Category General History
I am currently reading The Origins of the First World War (3rd Edition), during a pause in my reading I started thinking about not the origins of WWI but its results. Â To say that the peace of Versailles was flawed… Continue Reading →
Anatomy of the Castle by John Gibson is perhaps the best book describing Castles aimed at the general reader that I have ever read.  The author manages to make the somewhat technical and dry language of describing castles and their construction lovely and entertaining. It… Continue Reading →
The Stasi Museum in Leipzig, Germany.  For those who have never heard of it, the Stasi was the East German Little brother to the Russian NKVD internal security Secret Police.  The Stasi maintained a network of informers within both East and West… Continue Reading →
Little known facts: Today in 1282, the English completed the extinction of the Welsh Royal dynasty when they captured and killed  Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the last independent Prince of Wales.
I have been pondering why modern Westernized man has such a problem successfully waging war for a few days and had a breakthrough recently. Before we can really get to that, a few brief thoughts are in order. First, what… Continue Reading →
Niall Ferguson’s The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, is one of the best economic histories I have read.  It seeks to be a global history of money and does a good job of it.  It is somewhat… Continue Reading →
HOLY WARS: 3000 Years of Battles in the Holy Land is one of the better primers about conflict in the Holy Land to appear within the last few years. It consists of 17 chapters covering the initial Israelite conquest… Continue Reading →
[FULL DISCLOSURE: I received my copy of this book free from the publisher for purposes of reviewing it. I was not paid for this review and the opinion expressed is purely my own] Michael Stephenson’s work The Last Full Measure: How… Continue Reading →
I haven’t touched on anything about antiquity for a while so I thought I would put this up as I have been thinking about this for the last week or two. This is the Marian Legion or the Reforms of… Continue Reading →
Lately I have been somewhat preoccupied thinking about the geostrategic position the US and even the wider Western world find themselves in. Â While I do not believe that the world is on the cusp of some massive catastrophe, it does… Continue Reading →
I recently visited the grave of Richard Wagner behind the Wagner Museum in Bayreuth, Germany and thought I would share the photos I took while there.  The grave itself is not very remarkable and the only way you know it is is his is because there… Continue Reading →
I got my latest copy of the SMH Journal of Military History a few weeks ago and am working my way through the articles. The Journal always provides grist for at least one post, most of the time it… Continue Reading →
[FULL DISCLOSURE: I received my copy of this book free from the publisher. I was not paid for this review and the opinion expressed is purely my own] I am someone who loves the ancients and loves reading the their… Continue Reading →
This book was conceived as being a sort of prequel to the modern classic, Makers of Modern Strategy, edited by Peter Paret and first published in the 70’s and updated in the 90’s. As Dr Hanson states in his foreword… Continue Reading →
Book Review: The Anabasis by Xenophon
I read part of this work in High School over twenty years ago and decided a few weeks ago to finish reading it. Now that I am done, I wonder why I waited so long. The book was written by… Continue Reading →