"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux
@bretdevereaux.bsky.social
Ancient & military historian specializing in the Roman economy and military. PhD from UNC History. More impressive credential is that I have beaten both Dark Souls and Elden Ring. Blogs at acoup.blog
So, not my first video game (I had a Sega Genesis when I was younger), but probably Exile: Escape from the Pit (1995), an old shareware RPG. It's still kind of the platonic ideal I have in my head of what an RPG is - a mix of worldbuilding, storytelling and character definition through builds.
Retro Blast 💫@retroblastpod.com · 3d agoWhat's your "origin" video game? Most gamers have a lot of favorite games, sure, but there's always one that basically 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴 you. I'm talking about the game that flipped that little switch in your brain and made into a life-long gamer. So, which game is 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙨?
Museums always call mitrai 'belly guards' when in fact they suspend from a cuirass and protect a warrior's genitals and the vulnerable femoral arteries. This is the awful reality of warfare - a good stab to that area will cause a man to bleed out in a couple of minutes. 💀 😱 🏺 📸 Ancient Warfare Mag.
Chapps@chapps.bsky.social · 4h agoOne of three bronze mitrai (belly guards, for protecting the lower abdomen) from the same collection. This one depicts two facing winged sphinxes wearing tall polo-style hats, their faces turned towards the viewer. 🏺 4/
whenever i hear some variation on "but what if trump does X or Y or Z" i think of this ulysses s. grant remark to a subordinate during the wilderness campaign.
So this was off of my 'we don't hold other countries responsible for what their enemies do in a war' post: 1) Yeah, folks generally do hold the Allies responsible for strategic bombing deaths or the Bengal famine but 2) The Axis powers were ultimately responsible for a majority of the death in WW2.
JJan Toonen@jtoonen.bsky.social · 4d ago
Let me ask a question? Was Hitler ultimately responsible for the majority of the death in WW2? Or do you claim that the Allies and Russia killed a large portion?
I think the Taliban, al Qaeda, ISIS, Iraqi Shia militias, and Iran have agency and are responsible for the deaths of people they killed.
Prem Thakker ツ@premthakker.bsky.social · 5d agoThe U.S. "War on Terror" death toll is at least 4,500,000
For professors who were worried that the history job market might be a bit bad this year for your PhDs and postdocs, I have some news: it’s actually much worse
You fundamentally just cannot fight and win a war like this. There isn’t a military on earth that could effectively operate when your leadership is waffling back and forth on decisions on a daily basis for months on end. It’s not sustainable. None of this is sustainable.
Jason "Red5" Lyall@jaylyall.bsky.social · 2d agoTimeline of Strategic Genius: Wednesday: Trump against helping Saudis fight Houthis Thursday: Gets a call from Crown Prince Salman, decides to join the fight Mid-day Sunday: Trump calls off airstrikes right as they were about to begin, declines to help Saudis (again)
The thing about actual Roman damnationes memoriarum is that they didn't really obliterate all memory of a bad emperor. None of our sources are afraid to talk about these figures. It wasn't truly about forgetting the guy, but about abolishing his (positive) public commemoration.
Andy Dimock@adimock.bsky.social · 2d ago“Damnatio memoriae” sounds satisfying, especially to us Roman Empire obsessionists We should tear down every building he built But we can’t excise him from the historical record, Roman style, because he needs to be highlighted in perpetuity as the shining example of everything the Founders hated
Decades and decades of a national policy and zeitgeist that amounts to 'nobody needs to care about social studies' and we're now in an unwinnable war with a foreign country whose culture and leadership we did not understand based around geography we ignored. 🤷♂️
Mike Smith@msmith1047.bsky.social · 2d agoBeen considering starting to teach and drill my 5th graders on basic map locations, even though nobody gives a shit about social studies.
As an aside, I think one of the essential skills being trained in college that the 'college is for training workers' paradigm devalues to its peril is the ability and willingness to treat dry, academic matters as serious and worth getting right, rather than dismissing them.
"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux@bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 2d agoGrading maps and it is distressing how many of my students cannot put Persis (the ancient region), despite us covering its geography in class and also, you know, us currently being at war there and the region still having basically the same name.
Grading maps and it is distressing how many of my students cannot put Persis (the ancient region), despite us covering its geography in class and also, you know, us currently being at war there and the region still having basically the same name.
Again, a lot of political economy, economics and IR research needs to start assessing possible scenarios for the global economy where current key producers of commodities or supply chain nodes might through war and state failure cease to be significant exporters for years on end
Stanimir Dobrev@delfoo.bsky.social · 2d agoThe Russian EXW grain index for class 3 wheat. The graph shows it dropping below the cost of produce at 9 000 rubles or around 107 USD per ton.
A paper just dropped recently on some of the recovered Symes and Becchina frescoes, including some new ones that I I wasn't familiar with! One includes cavalrymen with montefortino helmets, with trident crests and plumes, and one of the shields includes a helmet with a transverse crest!
The courts should block this. If they don't, we should tear it down on the very first day of the next administration. If possible, Trump should be made to watch the demolition. This, the ballroom, whatever he does to the Kennedy Center and all of the rest. Erase it all. Full damnatio memoriae.
Nick Kodama@nickkodama.bsky.social · 2d agolol what
Not only is this not what happened, this shows that Piker is tankie scum and an authoritarian at heart.
Too many of us in the humanities have naturalized the idea that our job is to do bildung for 18-24 year olds and STEM is for serious research.
Comparative and counterfactual analysis are good antidotes to the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
a birb@rhiolit.bsky.social · 4d agoeh, winning the civil war was actually a huge deal and the re-installation of real centralized government authority after decades of war was so huge even if his domestic policy largely sucked, it still lead to a massive increase in life expectancy over the course of his rule
legitimately this is about as good as you can get at explaining why "ir realism" is the fakest doctrine in history, and also wwii
Jack Tindale@jacktindale.bsky.social · 4d agoAbsolutely lost my shit at this co-op mode for Hearts of Iron, which you play as the Army, Navy, Emperor, and Government. All have their own win conditions aside the Government, which lost the game automatically in 1925. docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Related to a previous thread, I think folks understandably but inaccurately end up blurring the concepts of an illegal war on the one hand with wars that are immoral or stupid on the other hand. Many very foolish wars are probably legal under traditional understandings of international law.
i dreamt a dream,@adistantdream.bsky.social · 4d agoCounterpoint - "To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." You start a war, you own the consequences of the war.
Konrad Jarausch passed earlier this month. He was an extraordinary scholar of mod. Germany. I was on many diss. committees with him, and I greatly respected his intellect and his keen insight into helping students progress. UNC is lesser without him. obits.endswellfuneralhome.com/konrad-jarau...
Konrad Hugo Jarausch Obituary Sep 1, 2026 - Endswell
View Konrad Hugo Jarausch's obituary, find service dates, and sign the guestbook.
obits.endswellfuneralhome.com
I'm quoting the conclusion rather than the opening - this is a good thread on the closing literary horizons of a conservative subculture, through the shrinking pool of Harry Potter, Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. There's an irony that Lewis and Tolkien, at least, would scream at them to read more widely!
Joshua Tait@joshuatait.bsky.social · 4d agoSuch an assumption speaks to a deep paranoia that permeates the right, unable to believe in artistic choices, seeing only cultural-political plots. But if either Christianity or the West rests on the film adaptation of a prequel book from a 75-year-old children’s series, we have bigger problems.
Hadnt followed up on this but sweet christ www.reuters.com/business/ene...
Energy disruption hits Bangladesh and Pakistan as Gulf crisis worsens
In Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, Parvin Akter times her cooking to the neighborhood's availability of piped gas. With gas in intermittent supply as a result of a global energy crunch, she now som...
reuters.com
FinTwitter@fintwitter.bsky.social · 5d agoPAKISTAN IN CRISIS MODE: MARKETS TO SHUT BY 9 PM, FUEL USE SLASHED 50%, FOREIGN TRAVEL RESTRICTED
We do not apply this reasoning - that you are responsible when your enemy in a war decides to kill civilians (which is not just some, but most of the deaths totaled here) - to any other war. People have agency and are responsible for their choices, including groups and countries other than the USA.
Prem Thakker ツ@premthakker.bsky.social · 5d agoThe U.S. "War on Terror" death toll is at least 4,500,000