Collections: The Siege of Gondor: Part VI: Black Sails and Gleaming Banners
This is the sixth and final part of a six part series taking a military historian's look at the Siege of Gondor in Peter Jackson's adaptation of Return of the King. You can find the other parts linked...
View ArticleCollections: This. Isn’t. Sparta. Part VI: Spartan Battle
This week, the part you have all been waiting for - we're going to look at how the Spartans fought. This is part six of our series (previous parts I, II, III, IV, V, VII) looking at Sparta and its...
View ArticleCollections: The Preposterous Tactics of the Loot Train Battle (Game of...
A look at the tactics of the 'loot train' battle from Game of Thrones (S7E4), in which it turns out, everyone is the fool.
View ArticleCollections: Gondor Heavy Infantry Kit Review
This is actually a neat kit review to pick up with after the last one, since this is essentially a more successful effort to construct a fantasy panoply for a plate-armored common infantryman. Today...
View ArticleCollections: The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part II: Total Warg
This is the second part of a series taking a historian's look at the Battle of Helm's Deep (Part I here), from both J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers (1954) and Peter Jackson’s 2002 film of the same...
View ArticleCollections: The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part III: The Host of Saruman
This is the third part of a series taking a historian's look at the Battle of Helm's Deep (I, II), from both J.R.R. Tolkien's The Two Towers (1954) and peter Jackson's 2002 film of the same name. In...
View ArticleCollections: The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part IV: Men of Rohan
This is the fourth part of a series taking a historian's look at the Battle of Helm's Deep (I, II, III) from both J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers (1954) and Peter Jackson’s 2002 film of the same name....
View ArticleCollections: The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part VI: Is This a Good Sword?
This is is the sixth part of a series taking a historian’s look at the Battle of Helm’s Deep (I, II, III, IV, V) from both J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers (1954) and Peter Jackson’s 2002 film of the...
View ArticleCollections: The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part VII: Hanging by a Thread
This is is the seventh part of a series taking a historian’s look at the Battle of Helm’s Deep (I, II, III, IV, V, VI) from both J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers (1954) and Peter Jackson’s 2002 film of...
View ArticleCollections: The Universal Warrior, Part IIa: The Many Faces of Battle
This is the second part of a three part (I, II) discussion of the idea of a 'universal warrior' - the assumption that there is a transcendent sameness about either the experience of war or 'warrior...
View ArticleCollections: The Queen’s Latin or Who Were the Romans, Part V: Saving And...
This is the fifth and final part (I, II, III, IV) of our series asking the question 'Who were the Romans?' How did they understand themselves as a people and the idea of ‘Roman’ as an identity? Was...
View ArticleCollections: Total Generalship: Commanding Pre-Modern Armies, Part IIIc:...
This is the conclusion of the third part of our series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb) looking at the role of the general in commanding pre-gunpowder armies in battle. Last time we looked at how junior officers,...
View ArticleMichael Taylor on John Keegan’s The Face of Battle: A Retrospective
In a special treat this week, Michael Taylor, Associate Professor of History at SUNY Albany is back (he has written here once before). This time Michael is taking a look back at what is probably "he...
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