Today I’m here to share some good news (albeit with more charts than most good news you probably get). It often seems as though the world is… Read more “The Twilight of the Tank”
Category: Essays
Tangled (2010) and the Premodern State’s Monopoly on Force
Debates over private arms ownership may seem like a quintessentially modern issue, but states have struggled with the problem for millennia. The basic question is, how do… Read more “Tangled (2010) and the Premodern State’s Monopoly on Force”
History’s Most Overrated Fortifications
Everybody knows about the Walls of Constantinople, often called the mightiest fortifications of the pre-gunpowder age. Famously, the walls saved the city, and thus the Byzantine Empire,… Read more “History’s Most Overrated Fortifications”
Battleship Doctrine and the Dance of the Dragons
George R. R. Martin’s Dance of the Dragons is an difficult war to understand because dragons are so unlike any other medieval military tool. However, if we… Read more “Battleship Doctrine and the Dance of the Dragons”
GRRM’s Worst World-Building Mistake
This will be my least-read blog post. In George R. R. Martin’s Fire and Blood, a history of the Targaryen dynasty, one little line always stuck out… Read more “GRRM’s Worst World-Building Mistake”
How Good of a Pilot is Darth Vader? Applications of Lanchester’s Laws
Who would win in a fight: five twenty-first century US Marines or fifty doughboys from the First World War? Would you rather face a hundred duck-sized horses… Read more “How Good of a Pilot is Darth Vader? Applications of Lanchester’s Laws “
Mini-Take: Time Travel and Modern Technology
For those of us not content with reading just about real history, the obscure genre of alternate history offers weird and often wildly creative takes on what… Read more “Mini-Take: Time Travel and Modern Technology”
Misremembering the Western Front
This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand… Read more “Misremembering the Western Front”
Just War Theory and the Dance of the Dragons: Part II
Last time, I discussed the morality of the actions taken by the Blacks and the Greens at the outbreak of the Dance of the Dragons, the fictional… Read more “Just War Theory and the Dance of the Dragons: Part II”
Just War Theory and the Dance of the Dragons: Part I
Last year, I wrote an in-depth analysis of how the conflicts of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire relate to the principles of… Read more “Just War Theory and the Dance of the Dragons: Part I”
Tragedy and Farce 