24.02.2026 11:30
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"I am sick to my stomach as I write this because I've spent 20 years developing a pedagogy that's about wrestling with big ideas through writing and discussion, and that whole project has been evaporated by for-profit corporations who built their systems on stolen work. It's demoralizing."
Writers: before you sign a contract with a publisher, make sure AI isn't replacing your illustrator, your translator, your editor, your jacket designer. Readers: if you're thinking of buying a book, do the same. Refuse. Resist. If AI garbage doesn't sell, people will stop making it.
Out today in paperback - KING'S ENEMY, the finale of my medieval trilogy!
Here's my guest post on David Pillling's substack, discussing a little of the background to 'King's Enemy' (pb out on March 26th btw!) historystuff.substack.com/p/special-gu...
I hope you will be arguing that "Rome's Disintegration" *never happened* and was merely the interplay of literary tropes? ; )
I suppose not! Was Claudian's bit about the Rhine being 'defended only by the fear of Rome' just a positive gloss on the lack of a regular military garrison? Allied communities sounds about right, I think. Will 'De Wereld van Clovis' get a translation?
And weren't the Franks in charge of the Rhine defences by 406? Orosius puts it very pithily, and probably knew more about it than Jerome: "Francos proterunt, Rhenum transeunt, Gallias inuadunt..."!
It's very readable! The author changes all the names, so it helps to have the 1850-2 Navy Lists on hand to decipher who's who, but he provides some colourful portraits of naval personalities of the day.
I was just reading Cecil Sloane-Stanley's memoir of midshipman life in the 1850s Mediterranean - plenty of opera-going then too! Plenty of snobs as well, no doubt...
New finds from Pompeii! "Twenty to thirty people could bathe in the cold room's plunge pool." Some house party... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Eight books about Medieval England! booklisti.com/booklist/med...
Loved βMughalsβ at the V&A.
I just listed my top sequels of 2024 with reads by @denny-flowers.bsky.social @mwcraven.bsky.social @ianrossauthor.bsky.social @sharpegirl.bsky.social @phokion.bsky.social @decastell.bsky.social @mikebrooks668.bsky.social @marklawrenceauthor.bsky.social and more.
unseenlibrary.com/2024/12/18/t...
Numancia. Site of heroic but doomed resistance of Iberians to Roman conquest and a foundation myth of Spanish nationalism in C19th. Both sides used its imagery during Spanish Civil War. Strongly recommend a visit just outside town of Soria, whose football team BTW is named after
Kenilworth Castle in 1266. Map from my novel 'King's Enemy'.
The 2025 Netflix 'The Leopard' cannot hope to compare to Visconti's 1963 'Il Gattopardo', one of the finest films ever made. But it looks lushly Sicilian and epic, so no doubt I shall give it a look...
A major Roman villa has been discovered in south Wiltshire.
#ClassicsBluesky πΊ
www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/2474382...
The Brescia Medallion, once believed to represent Galla Placidia and her two children, but most likely made in Roman Egypt, c.3rd-4th century. The lettering is in Alexandrian Greek, and reads ΞΞΞ₯ΞΞΞΑΠΞΞΞ‘ΞΞΞ, which perhaps means Bounnerus the Potter.
Signed copies of my last book, 'King's Enemy', at the wonderful Topping & Company Booksellers in Bath. If anyone's passing through, you know where to go...
"Γo wende Sir Edward, toward ΓΎe holi londe..."
Arms of some of the leading English and Scottish knights who went on what would later be called the Ninth Crusade, in 1270-71. (Images from Aspilogia.com)
Today's books!
#ReliefWednesday - Marble votive relief showing Demeter enthroned and her daughter Persephone standing with two torches. Dated to the first quarter of the 5th century BC.
Archaeological Museum of Eleusis, Greece.
There is something a bit like this already for the Roman empire: Stanford's ORBIS. I'm sure somebody could use the same model for later eras! orbis.stanford.edu
go.bsky.app/LVxpZRp
Looks great! Could you add me on here too? Thanks!
