A entertaining collection of essays written by schoolmaster, it attempts to give a look at the medieval church from the point of view of the average pA entertaining collection of essays written by schoolmaster, it attempts to give a look at the medieval church from the point of view of the average person or "man on the street" of the times. It is partly a catalog of wild incidents you probably didn't read about in class (monks and villagers waging war on each other over the right of common pasturage at Meaux Abbey, the going price for various relics in the 11th century, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary's still-warm corpse being attacked by crowds seeking relics rather like the mobs seeking souvenirs of executions and lynching in more recent history). I'm sure some of the stories are dated or even discounted by modern historians, but it's pretty fun read and a fairly comprehensive look at everything from how a parish church was managed to pilgrimage and beliefs about the afterlife. ...more
Anthropology of 14th century Europe. I skipped most of the chapters, which looked at different bits of literature to demonstrate various theses, and jAnthropology of 14th century Europe. I skipped most of the chapters, which looked at different bits of literature to demonstrate various theses, and just read the chapter on the "minor orders" of the Church, as it collected some information I'd been unable to find elsewhere in a coherent form: how the medieval Church "raised" clergy from childhood, which it turns out was a serious minor ordinations that only a small minority followed through into the priesthood, but which helps explain the many "clerks" of the middle ages. Four stars for that chapter!...more
A collection of essays, probably written independently and submitted when the editors issued a call for contributions, this is basically like a collecA collection of essays, probably written independently and submitted when the editors issued a call for contributions, this is basically like a collection of papers from an academic conference. Each essay takes a deep dive into a particular topic, some only very loosely related to the title. For example, there is one essay about the depiction of the mentally ill in 13th century art (loose connection: some similiarities between that and depiction of woodwoses/wildmen); another essay looks at a particular trope in hagiography (a miracle involving increasing the length of wooden beams when building churches and abbeys); a third essay, inevitably, looks at one of tales in Chaucer. Definitely for specialists. ...more
Another collection of essays, this time all united by being the work of one author. I found it fairly compelling because the essays were all united byAnother collection of essays, this time all united by being the work of one author. I found it fairly compelling because the essays were all united by being a single scholar's interests in medieval society: women's lives, pilgrimage and travel, medicine, and sketches of particular events and people. Worth a look....more
"Wise up to these things!" An interesting and unique document. The author exposes frauds, grifts, and criminal ventures of the medieval Islamic world."Wise up to these things!" An interesting and unique document. The author exposes frauds, grifts, and criminal ventures of the medieval Islamic world. In some cases the explanations are hard to follow, but the translators attempt to to clarify what they can. The author admits to being involved in some scams himself, and takes a bit more delight in some of the scams than a modern reader can be comfortable with, as some involve serious mayhem, murder, and sexual assault.
A nicely researched dive into grimoires, from ancient papyri to modern grifters. It does begin to drag on when we hit the 20th century, but for compleA nicely researched dive into grimoires, from ancient papyri to modern grifters. It does begin to drag on when we hit the 20th century, but for completeness sake I see why the author included books loosely adapted from older material. The focus is on the best known/most influential grimoires of the early modern period and their descendants. The alleged 6th through 10th books of Moses get a lot of discussion because they were so heavily copied in the 19th and 20th century, all over the world, while some of the more (in)famous titles like the Lesser Key of Solomon, the Picatrix, and the Book of Abramelin are given much less attention. So I' guess I'd say this is a good introduction to the publishing and dissemination of magic books or grimoires even if it does not get into a lot of analysis of their origins. I was about to give this only 3 stars because it spent so little time on modern Western occultism but that really has been covered to death, and the author's coverage of grimoires in Africa, Latin America, and the US is overdue....more
(I actually read the print edition, but no one has added it to GR yet and I don't have my copy handy.) This was a fun read. If you're not familiar with(I actually read the print edition, but no one has added it to GR yet and I don't have my copy handy.) This was a fun read. If you're not familiar with the Medieval Death Bot/ Murdered by Clerks twitter account, it posted a random tweet every day describing a death recorded by a medieval English coroner. This book takes some of the more popular cases and gives them a more detailed discussion -- a little snarky but soundly researched. My only complaint is that the book physically is tiny both in dimensions and font size, and I'd have preferred it to be bit longer. Still, it was well worth supporting the Unbound crowdfunding campaign to see this get published. ...more
Fascinating if you're interested in this sort of thing. Rather than rehash interviews and other things the principals said, Peterson does real historyFascinating if you're interested in this sort of thing. Rather than rehash interviews and other things the principals said, Peterson does real history: referencing business records, legal filings, and similar to uncover what we can actually know about the business side of TSR from its foundation through Gygax's removal. The picture this book paints is believable and supported by evidence rather than just the hearsay of people giving interviews or posting in online forums, which is the standard for evidence you find in most other books about the history of D&D. So, kudos to Peterson for looking actual documentary evidence. It also provides a lot of details that give a better handle on the question of who "really" created D&D. It seems that Gygax undoubtedly did most of the writing while Arneson did most of the inventing. Highly recommended to anyone who is interested in the history of D&D and TSR, and a great object lesson we might hope future historians of the topic will follow....more
Interesting and compelling. This version of Crowley's life makes sense. He may well have been serious about his occult pursuits and also equally commiInteresting and compelling. This version of Crowley's life makes sense. He may well have been serious about his occult pursuits and also equally committed to his country's interests. That is to say, I hope this account is correct, but can't really be sure. It still seems equally plausible that he was just an a narcissistic grifter. He'd probably love our uncertainty. ...more
I think that at the time it was written, it must have been fairly groundbreaking. The author actually traveled much of the routes he describes, which I think that at the time it was written, it must have been fairly groundbreaking. The author actually traveled much of the routes he describes, which helps him convey the terrors these frontiers must have presented to the often woefully under-prepared explorers. I winced a lot at his descriptions of "savages" but to be fair he doesn't shy away from the fact that many, probably most, of the "explorers" were con-men at best and murderous ravagers at worst. He is not surprisingly a bit more sympathetic to the British and Anglo-Americans than to the French, Spanish, and native people, being British himself. I still enjoyed this quite a bit though, as many of the historical figures were relatively unknown to me and a few were kind of bad ass, like the Italian mercenary with an iron prosthetic hand. There were some good maps, though it could have used more, and some period illustrations which the author takes some pains to explain and fact-check. ...more
This is a really fascinating case study in philology -- the extremely obscure discipline of establishing the authenticity of, and relationships betweeThis is a really fascinating case study in philology -- the extremely obscure discipline of establishing the authenticity of, and relationships between, texts. Babcock covers the history of the Eastern & Western Roman Empires in the fifth & sixth centuries, focusing on the political and military situations the empires faced in their interactions with various "barbarian" nations, especially the Huns. But his focus is really on the historiography of the period, and sorting what came from which writer, what the writers' motives and biases were likely to be, and whether various details mesh with other facts. He brings in all kinds of evidence from linguistics, folklore, and anthropology with care and skepticism. It's all incredibly involved but Babcock manages to make it understandable. As the dust jacket promises, he assembles "exhibits" to create a case that Attila was murdered, using mostly philological evidence. With no body and 1500 years of distance, of course we'll never know for sure, but I found his argument compelling....more
There's a handful of books that I can honestly say are like nothing else I've ever read. Egil's saga (an Icelandic saga); The worm Ouroboros; Borges' There's a handful of books that I can honestly say are like nothing else I've ever read. Egil's saga (an Icelandic saga); The worm Ouroboros; Borges' Labyrinths; Blood meridian; and now Wisconsin Death Trip. Originally submitted as a PhD thesis by a student of photography and history, this is a compendium of excerpts from a Wisconsin newspaper from the 1890s, a selection of photographs by a photographer who lived in the town covered by the paper, along with an assortment of excerpts from some novels and histories written in and about the same period and place. It's a harrowing and sometimes repetitive collection of stories of loss -- arson, epidemic, suicide, murder, and other disasters reported from the population of Black Falls and some neighboring communities. There are a few reports of lake monsters and miracles, but mostly the articles describe the hardships faced by struggling farmers, admissions to insane asylums, and the marauding bands of "tramps" who set fires to barns or rob people at gunpoint when refused charity. The photographs depict the people and street scenes in the county town, along with a number of funeral photos of the dead laid out in coffins (mainly children) and photos of flower arrangements made for funerals. The author crops and collages some of the photos for startling effects, especially when the face of person is crowd is repeated in extreme closeup and you can't help but see pure desparation in their eyes, even while they pose amid family or friends. The introduction and epilogue discuss the turmoil of the 1890s and the popular theories about poverty, criminality, and mental illness that were developed during and after that time. The author's own theory is a bit sketchy, but he weaves together a narrative that is compelling and makes as much sense of the events reported by the Black Falls newspaper as anything else. It's a harrowing read, and haunting, and worth seeking out. ...more
This book does a great job of covering pretty much exactly what the title promises: it describes medieval pilgrimages and pilgrims and what kinds of lThis book does a great job of covering pretty much exactly what the title promises: it describes medieval pilgrimages and pilgrims and what kinds of lives the pilgrims lead, before during and after a pilgrimage. It's written for a middle or possibly high school audience, so any difficult words in the sources that are quoted are explained. And the author does a marvelous job finding interesting and pithy passages to quote. This book is a nice overview of the topic, and I give the author credit for handling some sensitive topics, like the risk of being robbed or raped while on pilgrimage, the prejudices of Europeans and saracens in the Holy Land, and the improbable relics and holy sites that became destinations. However the brevity of the book also means that relatively few examples are cited and the details are scattered and few. ...more
Not bad, but dated, insofar as a lot of reevaluation of the "middle ages" has been done since this was first written. The author is an academic and deNot bad, but dated, insofar as a lot of reevaluation of the "middle ages" has been done since this was first written. The author is an academic and despite the title and brevity of this book, it is really not aimed at an amateur audience, so there are a lot of casual referneces to French historians of the early 20th century that I did not know. But I did find a few very interesting insights here. First, much of the cruelest and most "barbaric" things about the medieval period come from the rediscovery of Roman laws: in particular, the reduction of serfs to near slavery, the brutal treatment of criminals and heretics, and the decreased status of women. During the High Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the rediscovery of classical sources had a very dark side that we tend to gloss over. ...more
Man, the title and cover really oversell this book. It’s actually a collection of short profiles of criminals of the nineteenth and early twentieth ceMan, the title and cover really oversell this book. It’s actually a collection of short profiles of criminals of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. I’m not sure I’d have counted coastal Oregon in the 1920s as part of the “old west” but one of the longer entries chronicles an escaped convict who spent weeks on the lam there, forcing people to cook for him at gunpoint whenever he stopped at a house. Other criminals that are included don’t really seem to rise to the level “outlaw” status -- a burglar who murdered a sleeping woman with a meat cleaver, a man who went on a drunken rampage robbing some railroad employees and shooting his brother-in-law, and several other cases of murder. There are a few bona fide famous outlaws mentioned -- the James brothers, the Apache Kid, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, as well as infamous killers like John Wesley Hardin and William Quantrill. A few of the less well-known characters are pretty interesting too -- Old Tom Starr and Dart Isom, for example. But all too many seem to have been selected for their evocative nicknames rather than their deeds: “Bad Eye” Santamarrazo’s crime was trying to poison a miner, and “Rattlesnake Dick” Barter murdered and dismembered an eccentric old man in order to take over his farm; in both cases these were the only crimes the subjects committed. Worse, a lot of them seem to be included simply because the writers found a lot of details about their trials and executions, which make for pretty uninteresting reading when the criminals were spectacularly inept. So it’s really a very mixed bag, some of it entertaining and some of it boring.
I’m not sure what I was expecting, exactly; maybe tales of men who were “badass” by some standard other than simply being killers. Really the vast majority of the people profiled sound like sociopaths and bullies. Most of the killings are ambushes or surprise attacks on unarmed men. I know that this is the reality of most crime generally and most of the killings in the Old West. I guess I was hoping they would be enough true stories where a gunslinger did something that actually was “badass” to fill a book. You know, stuff like this: http://www.cracked.com/article_18607_... . Evidently not. I know, I know. Most of the people from history who we think of as "badasses" were actually sociopaths and bullies. The "most badass" warrior cultures -- Vikings, Romans, Spartans, samurai, knights -- were basically sociopaths and bullies who won more by surprise, material wealth, and ruthlessness than courage or toughness. That's pretty much how human history works. Still, the Old Western idea of a tough individual dies hard, and maybe if we pretend the intent behind this collection was demythologization, it works. Except that the obviously amateur and amateurish articles don't really address the question, and it's more on the editor for pretending these are about badasses rather than a collection of crime stories.
I also wish the articles were signed, rather than just having a list of contributors on the copyright page, because the style and tone of the articles varies a lot. I get the impression that the publisher or editor just wanted to cash in on a great title and classic photo for the cover (a cowboy standing on the saddle of a horse and aiming straight for the camera with his gun), reprinting chapters from various “Outlaw tales of…” books in the publisher’s stable. If this is meant to be a “best of” collection, I’ll skip the books they’re excerpted from....more
The author eventually admits, in the last chapter, that "a natural history" is not a terribly accurate title. Really the book is more of an attempt toThe author eventually admits, in the last chapter, that "a natural history" is not a terribly accurate title. Really the book is more of an attempt to provide a sort of social history of ghost-hunting, and begins with a series of case studies of famous and infamous hauntings. The author admits that he basically "wants to believe" in ghosts, and his credulity is occasionally annoying, as when he acts exasperated by skeptics who dismiss mediums just because some of their performances were revealed to be hoaxes. I enjoyed this book, but I felt like he could have spent less time on particular hauntings and more explaining how ghost beliefs evolved over time and the social forces driving interest in ghosts. He does a great job on this in a few chapters but keeps getting distracted by particular cases and personalities, many of which are interesting but I felt like there was still a lot of loose threads that needed to be pulled together. Despite the title, the focus is mostly on the last 200 or so years, which is a little frustrating because the author seems to know quite a bit about older traditions and beliefs and but doesn't feel like discussing them as much. Full disclosure: I got a free review copy of this book in a Goodreads "first reads" giveaway....more
This short treatise gives a brief overview of the history of the company that would become the makers of the best-selling home computer of all time anThis short treatise gives a brief overview of the history of the company that would become the makers of the best-selling home computer of all time and then describes how the Commodore VIC20 and Commodore 64 worked, with a few chapters that even provide some examples of the version of BASIC that C64s used. Then the author looks at 100 of the top C64 games (very briefly in each case), some of the magazines that grew up around the C64, and some of the utility programs that made C64s so popular with amateur programmers.
As someone who had a C64 back in the day, I was delighted by this book and read it in more or less one sitting. The author is a native of Italy and while the English is generally clear, one area he is unable to adequately discuss is the downfall of the C64: the rampant software piracy that destroyed the market for C64 ports of new games and programs and hobbled the company's efforts to keep in the PC market with the C128 and Amiga.
There are plenty of illustrations, including ads and screen shots, but unfortunately they are all in black and white. The programming chapters brought back a flood of long-lost memories about FOR...NEXT commands, POKEs and PEEKs, and drawing SPRITES in graph paper and then converting the image to binary and a series of numbers in DATA lines. I never really mastered anything complicated in C64 so quite a bit of those chapters went over my head, but this book really is an amazing piece of nostalgia fuel. I'm to find a C64 emulator to download!...more
Osprey books are usually researched pretty well and always have great illustrations. Attila the Hun is no exception. I haven’t read many titles in th Osprey books are usually researched pretty well and always have great illustrations. Attila the Hun is no exception. I haven’t read many titles in the Command series -- in fact I think the only other one I’ve read is the older one on Alexander the Great. I usually just get the Warrior and Elite series books when I’m working on a wargaming army, and I haven’t really been as involved in wargaming for years. But -- full disclosure -- I got a copy of this one for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Attila is a semi-legendary figure, as we know very little about him apart from what a few Roman writers have recorded about their enemy, and some mythologized impressions of him in the character King Etzel in the Nibelungenlied. What we do know, and much that is presented as reasonable conjecture, makes up the majority of this short book, along with brief looks at some of Attila’s major Roman and Goth adversaries, and short accounts of a few battles. The battles are illustrated with the customary Osprey diagrams. There is practically nothing on the Huns’ equipment, military organization, and orders of battle or army composition -- partly due to the limited amount of information we have and partly because the Command series does not focus on these topics, unlike the other Osprey military history series. So if you are interested in knowing more about how the Huns were armed and fought, you need to look for “The Hun : scourge of God, AD 375-565” in the Warrior series -- also by the author of the present book. This book -- being in the “Command” series -- is mainly interested in Attila’s qualities as a strategist, diplomat, and leader. What little we can guess about Attila’s motivations and psychology are explored in some detail, and though he remains shrouded by the legends that have grown around his name, the book does manage to give a coherent picture of the man. The author compares him, somewhat unfavorably, to Genghis Khan, but then Attila did not have the benefit of an organized propaganda campaign like Genghis did. The art in this book is generally good, combining period art, later reconstructions, and a lot of indirectly related things (for example, an image of a 20th century Tibetan archer to suggest how the Huns shot their bows, and armor and other artifacts the Huns might have looted from Goths, Romans, and contemporary steppe nomads). The illustrations commissioned for the book are about average for Osprey’s books -- reasonably detailed, well-researched, and explained exhaustively in the text. They don't have the drama and power of the late Angus MacBride's work, but I can't fault this book on that score. The bibliography provided in this book is also very detailed, and we see that the author used a range of sources, from the original Latin and Greek historians, scholarly articles, and more “popular” magazines. There is even an entry for John P. Greer’s “Armies and enemies of Ancient China” -- a very dated work that has a lot of misinformation. I think this reflects more the comprehensiveness of the author's research than sloppiness though -- I didn't see anything questionable here.
This is a collection of short entries identifying the whereabouts of various relics, mostly limited to those recognized by the Catholic Church. A brieThis is a collection of short entries identifying the whereabouts of various relics, mostly limited to those recognized by the Catholic Church. A brief biography of relevant saints and their feast days is given, and the usual persecution myths are repeated, but the miracles and supernatural events associated with relics are mostly downplayed or omitted. Some spurious relics are included (for example the 30 or so nails from the True Cross, the seven heads of John the Baptist, the spear of Longinus, and of course the Ark of the Covenant in Axum), but only if they are actually still enshrined in a Catholic church, so other relics like the feather from the Holy Spirit (!) and the Holy Prepuce (google that!) which have been lost are given only brief mentions. All in all the author tries to be as serious and pious as he can about this stuff.
A lot of the relics listed are from fairly recent times, many are New World saints, and interestingly a lot of them are in housed in North America. The 9th century papal decree that every church must have a relic is still in force, so if you have a Catholic Church in your town, you have relics in your town. But Craughwell also gives helpful advice about where to see the largest collections of relics (Rome obviously, but Pittsburgh has a massive collection too); I only wish he included an index. ...more
An interesting look at Gary Gygax's life, with a lot more about his pre-and post- D&D days than you get elsewhere. An interesting look at Gary Gygax's life, with a lot more about his pre-and post- D&D days than you get elsewhere. ...more
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