Fireside Friday, July 31, 2026 (On The Odyssey)

Hey folks, Fireside this week, as I am fresh back from a short family trip before the jaws of the Fall semester close upon me. I did get a chance to see Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and I wrote a review of it for Foreign Policy (alas, paywalled, I assume), although by far the most … Continue reading Fireside Friday, July 31, 2026 (On The Odyssey) →

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Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part IVb: Cohesion

This is the second half of the fourth part (I, IIa, IIb, III, IVa) of our honestly-who-knows-how-many part series laying out some general guidelines for how pre-modern armies are organized. Last week we took a look at how the leadership of these armies was drawn from the existing elite classes of their societies. As with … Continue reading Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part IVb: Cohesion →

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Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part IVa: Leadership

This is the fourth part (I, IIa, IIb, III) of our honestly-who-knows-how-many part series laying out some general guidelines for how pre-modern armies are organized. We’ve talked about how armies are recruited, equipped and paid for. In particular, as we’ve seen so far, the structure of recruitment, organization and payment (such as it was) is … Continue reading Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part IVa: Leadership →

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Friday Friday, July 10, 2026 (On the Chud Vision of Roman History)

Hey folks, Fireside this week! I’ve been a bit behind because we had some family travel followed by an issue with a water leak in the basement which has pushed me out of my normal home office space (fortunately no books or computers were harmed and we’re working on water damage restoration now). All of … Continue reading Friday Friday, July 10, 2026 (On the Chud Vision of Roman History) →

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Collections: On the Declaration of Independence

Hello again all. 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. This is going to be a bit more of an open musing than an argument as compared to previous years (2021, 2022, 2023, … Continue reading Collections: On the Declaration of Independence →

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Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part III: Paying For It

This is the third part (I, IIa, IIb, III) of our honestly-who-knows-how-many part series laying out some general guidelines for how pre-modern armies are recruited, raised, equipped and paid. In the last part, we looked at the various ways pre-modern armies might mobilize their armies, a process that mainly consisted of recruiting and equipping soldiers. … Continue reading Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part III: Paying For It →

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Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part IIb: Officials, Contractors and Professionals

This is the second half of the second part (I, IIa, IIb) of our honestly-who-knows-how-many part series laying out some general guidelines for how pre-modern armies are recruited, raised, equipped and paid. While I hope this will be of great interest to the history nerds out there, I’ve opted to structure this specifically as a … Continue reading Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part IIb: Officials, Contractors and Professionals →

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Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part IIa: Mobilization without Administration

This is the second part (I, IIa) of our honestly-who-knows-how-many part series laying out some general guidelines for how pre-modern armies are recruited, raised, equipped and paid. While I hope this will be of great interest to the history nerds out there, I’ve opted to structure this specifically as a service for the worldbuilders out … Continue reading Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part IIa: Mobilization without Administration →

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Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part I: Why They Fight

This week I want to try something a little different. Rather than taking apart a particular fantasy military system, I thought I might try to lay out a more general sense of how military systems tend to map on to societies, both because such general historical frameworks are handy for thinking about the past, but … Continue reading Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part I: Why They Fight →

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Gap Week: May 29, 2026

Hey folks! I had a few other projects that I really needed to get finished this week, which left me with limited time to put a blog post together. My plan for next week is something for the worldbuilders out there, a sort of ‘guide’ to different kinds of army structures, drawing on a number … Continue reading Gap Week: May 29, 2026 →

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Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part V: How a Carthaginian Army Fights

This is the fifth and last part of our series (I, II, III, IV, V) looking at how Carthaginian armies were raised and constituted. Over the last four parts, we’ve looked at the larger components of Carthaginian armies: the relatively small role of Carthaginian citizens, the more prominent role of North African conscripts, of Numidian … Continue reading Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part V: How a Carthaginian Army Fights →

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Fireside Friday, May 15, 2026

Hey folks, fireside this week! Next week we’ll cap off our look at the Carthaginian army by covering some of the ‘odds and ends’ components (slingers, elephants), before looking at how that mixture of troop-types was employed in battle during the third century. For this week’s musing, I figured I would answer a question that … Continue reading Fireside Friday, May 15, 2026 →

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Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part IV: Allies and Mercenaries

This is the fourth part of our series (I, II, III) looking at how Carthage’s complex, multi-ethnic armies were raised and structured. Last week, we looked at Carthage’s unusual system for raising vassal forces: long-serving Carthaginian generals could inhabit positions within the personalist, non-state mobilization systems of Numidia and Iberia, enabling them to access military … Continue reading Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part IV: Allies and Mercenaries →

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Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part III: Generals, Warlords and Vassals

This is the third part (I, II) of our series looking at how Carthage’s complex, multipart armies were raised and constituted. Last time, we looked at the backbone of Carthage’s armies: North African troops levied out of Carthage’s subject communities in North Africa. These fellows seem to have been directly employed by the Carthaginian state, … Continue reading Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part III: Generals, Warlords and Vassals →

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Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part II: The African Backbone

This is the second part (I) of our series looking at the structure of the Carthaginian army. As we discussed last time, while Carthage has an unfair reputation for being an ‘un-military’ society, its military system was one of the highest performing in the ancient Mediterranean, able to produce vast and effective armies waging war … Continue reading Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part II: The African Backbone →

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Fireside Friday, April 17, 2026

Hey folks! Fireside this week; next week we’ll be back to seperating out the components of Carthaginian armies, looking at the real backbone of those armies, which are Carthage’s North African subjects. But for this week’s musing, I wanted to talk a bit about how different historians approach our craft when the evidence is both … Continue reading Fireside Friday, April 17, 2026 →

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Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part I: Finding Carthaginians

This is the first part of a series looking at the structure of the Carthaginian army. Although Carthage has an (unfair!) reputation for being a country of “peaceful merchants who tended to avoid wars,” Carthage was, I will argue, without question the second greatest military power the Mediterranean produced – eclipsed only by Rome. If … Continue reading Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part I: Finding Carthaginians →

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Collections: Reconstructing the Roman Pectoral

This week we’re going to look a specific piece of early Roman military equipment, the humble bronze pectoral, which it turns out is surprisingly tricky for us to confidently reconstruct, in part because the period of its use that most interests us (the run from c. 264 to c. 146 where Rome is winning its … Continue reading Collections: Reconstructing the Roman Pectoral →

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Gap Week, March 27, 2026 (Society for Military History Annual Meeting)

Hey folks! Another gap week because, as mentioned last week, I am at the annual meeting for the Society for Military History happening in Arlington. That said, we actually did have a major post this week, my 7,500 word primal cry concerning the current war in Iran. I know that won’t be for everyone – … Continue reading Gap Week, March 27, 2026 (Society for Military History Annual Meeting) →

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Miscellanea: The War in Iran

This post is a set of my observations on the current war in Iran and my thoughts on the broader strategic implications. I am not, of course, an expert on the region nor do I have access to any special information, so I am going to treat that all with a high degree of uncertainty. … Continue reading Miscellanea: The War in Iran →

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Gap Week: March 20, 2026

Hey folks! I was traveling this week to give an invited talk at Western Michigan University, so I don’t have a blog post ready for you. That’ll also probably be the case for next week (where I will be at the annual meeting of the Society for Military History), though at least there I will … Continue reading Gap Week: March 20, 2026 →

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Collections: Warfare in Dune, Part II: The Fremen Jihad

This is the second part (I, II) of our somewhat silly look about the plausibility of warfare in Frank Herbert’s Dune. Last week, we looked at the system of warfare that is dominant in the setting when the first book opens: warfare among the Great Houses. While I noted some worldbuilding issues I see – … Continue reading Collections: Warfare in Dune, Part II: The Fremen Jihad →

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Fireside Friday, March 6, 2026

Hey everyone, we have a Fireside this week and then next week we’ll get back to our somewhat silly break discussing the mechanics of warfare in Dune. But I did want to stop to chatter a bit about something that came up in that discussion, which is something about the nature of personalist regimes in … Continue reading Fireside Friday, March 6, 2026 →

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Collections: Warfare in Dune, Part I: Fighting Faufreluches

This week, time for something a bit silly: we’re going to think about the plausibility of the warfare in Frank Herbert’s Dune! In particular, I want to approach the question in two parts: first asking if the model of warfare among the Great Houses we’re introduced to in the first book of Dune (that is, … Continue reading Collections: Warfare in Dune, Part I: Fighting Faufreluches →

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Collections: Ancient Mediterranean Mercenaries!

This week we’re going to take a look at mercenaries in the ancient Mediterranean world! This was one of the runners-up in the latest ACOUP Senate poll, coming out of quite a few requests to discuss how mercenaries functioned in antiquity. In order to keep the scope here manageable and within my expertise, I am … Continue reading Collections: Ancient Mediterranean Mercenaries! →

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Collections: Against the State – A Primer on Terrorism, Insurgency and Protest

This week, continuing in the vein of some of our previous strategy and military theory primers, I wanted to off a basic 101-level survey of the strategic theory behind efforts, in a sense, directed against the state itself, both violent approaches (what we might call ‘terroristic insurgency’) and non-violent approaches (protest). It may seem strange … Continue reading Collections: Against the State – A Primer on Terrorism, Insurgency and Protest →

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Fireside Friday, February 6, 2026 (On Ancient Migrations)

Hey folks, Fireside this week! I have ended up a bit behind in my work and as always it is the blog that much suffer first. In this case, we have in two weeks twice managed to have snow which only increased my workload (it didn&#8217;t cancel any of my classes, but did require me &#8230; <a class="more-link" href="https://acoup.blog/2026/02/06/fireside-friday-february-6-2026-on-ancient-migrations/">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Fireside Friday, February 6, 2026 (On Ancient Migrations)</span> <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>

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Collections: The Late Bronze Age Collapse, A Very Brief Introduction

This week, by order of the ACOUP Senate, we&#8217;re talking about the Late Bronze Age Collapse (commonly abbreviated &#8216;LBAC&#8217;), the shocking collapse of the Late Bronze Age state system across the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East during the 12th century (that is, the 1100s) BC. In the broader Mediterranean world, the Late Bronze Age Collapse &#8230; <a class="more-link" href="https://acoup.blog/2026/01/30/collections-the-late-bronze-age-collapse-a-very-brief-introduction/">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Collections: The Late Bronze Age Collapse, A Very Brief Introduction</span> <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>

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Fireside Friday, January 23, 2025 (On the Cowardice of the Statue PfPs)

Hey folks, Fireside this week! Hopefully everyone enjoyed our series on the running debate over hoplites! As a social media note, I am going to attempt to start setting up a presence on Threads (with my own name, bretdevereaux, as my handle as always). I’m not leaving Bluesky by any means, just diversifying a bit; … Continue reading Fireside Friday, January 23, 2025 (On the Cowardice of the Statue PfPs) →

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Collections: Hoplite Wars, Part IVb: Training Hoplites?

This is, at long last, the last part of our four-part series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, Intermission, IVa). last time we looked at the social status of hoplites and the implications that had for the political and social structure of the polis and even the very basic question of how many people there were in … Continue reading Collections: Hoplite Wars, Part IVb: Training Hoplites? →

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