Inventing the Renaissance

by on May 9, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Ada Palmer’s title doesn’t cover everything that’s in this book. In fact, what the book covers is probably too large for any one title, and it is to her credit that it isn’t too large for any one book.

First note: this book is written in a very atypical tone. Instead of just laying things out, describing events, sources, relationships, with a third-person voice that minimizes the author, Palmer takes a very personal, first person voice here. This annoyed me at first, but does allow some very useful bits. Notably, she talks about the work of history, and how theories are established and rejected over time. You know, just like in ‘hard’ science. Also, she talks about her own experiences in academia; a notable early bit is about going to a symposium and noting the different populations in different panels. This also leads into a discussion of how the questions we start with determine a lot of the research and writing done, and how gender segregated various parts have been (though it is getting better).

She also leverages the first person to make all sorts of current “meme” comparisons, which may end up “dating” this book well before its time. But, she also works in an apt comparisons, like the boardgame Siena which she rates as the best Renaissance-themed game she knows of for its depiction of Fourteenth Century social climbing. I’m afraid I’ve not played it, but I know I’ve heard the name before, and it sounds like the goals are properly aligned with the history it wants to show.

This is after some early admonitions to not trust the author, at least not too much. Palmer is very up front about the fact that there will be other books on the same shelf as hers that have different conclusions, and the bulk of them will be just as valid as hers. This was a nice early bit of expectation management, and does get a lot of follow up, for the first half of the book at least, about the different answers that can be found on a number of subjects or people.

This flows back into the talk of theories, namely, “just what is the Renaissance?” There’s some time spent with various definitions in the middle and just how they aren’t satisfying for various reasons. However, there’s the seed of an answer all along: the Renaissance was a self-conscious attempt to create a golden age. A lot of our current thoughts actually go back good advertising that started at that time. And the eventual definitions late in the book do relate to that bit of propaganda and its goals.

The longest part of the book is a series of fifteen mini-biographies (some famous, some quite obscure) that all intersect and deal with Florence. The latter is almost an odd choice, as she’s already shown that the association of the Renaissance with Florence is more self-fulfilling prophecy than actuality; but there’s a reason why it happened in the first place. But the real point is to move back and forth over a few decades, coming at some of the same events from different angles. I don’t think this works out as well as hoped, and it is decidedly the densest part of the book.

It’s not bad, mind you, just not as good as the rest.

Then we get into some of the current (or close to) historical thought on the Renaissance, and current definitions. This leads us back to exclusions, and figuring it out by what did it turn into and how. Eleventh Century philosopher Peter Abelard shows up early, and then becomes a recurrent figure here; so much so that his presence is verbed for the last parts of the book. Not only was the Renaissance a self-proclaimed effort to create a golden age, but the major (intellectual) project was to find forgotten and mistranslated wisdom from prior ages and integrate it all into one syncretic world view that would naturally solve the world’s ills. What could go wrong?

Well, it didn’t work, for one. The advice the umanisti gave didn’t help, the better known the ancient writers became, the more evident their contradictions became, and the more obvious their lacks in the face of all the new things coming from across the Atlantic became. From there we get a whirlwind tour of philosophical thought that could become a new Connections miniseries.

The book largely ends with a discussion her own classroom exercise dealing with the crisis year (in Italy) of 1492. It’s the type of thing that more classes really should have, as a practical demonstration that, among other things, people haven’t changed that much. The various members of the class all have roles of people around the papal election that year, and it’s aftermath, the First Italian War. There’s plenty of room for things to be different, but the pressures are such that someone invades Italy in the aftermath. Further philosophical discussion brings all of this to a relation with current events.

It’s an amazingly wide-ranging book. Just looking at the table of contents (“19. Rome: The Eternal Problem City”) will give you some idea of the ride you’re in for. And it leverages being unusual to very good effect.

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Thirteen (Plus) Histories

by on May 5, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

I’ve read a good number of history books over the years, and I thought I’d take the time to list my recommendations of some of the best of the best I’ve come across, with links to my fuller reviews. I mostly look at military history, so there’s a decided weight here, and not being in academic circles, these are mostly ‘general reader’ books, but there’s plenty of very good ‘period pieces’, and some very good more detailed studies.

Song of Wrath by J.E. Lendon — This is a good look at the first of the four “Peloponnesian Wars”, trying to reconstruct the societal meaning around it all. It’s impossible to say he’s right, but it’s still a worthy theory.

Empires and Barbarians by Peter Heather — This one of my favorites even on this list. Peter Heather takes a look at the “Age of Migrations” using modern migration studies to inform his view. It’s also something of a sequel to his The Fall of the Roman Empire, which I’ve yet to read, and I have Rome Resurgent on my ‘to read’ list, though I wasn’t nearly as happy with The Restoration of Rome, it is still worth a look.

Shadow of the Sword by Tom Holland — Another of my favorite of favorites. Holland does an excellent job with the start of Islam, and has enough to say that he circles around the subject a few times, easing you into the view he gives of events. His Persian Fire isn’t this good, but is well worth reading too.

The Norman Conquest by Mark Morris — Morris presents nearly a century of history to show just various factions came to be pushing the English throne in different directions in 1066. It continues through Domesday, but the value is all the background given. His later The Anglo-Saxons is also recommended, though part of it is covered here, and I think better done in this version.

The Hundred Years War by Johnathan Sumption — Be ready before starting this, because we’re talking nearly 3,600 pages of text on the Hundred Years War (not including indexes, notes, bibliographies, etc). However, it is very much worth it, and a clear, detailed, look at a subject that you often just get a couple “exciting” corners of. His earlier book on The Albegensian Crusade is also good, but this is the main event.

Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer — I’m actually still in the ending sections of this book. It’s very unusual, with a very personal tone as Palmer talks to us about various subjects. It was a little off-putting at first, but she uses this change up well, as she guides us through the historiography of the Renaissance and her own experiences with research and symposiums. It’s worth it for the latter, and that’s still the least of what it’s got to say.

Empires of the Sea by Roger Crowley — A well written and paced account of the sieges of Rhodes, and Malta, and the battle of Lepanto, showing warfare in the sixteenth-century Mediterranean. Crowley is an engaging writer, and is always worth reading, and I especially recommend City of Fortune. Ernle Bradford’s The Great Siege is also good for Malta, but most of it is in here already.

A Dragon’s Head and a Serpent’s Tail by Kenneth M. Swope — You don’t get to hear much of the 1592 Japanese invasion of Korea, and Swope has a good book looking at it from the Chinese point of view. There’s a sequel, but it’s locked behind scholarly low-volume high prices so I haven’t read it yet.

Crucible of War by Fred Anderson — This is a surprisingly wide-ranging book on the French and Indian War. Even if you think you know enough, there’s plenty in here, and its all well put together.

A Country of Vast Designs by Robert W. Merry — The Mexican-American War is under-discussed, and this book is really more about Polk’s political career. So, you see how it ties into Oregon and his tariffs, but the war is seen distantly. A Wicked War takes a (deservedly) much more negative view of events (Vast Designs is too close to Polk for proper perspective), but has problems. The Training Ground has good views of the combat, but I spotted some big errors, and worry about what I didn’t spot, and only Vast Designs even begins to have any Mexican viewpoint in it.

Centennial History of the ACW by Bruce Catton — Catton is one of the best writers the American Civil War has had, and I recommend any of his books, but the Centennial Trilogy of The Coming Fury, Terrible Swift Sword, and Never Call Retreat are overall his best. (My absolute favorite passage is the final chapter of Glory Road.)

Dreadnought by Robert Massie — A massive book covering about sixty years of European political history. The main thesis is that in around 1850 Britain and the Germanies were fairly close. In 1914, Britain and unified Germany went to war. Massie does an amazing job navigating the personalities and events that lead to the collision. All his books are very good, but this is by far his best.

Playing at the World by Jon Peterson — There’s now an expanded two-book set, but I’ve just read the original massive tome. Pop culture is somewhat ignored in more academic circles, leaving it to write its own histories. Peterson has applied a lot of rigor and detective work to a history of the start of RPGs, and spends time to go into some theoretical thoughts why the first was inevitably a fantasy RPG, and background on the history of wargaming. He’s gone on to a couple of other books around the same subject since, but I haven’t gotten to them yet. Shannon Applecline’s Designers & Dragons is also a good overall history of RPGs, and worth finding their own details in.

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Pylos and Sphacteria 425 BC

by on May 1, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Thucydides’ classic account of the Peloponnesian War(s) hits one of its dramatic moments (of many) with the siege of Sphacteria. It gets a lot of attention in his history, and William Shepherd spends a lot of time quoting it in this book.

But, there is much more here. First of all, he takes time on occasion to get into the weeds of translation, giving the original Ancient Greek term, and its fuller definition so that we have much better context for that passage. This is in addition to good old fashioned expanding on the text and trying to get at some of the things Thucydides glosses over.

First, we get a fifteen-page background to the actual campaign, which is then followed by the Campaign formula of looks at the armies, leaders, and plans (another fourteen pages). This starts feeling a little excessive in a 96-page book, but does mean it stands alone, and you don’t already need any grounding in the period to understand; it is all laid out for you, and it is well written and presented.

As always, there are maps, starting with one showing the theater of the wars and major battles in the lead up to this campaign, and then one focused on the Peloponnese for the last few years. Then the campaigning along the eastern Adriatic, and finally one of the focus of the book: Pylos, the harbor there, and the island of Sphacteria. This last is essential, and what you will have the most trouble finding elsewhere. There’s then two even more focused maps, one of the main naval battle, and showing the locations of fortifications during the siege (this one feels primitive compared to the others), and then one isometric “showpiece” map for the final battle on Sphacteria.

In addition to the maps, you get all the usual Osprey visual reference. Much, especially at the start is the usual pictures illustrating arms and armor, including some full color pictures of Olympias, the Hellenic Navy’s reconstructed trireme. The real value is in a large number of photos of the area, particularly of Sphacteria, taken by the author. It has to be treated with some caution, as the landscape, and especially the shores have changed a lot in nearly 2500 years, but generally it seems things haven’t changed a lot, and it really helps to get a sense of what the Athenians and Spartans were dealing with.

The part that always gets me is that the Athenians sail around to aid Corcyra, leaving a contingent at a corner of Pylos. The Spartans notice and attack, and are beaten off, and then the Athenian navy returns, and takes control of the waters around Pylos. And suddenly there’s this Spartan force trapped on Sphacteria. The rest of this has been on the mainland, but now we have Spartans on a just-offshore island.

The blink-and-you-miss-it moment is that the Spartans decided they needed to occupy Sphacteria, for a number of good reasons: The channel between it and the Athenian camp on Pylos is very narrow, so it might control access to the Spartan camp and the fleet drawn up in the harbor. If the Athenians were driven away from the fresh water on the mainland, there was a spring on Sphacteria. And it’s a good lookout point.

But the Athenian fleet largely goes south around the island into the harbor and defeats the Spartans, and suddenly this force is cut off. It’s too big to feed easily, even sneaking supplies over at night. Too big to pull off the island. And too big for the Athenians to easily defeat on land.

So we get negotiations; no one wants to let go of an advantage once gained, so that goes nowhere. Reinforcements get sent, and the Athenians finally assault the Spartan camp. Shepherd shows this wasn’t easy either, and the battle was only won by a combination of good tactics (using light troops to harass the enemy, keep him off balance, and unable to get any telling blows in), and getting another force up a cliff side unexpectedly. The Spartans had a good reputation at the time as well as today, and the only thing more surprising to the Greek world than the Athenians defeating them on land, was the Spartans surrendering.

Shepherd does a very good job with all of this, showing how the campaign fits into other events, and demonstrating just how all the events worked. There’s the usual studied look at possible numbers and basic logistics, though it is impossible to go into any detail here.

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Muddy Volturno

by on April 27, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

After trying out Chitin I, Mark and I decided to get back to the ZOC-bond system and do the short scenario for Italy ’43, “Crossing the Volturno”. This is a seven turn scenario (compared to the 32-turn full game), and effectively only uses about the bottom third of the map. It also leaves out the fortification building important in the main game.

I got the Germans, who aren’t doing too badly at the start of the game. Both sides have somewhat thin line as fighting moves onto the map. The main thing is the Allies have already taken Naples, and the 82nd Airborne is stuck garrisoning it until one regiment with released on turn 11, and the other two are removed on turn 19.

I moved to interdict the roads out of Naples, and reshuffled in the plains to make a 3:1 attack on the British armor starting in 2224, getting a DR2. The bulk of the British 46th division arrives in the second half of the turn, and moved up to hold the line near Naples while 56th Division attacked just past the line of the canal, only getting an AR1. The Americans attacked south of the pass in the center, and got an A1/D1, which forced me north of the pass.

The second turn’s weather was rain and mud; the German “reinforcements” for the turn are a pair of battalions of the 3rd Panzergrenadier Division are released from a mid-map position, and went to help hold the area north of Naples. I didn’t do more than rearrange things a little. Meanwhile the Allies get their divisional artillery, and the bulk of the American 45th Infantry (one regiment starts on map). A regiment of the 3rd crossed over a mountain ridge to get around the pass I was holding, and got an A1/D1 against a recon unit holding the flank of the nearby valley.

The turn 3 weather roll went forward two columns, going to “B”. Clear weather with good Allied supply and support, but the next storm front was moving in fast. The Germans get a motorized regiment from the 3rd PG, but also remove two battalions, which hollowed out the center of the line a bit. Still, the terrain is good, and I took a replacement in there, letting me keep a line on the river west of Benevento, hoping the mountains would keep too much else from happening. The Allies get their corps artillery, and started driving north in more earnest; another hop across a ridge (we were using the 1/2 effectiveness rules, being used to them from earlier games) put the Americans in the rear of my east line, which suffered a DR2. In Benevento, the 34th Infantry tried to take Benevento, but only got part of it in a “partial” determined defense. The British got an exchange while trying to cross the canal in their sector, and the 82nd Airborne drove my blocking unit away from Naples with naval support (they can’t move out, but they can attack).

The weather held clear for turn 4, evening out the earlier skip. The Germans withdraw a recon unit—the one that is holding Benevento at the start of the game, and had just held on to it here. However, I had no ability to move a new unit in, and was busy trying to pull the 26 Pz out, with their recon circling around to hold a road junction on the east flank, while the motorized regiment from last turn moved to cover the center. The bulk of the American 34th Infantry Division arrives (most of a regiment of it is on map at start, with a final battalion of that arriving on turn 2), and took Benevento. The main American push was NW out of the central valley for an EX, and the British finally got over the canal with a DR2, and got an A1/D1 just north of Naples.

Turn 5 saw the weather advance two columns to cloudy “D”, grounding US air support. The Germans get a motorized battalion from the 3rd PG, which I forgot to move after concentrating on the south. With the initial lines broken, I had real problems, pulling back on the plains for a loose line, and down the Calore in the east. The 26’s recon had to go back to block the central pass, while the motorized regiment went west to help cover a couple units that couldn’t get very far with all the British in the way. Herman Goring did a counterattack to get two units loose after the British advances, and a A1/D1 got them safely behind the middle canal. The British get a brigade of the 56th Infantry Division in Naples, and the British pushed me off the west part of the plains with a DR2 and DR4. The Americans were stopped in the central pass with an A1 against my recon unit, but forced the east flank with an A1/D1.

The clouds continued on turn 6, keeping US air support grounded. It was time to largely pull back behind the Volturno, though I stayed south on the hills. The Allied advance nearly overwhelmed my line, and would have with better weather and slightly better luck. The British got a DS against my independent motorized battalion holding Capua, with a breakthrough across the Volturno getting an A1/DR2. I had to do a determined defense in the open, with only elite units and artillery as an advantage, and held the hex on a very good roll. Over in the hills, a DR2 took out my position in front of the next bridge, and breakthrough put the nebelwerfer unit into full retreat. All of this left the motorized regiment trapped south of the Volturno with no bridge access. The Americans got an A1/D1 near Limatola, but couldn’t advance over the bridge, and an attempt to clear that got an A1. The east flank got an A1/D1 to continue moving up the Calore.

Afterword

Turn 7 weather advanced two columns to be rain and mud. This pretty much halted the Allied advance for the last turn, as all the artillery supply had already been shot off, and the -1 column (and German artillery) kept there from being any good attacks. A series of ‘1’ die rolls only sealed the deal.

Now, I wasn’t in a great situation, as on turn 7 the entire 26th Pz Division pulls out, though some of them were in dire straights already. I did get a motorized battalion and the 3rd PG divisional artillery, which helped hold the inland side of things.

Mark had only gotten four victory points (Benevento, Caserta, Amorosi, and the inland bridge over the Volturno), so it was a convincing loss for the Allies (who need seven). However, if he had gotten across the Volturno on turn 6, and taken the Capua Airfield, the fighting north of there could have been fierce. Also, “mere” rain would have made turn 7 a lot easier. On average, it seems the weather should be going clear on turn 7, so we were running a little behind that.

Mark presumably needed to be a bit more aggressive in the middle, though I can’t point to any obvious places it was needed. Still, it was great fun like all the ZOC-bond games, and this scenario really carries forward the feeling of Salerno ’43. The fortifications of the longer game will make it feel different.

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Dreamsnake

by on April 23, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

While the story as a whole is well put together, you can see how things are being introduced as they are thought up. This was originally a single short story/novella, and then the rest was done a couple years later, with two sections also published as separate short stories, though I suspect that the entire novel was coming into focus as she wrote them instead of this “fix up” novel being completely an afterthought.

The setting is a bit nebulous. At the start, we just have a desert that the main character has journeyed into to help a sick child. We get mountains and the like later. Oh, and this is post-apocalyptic Earth, with all trace of the civilization we know gone. But there are still occasional irradiated craters. This gets sprung on us very suddenly.

Not quite as sudden is the revelation that life continues off Earth. We don’t know much about it. Travel, apparently interstellar, happens. There is alien life. Whether humans have any part in that is hard to say. But Center is a terrestrial city of humans who have contact with all of this, though we don’t really get to see any of that either.

Bio-engineering and related concepts have come a long way. Snake is a healer, who has three snakes with her, and two of them are used to treat people by getting them to alter their venom to something helpful.

While the plot works it does suffer from the same sort of randomness. The initial short story is the start of the book and Snake and Arevin promise to meet up again after dealing with the aftermath of that story. But events have Snake constantly redirecting from one short-term goal to another, while looking to the same long-term one. Locally, she is in charge, but in the wider plot she is more acted upon than acting. Still, all the elements come together well for the concluding section, which is also well plotted and paced, and leaves the book on a very strong note.

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