evolutionary biology, I believe it’s impossible to really believe morality exists. So, imagining myself as a devout Christian with absolute faith in god is interesting, as it allows me to imagine a morality system based on faith.

Or, maybe, the thought of a region that was once largely controlled by an empire breaking down into smaller, politically independent parts is exciting, kind of like imagining oneself in America when you could just move more west when you were fed up with your town.

In this way, maybe I’m as the romantics, who extolled the greatness of the “emotional Middle Ages” as opposed to the “rational and boring present”. 

So, my final musing bring me to give this tentative answer: ideology, (idealised) perception of a period, and love for a periods art bring a person to have interest in that period. I think most people already know that, though.

This is more of an invitation to discussion than a question, really, because such philosophical considerations might not be answerable.

I learned this week that my press is going to be making an audiobook of my book! I find that highly amusing for some reason. (I don't know who is reading it yet. Presumably nobody famous...)

I haven't posted here for a good while, but I'm actually doing rather fine! Really busy, but fine. Just some time ago me and my colleagues collabed with French literature major people from a neighbouring uni for a talk about 19th century French history, and it turned out really well.

I have a question though. During undergrad, did any of you need to obtain sources for your thesis overseas? If so, did you go there physically? And if so, where did you get funding for it? I probably (and hopefully) don't need to, but it's better to know just in case.

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Was the industrial revolution “inevitable”? We know that many things changed on the planet because of it (ex. Climate change) and I’m wondering if it was something that was always going to happen no matter what or the whole thing could have been avoided and we’d (humans that is) continue living like we did pre 1800s.

Not sure if this is the right place, but it feels history related...

How did owls become a symbol of wisdom?

One issue I've noticed with a lot of biographies of presidents and other political figures is that once they get into power, the narrative seems to falter. Often the subject's duties involved making a lot of decisions on a lot of unconnected issues. Even some excellent biographers seem to struggle to pull all those disparate stories into an interesting, lively and cohesive narrative, while still being thorough and also not sacrificing chronology too far.

Any recommendations for biographies that do a good job tackling this challenge?

What percentage of casualties on the losing side of a battle (in ancient and medieval times) occurred during routs?

When men fired in lines with muskets how did they line up exactly? I’ve read that they used counter march or ranked fire where one line fires, moves back and then the next fires and so on. Yet time and time again in re-enactments and movies I see soldiers instead bunch up three men deep and just fire over each other’s shoulders en masse with no switching of lines or anything. Which is more accurate and real?

Did the West had some kind of counterpart for Cyrus the Great during Antiquity?