18806. (Steven Muhlberg­er) Deeds of Arms ― For­mal Com­bats in the Late Four­teenth Century
18807. (Richard A. Schwed­er, Man­amo­han Maha­p­a­tra, & Joan G. Miller) Cul­ture and Moral
. . . . . Devel­op­ment [arti­cle]
18808. (John Lewis Gad­dis) The Land­scape of His­to­ry ― How His­to­ri­ans Map the Past Read more »

Steve has out­done him­self with this parvum opus. It’s an exem­plary work of focused his­to­ry, with every­thing there in the right quan­ti­ties and pro­por­tions. Medieval west­ern Europe was a mil­i­tary soci­ety in which tour­na­ments — group or sin­gle com­bat done by rules and for the dis­play of prowess — had a pro­found sig­nif­i­cance, affect­ing far more than their imme­di­ate par­tic­i­pants. Suc­cess in deeds of arms could bring more than mere celebri­ty. In a soci­ety where aris­toc­ra­cy jus­ti­fied itself pri­mar­i­ly by courage in bat­tle, it was the key to upward mobil­i­ty and pow­er. Learn­ing how this kind of com­bat nul­lo inter­ve­niente odio (with­out ran­cor) was done and cel­e­brat­ed gives us insight into how medieval soci­ety worked. The Mid­dle Ages, espe­cial­ly its upper reach­es of pow­er, smelled of blood, sweat, dung and hors­es. This book is a fine anti­dote to those that retro­fit the era with a kind of abstract geopo­lit­i­cal aura, some­thing like an EU Barosso Comis­sion report deliv­ered by board mem­bers unac­count­ably wear­ing hose and plate armor. Those who have only a pass­ing inter­est in chival­ry or deeds of arms will find this book refresh­ing­ly com­pact, clear and infor­ma­tive. Those with a deep­er inter­est will not find it want­i­ng in depth of schol­ar­ship and understanding.

18771. [2] (Mark Twain) Tom Sawyer
18772. (Osbert Sitwell) Intro­duc­tion to Five Nov­els by Ronald Firbank
18773. (Fran­cis Grose) Ordi­nances of Richard II from Mil­i­tary antiq­ui­ties [tr. Will McLean] Read more »

18696. (Steven Muhlberg­er) Jousts and Tour­na­ments ― Charny and the Rules for Chivalric 
. . . . . Sport in Four­teenth-Cen­tu­ry France
18697. (Geof­froi de Charny) Demands pour la joute, le tournoi, et la guerre [man­u­scripts
. . . . . edit­ed by Michael Antho­ny Tay­lor, tr. Steven Muhlberger]
18698. (C. William Har­ri­son) Call­ing Dr. Death [sto­ry] Read more »

18696. (Steven Muhlberg­er) Jousts and Tour­na­ments ― Charny and the Rules for Chival­ric Sport in Four­teenth-Cen­tu­ry France

18697. (Geof­froi de Charny) Demands pour la joute, le tournoi, et la guerre [man­u­scripts edit­ed by Michael Antho­ny Tay­lor, tr. Steven Muhlberger]

Rather than bug Steve for a copy, I put myself on a library wait­ing list for his study of the rules of jousts and tour­na­ments of the Mid­dle Ages. I was on the list for over a year, before it turned up, which shows that there is a sig­nif­i­cant audi­ence for what appears, at first, to be an obscure top­ic. But I can see why, as the sub­ject is dealt with in a log­i­cal, order­ly fash­ion, and in his usu­al fine prose style. I par­tic­u­lar­ly enjoyed the chap­ter in which he draws on his knowl­edge of the mod­ern horse­man­ship scene to help imag­ine what the spot­ty his­tor­i­cal record does not tell us. The orig­i­nal text of Geof­froi de Charny’s “Ques­tions” in Mid­dle French is includ­ed, with a trans­la­tion by Steve.

18642. (P. F. de Moraes Farias) Ara­bic Medieval Inscrip­tions from the Repub­lic of Mali: Epigraphy, 
. . . . . Chron­i­cles, and Song­hai-Tuāreg History
18643. (Jacques Hurei­ki) Essai sur les orig­ines des Touaregs ― her­méneu­tique cul­turelle des 
. . . . . Touaregs de la région de Tombouctou 
18644. (Antho­ny Bour­dain) Kitchen Con­fi­den­tial Read more »

William Tenn was one of Sci­ence Fic­tion’s sharpest satirists in the fifties and six­ties. His short sto­ries bit like black­flies. Of Men and Mon­sters was one of his only two nov­els, and it was expand­ed from a short sto­ry. It shows it, as the core sto­ry is still vis­i­ble, and the end shows a dis­tinct falling off in qual­i­ty, with the satire dis­ap­pear­ing so that there can be a con­ven­tion­al, plot-dri­ven res­o­lu­tion. But nev­er mind that. SF writ­ers in that peri­od had no social pres­tige, and very mod­est incomes; it was stan­dard prac­tice to inflate any suc­cess­ful short sto­ry into a “nov­el” that might pay the rent. But Ten­n’s tal­ent lay in beau­ti­ful, self-con­tained minia­tures that did not lend them­selves to expan­sion. Read more »