When Wal­ter Scott pub­lished the first of his nov­els, Waver­ley, in 1814, he was already well-known as a poet. The book was so spec­tac­u­lar­ly suc­cess­ful that it launched him on a career as a nov­el­ist known in every cor­ner of the world. His influ­ence in 19th Cen­tu­ry Cana­da, for instance, was such that nobody with pre­ten­tion to edu­ca­tion was with­out a set of “Waver­ley nov­els”. When I worked on var­i­ous Ontario farms, I often saw them in Vic­to­ri­an-era farm­hous­es. I found a com­plete set in a barn, for which I nego­ti­at­ed pay­ment in hay bal­ing. That set (gor­geous­ly bound) is long gone, but now I have anoth­er, acquired in a small Ontario town. Many of the scenes and char­ac­ters of Scot­t’s nov­els are pre­served in Toron­to street names. Any­one famil­iar with Cana­di­an his­to­ry knows that in the 19th Cen­tu­ry, its lit­er­ary icons were, in descend­ing order of impor­tance: the Bible, Rob­by Burns*, Shake­speare, Scott, and Dick­ens. Read more »

19235. (James Boswell) Boswell’s Lon­don Jour­nal, 1762–1763 [ed. F. A. Pottle]
19236. (Eric Lin­klater) White-Maa’s Saga
19237. [2] (Charles Dar­win) The Ori­gin of Species by Means of Nat­ur­al Selection
19238. (Steve King­stone) How Pres­i­dent Lula Changed Brazil [arti­cle]
19239. (Isaac White) Review of Scott Pil­grim vs. the World [film review]
19240. (Thomas Bur­nett Swann) The Minikins of Yam
Read more »

19035. (Jean-Pierre Changeux) The Phys­i­ol­o­gy of Truth: Neu­ro­science and Human Knowledge
19036. (Jan Hard­ing) Henge Mon­u­ments of the Scot­tish Isles
19037. (Kevin J. Edwards) Peo­ple, Envi­ron­men­tal Impacts, and the Chang­ing Land­scapes of
. . . . . Neolith­ic and Bronze Age Times [arti­cle]
Read more »

18957. (Ronald Fir­bank) Con­cern­ing the Eccen­tric­i­ties of Car­di­nal Pirelli
18958. (Ver­non L. Scar­bor­ough) The Flow of Pow­er ― Ancient Water Sys­tems and 
. . . . . Landscapes
18959. (Jason Peters) [in blog Front Porch Repub­lic] Beer. It’s What’s For Din­ner [arti­cle] Read more »

This is a straight­for­ward his­to­ry, large­ly mil­i­tary and admin­is­tra­tive in ori­en­ta­tion, of two cities, Palmyra and Dura Euro­pus, which act­ed as buffer states and trad­ing cen­ters between the Roman and Parthi­an empires. Both flour­ished in the sec­ond and third cen­turies A.D., grow­ing wealthy on trade between the Mediter­ranean and the Per­sian Gulf. The Palmyrenes main­tained a crack army of archers, who spe­cial­ized in pro­tect­ing car­a­vans. The safe­ty they pro­vid­ed made their city extreme­ly wealthy. What inter­ests me is that Palmyra had a ful­ly oper­a­tional boule and demos on the clas­si­cal Greek mod­el. Read more »

18882. (Kei­th Laumer) Worlds of the Imperium
18883. (Elliot Aron­son with Joshua Aron­son) The Social Ani­mal [10th edition]
18884. (O. Neuge­bauer) The Exact Sci­ences in Antiquity
18885. (Bruce Cronin) Com­mu­ni­ty Under Anar­chy: Transna­tion­al Iden­ti­ty and the Evolution
. . . . . of Cooperation
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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 »