No Useless Mouth

by on October 12, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

This was a difficult book for me. In general, an examination of food sources and consumption in the Revolutionary War era is a good topic. Personally, I found the treatment here not so good.

One problem, of course, is I want far more solid facts to go off of that could ever be available in that era. Another is consistent use of the word “hunger” (n. an uneasy sensation occasioned by the lack of food), used in ways which make me uneasy. Apparently the term has been redefined for the social sciences (“a condition in which a person cannot eat sufficient food to meet basic nutritional needs for a sustained period”), so I’m being something of a fuddy-duddy but that definition is never given in the book, either.

Herrman does define three other useful terms in her introduction however. Food diplomacy is the sharing of food, or lack thereof, in order cement alliances (or at least peace). Victual warfare is the usual scorched earth tactics (by either side), as well as hording or stealing food. And victual imperialism is using laws and institutions (price fixing, land use, food aid…) to transform power relationships (…she doesn’t put it that way, but the book would be better if she did).

I also sometimes wonder about Herrman’s knowledge of some of the era she’s writing about. The biggest trouble was where she points up changing attitudes towards Indian Affairs by the British by comparing two letters, one from Howe, and the other from Germain. From my knowledge of them, I’d say the letters are quite emblematic of the differences in how those two approached everything, not just Indian Affairs, and therefore is more administration change than policy change.

The better part of the book is where she tackles the idea of a ‘long American Revolution’, that is to say, a period centered on it, but in no way confined to it. She starts with the years leading up to the war (common enough in any subject in history), but as Herrman’s looking at how all this affected Native American and Black peoples, not only looks at what happened in the direct aftermath of the Revolution, but also at the Loyalist colony founded in Nova Scotia, and then in Sierra Leone, where a lot of the Black ex-slaves ended up after their power-base collapsed in Nova Scotia.

There’s some important things to look at there, but I think she misses the implications again. There is a nice discussion about whether the violence in 1800 Sierra Leone is better termed a “rebellion” or a “riot” (with some on-the-point mention of riot having more negative connotations today than then). Herrman also mention’s King Tom’s (Pa Kokelly) apparent overtures to both sides, and never seems to realize he was quite likely just waiting to see who came out on top before committing himself to anything.

I just can’t recommend this, despite some good pieces, as there’s just too many missed opportunities here.

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Dreamhearth

by on October 4, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

It’s been a while since I read the initial Mindtouch/Mindline duology, but I had no problems getting back into this. I think the fact that it is a fairly unique story (on the dream-therapy end) well-done helped keep it fairly solid in my mind.

At any rate, we now tackle a new phase of Jahir and Vasiht’h’s lives: going into practice. They have graduated, have licenses… and now just need somewhere to stay, and set out their shingle. The interesting part is this is both handled, and left unresolved at the start of the book. The tension of this unresolved beginning is the driver of the main conflict of the story, as Vasiht’h struggles with an uncertain future, and a breed of impostor syndrome.

In fact, while we do get a fair amount of time from Jahir’s viewpoint, and he does have his own struggles, plot-wise the scales come down firmly on Vasiht’h’s side. An amusing side-bit that carries through the book is a stunningly awful novel that he reads during the course of the book. Better yet, it’s basically a pastiche/parody of Hogarth’s own teenage writing (her notes on the story at the end are not to be missed).

Overall, it’s a fairly light book (by page count, it’s not as long as either of the first two books, and the main story isn’t even the full book). The plot is decidedly on the slice-of-life side of things, with plenty of getting to know a new location. And that is one of the main attractions of the book (along with a pair of main characters who are well worth getting to know), as the community on Veta station is explored, and well depicted. The back of the book is a few miscellaneous things, mostly a set of ‘case notes’ from their next few years in practice. These are all short, a bit fragmentary, and hugely entertaining.

I don’t think this is as strong as the original duology, so if you haven’t read them, go do so. This is a sequel, and is a bit reliant on the others so I don’t recommend starting here if it can be helped. That said, it’s still a great place to end up.

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Medieval Scandinavian Armies (1) 1100-1300

by on September 26, 2021 at 12:00 pm
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Osprey’s various medieval armies Men-At-Arms books are generally solid, and this one does not disappoint. It’s not spectacular, either.

The main thrust of the text is that Scandinavia lagged behind West European fashion/technology. Denmark of course, had lots of influence from Germany, and I didn’t get any solid sense of just how tightly coupled they were or weren’t (the subject is brought up, there’s just no solid conclusion). Sweden and Norway on the other hand, were more isolated, and generally adopted parts of European equipment well after all the cool kingdoms were doing it.

Part of the trouble is pointed up in the introduction, which points out that the post-viking period has gotten a lot less archaeological attention than the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, so evidence is relatively scarce. In fact, while there’s the usual bevy of good black-and-white photographs, there’s relatively few of actual artifacts, with plenty of photos of period carvings, embroideries, etc., instead. There are a few actual pieces photographed, and they appear across five pages.

An all-too-short section mentions that knightly tournaments made their way to Norway, and apparently the rest of Scandinavia in the mid-1200s (or earlier), and proper European heraldry made its way there in the same period. I would have appreciated seeing a couple example coats-of-arms, but none are given.

The strategy and tactics section has some interest, as it describes warfare as dominated by difficult terrain and few roads, so much of campaigning devolved upon seizing good blocking positions that could be easily defended. Stone castles end up as relatively rare, but there are some examples, and the last few pages go into them.

As ever, the late, great, Angus McBride illos are well done, though they’re “typical” group shots, without any of the more ambitious pieces that have sometimes shown up. Which is a fair summary of the book, as it serves as a decent introduction without turning up anything really special.

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The Etruscans

by on September 18, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

This is my second book of “The Peoples of Europe” series, and I was surprised to find it was brand new. Turns out it was done via print-on-demand at the time of purchase, but is otherwise the 2004 printing (including all the information after the title page; the POD info is at the very back). Print on demand is a great way to keep books like this available, especially as there’s no ebook version. I assume that they have basically electronic ‘plates’ for the book, but no one to do formatting for ebook. The sad part is seeing the seven “in preparation” titles in the series listing that obviously are never going to happen since they still don’t exist after seventeen years, and Blackwell was bought by John Wiley & Sons, whose website seems to talk about anything other than their books.

The two authors of this volume seem to be past collaborators, and active in Etuscan field studies. The first (of 3-4) time there was a “when we did [blah]” was a bit startling. A wide range of papers and publications are referenced throughout the book, a few are by the authors, singly or together, but the number is low enough that I assume they were very conscious of the appearance of just citing themselves. It also shows a fairly wide ranging representation of the scholarship. As a people who basically ceased to be as the Romans took over Italy, we don’t have much direct knowledge, and surprisingly little written knowledge of the Etruscans, so this book is mostly engaged with laying out the archaeological record. My understanding is that there have continued to be great progress in this over the last two decades, so this is a book that could very usefully use a second edition.

Like with most ancient subjects relying on archaeology, there’s a lot of very careful supposition going on, and the book does a good job laying that out. Something that comes up early is that Etruscan is one of three known separate non-Indo-European languages in Europe (and the only dead one; the other two are Basque and the Finnic family) that didn’t arrive in historical times (like Hungarian, Turkic, etc.). Unlike in The Basques, the authors here generally brush aside any thoughts on figuring out how that came to be, but assume the settlement records indicate that, well, it was here as far back as we’re going to know. Interestingly, the language is pretty well figured out given the lack of, say, literary works that were done in it. It would seem that the Latin alphabet came from Greece through the Etruscans, and there is a nice full page chart of the variations in the Etruscan writing system. Also of interest is that ancient writers also commented on the fact that the language was notably different from the others around it.

In addition to copious footnotes, there’s an extensive bibliography, a summary of “selected reading”, and a 30+ page appendix guide to where to find Etruscan ruins and museums. Much of the main book is generally technical in direction, but the authors’ enthusiasm for the subject does come through, and helps a bit there. So, it’s a very good introductory guide, that packs as much material into the book as it can. Finally, I also need to point out that it’s nearly as well illustrated as your typical Osprey book (minus the color plates), with photographs and archaeological plans, though many of the photographs seemed extra-grainy to me; that might be an effect of the print-on-demand process.

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Belisarius: The Last Roman General

by on September 2, 2021 at 12:00 pm
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This is a slightly earlier book than Hughes’ works on the end of the Western Empire. Unfortunately, the main way this shows is that the Kindle edition has problems. This seems to be an OCR translation to ebook as there’s a number of repeating errors. The normal text seems to be in very good shape, but any time the text goes to italics it falls apart. Since there’s a lot of italicized Latin terms, this is a real problem (13 instances of bucellam compared with 7 for the correct bucellarii…). Interestingly, the italics are all present and correct, so it’s either fairly advanced OCR, or someone did go through it pretty well (I’m betting the latter), but doesn’t know the late Latin military terminology, and didn’t know better. On the other hand there’s occasional gaffes such as “twenty stades, approximately 2V3 miles,” so maybe not (I believe that should be “2 1/3″… but I don’t have a hard copy to check).

As for the actual contents of the book, its pretty good. I do think the later Western Empire ones a bit better, and certainly more valuable as going into subjects that are really short on focused attention. He describes the problems with sources well early on. The third chapter goes into the current organization and equipment of the Roman/Byzantine army of the Sixth Century AD, which is certainly handy for readers expecting old-fashioned legions, and lets him discuss how some of these units were being used. However, the equipment part is basically an Osprey book without the illustrations and photographs (there are some in a separate section, at the end for the Kindle version), and feels a bit summarized even from that.

The main part of the book starts with Belisarius’ campaigning in Persia, which is a bit muddy. The battles are described well enough, but there’s doubts as to whether he was in command at some of them, or just a subordinate, which makes it harder to draw conclusions. And then we get the preparations to go west, and a good description of the actions in Africa, and of course the campaign for Italy. The highlight of that is the primary (first) siege of Rome, which always seems glossed over in the other (limited) accounts I’ve seen. And then there’s a campaign in Persia, back to Italy, and apparent retirement.

Hughes does seem to draw unwarranted conclusions (something I’ve noted elsewhere), but is mostly on reasonable ground. There’s also a postmortem on Belisarius’ and his opponents’ generalship at the end of each chapter which is a mix of unhelpful and interesting points. I’d say his later books are a definite step up from this one, and this is still a useful introduction to Belisarius’ career.

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