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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNPtN01eyvc
Currently reading Adrian Goldsworthy’s The Fall of Carthage: The Punic Wars 265-146BC. I read his How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower years ago, so no surprises. He’s a military historian, so battles, down to the alignment of maniples and details of logistics, operate in the foreground. Not normally my cup of tea, but a nice change up from the focus on social history which seems to be more common today in these sorts of treatments. I also have some Anthony Evrett biographies on deck, but I think I’ll probably hit Ian Morris’ War! What Is It Good For?: Conflict and the Progress of Civilization from Primates to Robots first. It’s the sort of “big history” which is a better complement to the sort of narrative history that Goldsworthy seems adept at writing.
One thing about The Fall of Carthage (and to some extent the author’s works more generally) that I like is that it dispels some of the preconceptions we have about pre-modern hand to hand conflict. In particular, a lot of our mental image is what Goldsworthy would term “cinematic.” The reality is that a lot of the pitched battles were very tentative, and full action probably occurred for less than 15 minutes, even if extended hostilities could go on for as long as hours.
Update: I don’t link to other blogs much, partly because I don’t have much time to read them with my other obligations, but Pseudoerasmus runs a shop with very high intellectual quality. Recommended. In a similar vein, Scholars Gate.
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Kennewick Man was a Native American.
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2025488002_kennewickdnaxml.html
Not very surprising.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140514-how-extreme-isolation-warps-minds
i noticed this somewhat older article about what isolation does to our mind. i thought it was interesting that our minds might not “make sense” without other brains to give us a consistent reference point. kind of like relativity for brains, i guess.
Looking forwards to the review of Ian Morris’ new book.
The chapter I found most intriguing in Measure of Civilization was his attempt to quantify “West” vs. “East” military power throughout history. Would be curious to know if he continued and expanded on this quantitative approach, or settled for a more traditional narrative/analytical historical account.
I’ve been fond of Ian Morris ever since reading Why the West Rules–For Now; he has an easy writing style and gives a good intro to Chinese history for the uninitiated in that book. In addition, like Anatoly Karlin above, I was really fascinated by his attempt to link historical trends to levels of energy capture, shaky though it may be. While Morris can adhere to convention in areas outside his expertise (I skipped the “singularity” section at the end of Why the West Rules, for example), I have enjoyed all his books and am always interested in reading his latest ones.
Speaking of which, Ian Morris is coming out with a new book in a couple of months, called Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels: How Human Values Evolve, in which he uses his ideas about energy capture to shed light on moral systems through history: http://www.amazon.com/Foragers-Farmers-Fossil-Fuels-University/dp/0691160392/ Sounds interesting!
Anatoly Karlin: As the above book shows, Morris is still interested in using an analytic approach (though lately he’s been focused on religion and morality), but there’s very little of it in War! What is it Good For?, probably because he looks beyond the West and East Asia in that book. He talks a lot more about Native Americans and India in it, and I don’t think he’s ever come out with quantification statistics for those societies. The book is similar in some ways to The Better Angels of Our Nature and War in Human Civilization (which Morris acknowledges at the beginning). If you have already read those books, you won’t find too much that is new, although Morris actually discusses ant and chimpanzee group conflict (something I found to be strangely lacking in Azar Gat’s book, which was so thorough about so much else).
Ian Morris also recently coauthored a paper about the origins of Axial Age religions: http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822%2814%2901372-4 (gated). Peter Turchin critiqued it here: http://socialevolutionforum.com/2014/12/14/does-affluence-lead-to-asceticism-part-i/ and here: http://socialevolutionforum.com/2014/12/16/does-affluence-lead-to-asceticism-part-ii/
All of these links come from Pseudoerasmus’ great link round-up: http://pseudoerasmus.com/2015/01/15/link-dump-15jan15/
One of the things about hand to hand fighting is how exhausting it is. I imagine they’d need to keep taking breaks to get their breath back. Although I’m not sure if it’s the physical exercise that is so exhausting or something to do with adrenaline comedown.
One of the things about hand to hand fighting is how exhausting it is
yep. that was emphasized. the physical and psychological exhaustion was intense. the shield was at least 20 lbs i think.
My favorite combat scene involving romans it’s at the beginning of HBO Rome especially because it’s not cinematic.
http://youtu.be/yrQpjToEgxk?t=1m4s
The post below about the drosophila brought back memories of teaching 4th grade during the 1980’s and 90’s. Every summer I would catch wild fruit flies in my kitchen so my students could culture a bottle of flies to keep on their desks and observe. Each kid started with about a half dozen. The project was over when the food was gone (dyed blue) and the flies were all dead. It sometimes lasted several months. Some kids were very intrigued and their curiosity was aroused (not many). Some were grossed out (quite a few) and some indifferent. The janitors hated it. I doubt if this project resulted in any advancement in the body of genetics knowledge. I just hope someone remembers that they did it.