Tag Archives: History

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Types of War (4) Guerilla Warfare

Posted on by

Guerrilla warfare during the Peninsular War, by Roque Gameiro, depicting a Portuguese guerrilla ambush against French forces (in the war that gave us the term guerilla) in “Pictures of the History of Portugal”, 2017 (public domain image used in Wikipedia “Guerilla Warfare”)

 

 

(4) GUERILLA WARFARE

 

You know where I said that prehistoric or primal war hasn’t even ended now, as a type of war, exemplified by ambush and raid, to which humanity regularly returns, time and time again? That would particularly be the case for guerilla war.

Indeed, although the term originates from the Peninsular War in Spain against Napoleon’s France, guerilla war predates the Peninsular War all the way back to prehistory. Indeed, it was conventional war that was the more recent outlier, originating only in the Bronze Age and recorded history, while guerilla war was the baseline or default setting of war before that – and since, with Sun Tzu’s Art of War essentially a handbook in guerilla war strategy.

Nor was guerilla war strategy isolated to China. The Romans are probably more famous for fighting against guerilla war in revolts against their empire, in the process demonstrating why guerilla war was not so prevalent against ancient states with their resort to removing entire population, but they also famously resorted to guerilla war tactics when they had to against Hannibal in the Second Punic War.

“Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional, asymmetrical conflict where small, mobile groups of irregular forces (rebels, partisans) use hit-and-run tactics, sabotage, and ambushes to fight larger, traditional military forces. Originating from the Spanish for “little war,” it focuses on harassment, psychological warfare, and exploiting local knowledge to weaken a superior enemy over time.”

As such, guerilla war often tends to combine more than one type of war – infantry war may predominate in guerilla war, but the mobility of cavalry often leads to guerilla war or at least similar tactics. Arguably, even naval forces have resorted to a style similar to guerilla warfare – most notably for privateers, merchant raiders, or submarine attacks on shipping.

Guerilla war strategy aims to avoid “”direct, conventional battles, focusing instead on reducing enemy morale, seizing supplies, and dragging out conflicts to exhaust the opponent’s political will” – relying heavily on “support from the local population for food, shelter, intelligence, and recruits” or “familiar, difficult terrain like jungles, mountains, or crowded urban areas”.

That literal usage of little war from Spanish has lent itself to one of the most common modern descriptors of guerilla war as “small wars”, although that has often been synonymous with “dirty wars” in description and practice, for all sides of such conflicts.

Guerilla war often seems the most distinctive and prolific type of war in modern warfare, from the Vietnam War onwards – as the destructive power of modern technology seems more favorable to guerilla war, and even more so, modern political ideologies enlisting populations for or against guerillas.

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Types of War (3) Cavalry War

Posted on by

Charge of the French 4th Hussars at the battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807 – painting by Edouard Detaille in 1891 (public domain image)

 

 

(3) CAVALRY WAR

 

“Cavalryman, horseman, trooper, cataphract, knight, drabant, hussar, uhlan, mamluk, curaisser, lancer, dragoon, samurai or horse archer”.

Where infantry was the fundamental unit of war in history, cavalry was the fundamental means of mobile war – “providing armies with superior speed, mobility, and shock impact” as well as things for which mobility is used such as “scouting, screening, flanking and pursuing enemies” or “breaking enemy lines”.

Cavalry warfare involved soldiers or warriors fighting mounted on horseback – ranging from ancient horse archers to armored knights and modern light cavalry”. Obviously, the fundamental ingredient for cavalry is the domestication of the horse, or more precisely the domestication of the horse followed by breeding horses of sufficient size for warriors mounted on them.

Prior to being of sufficient size to be used for cavalry proper, the smaller domesticated horses were able to be used to draw chariots as the first mobile forces in about 2000 BC. Chariots played much the same role as cavalry but were obsolescent by cavalry once horses were of sufficient size. Hence the designation of cavalry is not usually given to “any military forces that used other animals or platforms for mounts, such as chariots” – or those occasional other animals used in war, camels or elephants. Interestingly, the last use of chariots was by the Britons at the time of the Roman conquest of Britain.

Also interestingly, that won’t be the last we see of obsolescence when it comes to cavalry war, but from its origin through to the twentieth century, cavalry has tended to eclipse infantry for decisive importance or impact – as the dominant force for winning battles rather than waging wars.

Of course, that is an oversimplification of the strategic balance between infantry and cavalry in war, as it has seesawed between them, complicated by the usual numeric predominance of infantry in armies and the higher cost of cavalry.

Certainly, the dominance of cavalry is reflected in the recurring military proficiency or superiority of the mounted nomadic warriors of the Eurasian steppes – as observed by military historians such as Azar Gat and John Keegan, as well as the colorful phrases of the “steppe effect” by Walter Scheidel and the “Golden Age of the Barbarians” by James C. Scott.

There was also the medieval dominance of cavalry, originating in the late Roman period, where “mounted forces became the dominant, often aristocratic, arm of European armies throughout the age of feudalism”.

“Cavalry had the advantage of improved mobility, and a soldier fighting from horseback also had the advantages of greater height, speed, and inertial mass over an opponent on foot. Another element of horse mounted warfare is the psychological impact a mounted soldier can inflict on an opponent.”

However, it is weird to think of cavalry forces originating without the subsequent aids to riding – spurs, saddles, and above all stirrups, which facilitated heavy cavalry and the use of lances.

One might also add a certain romanticism that has attached to cavalry throughout history, albeit not necessarily as a matter of strategic or tactical advantage.

Sadly for such romanticism, infantry has had the last laugh, as unlike infantry but like chariots, cavalry has become obsolescent from the twentieth century to, well, another entry in this top ten – which has assumed the same role and often even the same title as cavalry with greater mobility and less vulnerability, as have airborne or air assault units such as in the famous fictional depiction of the helicopter air assault 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment in Apocalypse Now.

Whereas infantry could evolve, cavalry could not, at least on a large scale – the same deadly firepower of modern history that forced the evolution of infantry was fatal to cavalry

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Types of War (2) Infantry War

Posted on by

Awesome artwork “Roicroi, the last tercio” by Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau, portraying infantry of a Spanish tercio at the 1643 Battle of Rocroi, in Wikipedia “Infantry” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

 

 

(2) INFANTRY WAR

 

Where prehistoric war goes to the origin of war itself, infantry war goes to the fundamental nature of historic war, enduring as its foundation and the predominant means of waging it. Historic war commenced as infantry war and has largely endured as it.

That’s not to say that prehistoric war wasn’t also infantry war. In the broadest usage of infantry war as fighting on foot, all prehistoric war was infantry war (except to the extent of anyone ramming canoes or rafts into each other) – but for the most part, prehistoric war lacked the characteristic drill or regimen of infantry war, fighting as warriors rather than soldiers.

And that’s the essential nature of infantry war – fighting on foot and in formation, coordinated with each other rather solo-ing off into single combat, as soldiers with drill and regimen, typically with standardized weapons and equipment.

As such, the origins of infantry war are the origins of war itself in recorded history, since the first ancient empires fought with regular infantry, albeit often as an elite supplemented by conscript masses or militia as irregular infantry – something that has surprisingly endured as a practice since then to the modern period.

The ancient archetype of regular infantry remains the Greek phalanx, and even more so, the Roman legion.

While the archetypal infantry travels on foot – marches, that is, in a style and pace that has remained remarkably consistent throughout history – the defining trait of infantry is that they fight on foot, not necessarily that they get to the fight on foot.

Hence, there has been a variety of infantry distinguished by getting to the fight by other means than marching to it – most notably mechanized infantry or mobile infantry in the modern period but also mounted infantry, naval infantry, airborne infantry, and air assault infantry.

“Before the adoption of the chariot to create the first mobile fighting forces c. 2000 BC, all armies were pure infantry. Even after, with a few exceptions like the Mongol Empire, infantry has been the largest component of most armies in history.”

Infantry also remains the most basic or fundamental unit of war – the proverbial boots on the ground – for achieving strategic objectives, particularly when those objectives are measured in territory.

As such, infantry has not waned in war, albeit it has evolved with technology. Gunpowder saw infantry shift to line infantry tactics, shooting volleys at each other – until modern firepower overwhelmed even that, forcing infantry for its own survival to use “dispersed, maneuver-based, and heavily supported infantry units” as well as combined arms and the paramount importance of cover on the battlefield.

 

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Types of War (1) Prehistoric & Primal War

Posted on by

Cave painting of a battle between archers, Morella la Vella, Spain – public domain image used in Wikipedia “Prehistoric Warfare”

 

 

(1) PREHISTORIC & PRIMAL WAR

 

Wait, what? Prehistoric war?! I know my rankings are mostly in chronological order but does that really justify prehistoric or primal war in the top spot rather than, say, special mention?

To which I say yes – and not just as a matter of chronological order. Indeed, I rank prehistoric or primal war in top spot for three reasons apart from chronology, although its precedence in chronology does underlie those reason – hence why prehistoric war or the prehistory of war is the subject of such a substantial part of my favorite history of war, War and Human Civilization by Azar Gat.

The first reason is the sheer timescale of prehistoric war compared to historic war, corresponding to the scale of prehistory in general compared to history – 98% or so of the entire span of humanity on this planet so far, all but the last 5,000 years or so out of 300,000 years. And prehistory only gets longer if you throw in our hominin ancestor species as humanity, which potentially lengthens that span to 3,000,000 years.

The second reason is that prehistory didn’t just disappear with the advent of recorded history – or rather didn’t consistently disappear across time and place, instead enduring in places more remote from recorded history until the modern period. And prehistoric war hasn’t even ended now, hence the better description would be primal war – as a type of war, exemplified by ambush and raid, to which humanity regularly returns, atavistically time and time again.

Which brings me to the third and deepest reason – the philosophical significance of prehistoric war in understanding the origins of war itself.

Hobbes vs Rousseau – the Hobbesian state of nature or “the war of all against all” (bellum omnium contra omnes) as against Rousseau’s more noble savage state of nature.

Of course, the origins of war in prehistory is the subject of theory or outright speculation, as by its nature prehistory involves those human societies without recorded history – typically Neolithic or Paleolithic, but potentially also more recent societies without written historical records.

It’s where prehistory meets philosophy, hence the opening dialectic of Hobbes versus Rousseau – the ongoing debate over human nature and violence or war. “The existence — and even the definition — of war in humanity’s hypothetical state of nature has been a controversial topic in the history of ideas”.

Philosopher Thomas Hobbes famously proposed that the original “state of nature” of humanity (or human nature) was inherently violent – the war of all against all in which “the life of man” is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”. Against that, philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau also famously proposed a more idealistic and idyllic state of nature as more free and peaceful – subsequently styled as that of the “noble savage” – made unequal and violent by “civilized” society.

That debate over human nature continues, not least in speculation or theories of prehistoric war, “spanning contemporary anthropology, archaeology, ethnography, history, political science, psychology, primatology, and philosophy in such divergent books as Azar Gat’s War in Human Civilization and Raymond C. Kelly’s Warless Societies and the Origin of War.”

Essentially, it boils down to those who argue for prehistoric war and violence, potentially at even higher rates than those in recorded history, and those who argue for more peaceful prehistory.

To put it that simply, however, removes all context or nuance from a debate that is much more balanced or varied, reflecting a more complex situation – that prehistory was both more violent than asserted by proponents of prehistoric pacifism and also more pacific than asserted by prehistoric warmongers.

Most concede that violence or war in human prehistory was highly variable between different societies at different times in different places or circumstances. Some societies were notoriously warlike, such as the Maori of New Zealand, the Yanomami (dubbed “the Fierce People”) of the Amazon or the inter-tribal warfare in Papua New Guinea.

On the one hand, archaeological studies of human remains from prehistory have suggested a higher rate for violent injury and death substantially above those in recorded history. One interesting feature is that a recurring motive for inter-tribal warfare is raiding for nubile women – as with the Yanomami, suggesting that the legendary motive for the Trojan War may not be so far removed from the historic or prehistoric truth.

On the other hand, depictions of human violence or war is comparatively rare until relatively recently in prehistoric art. Proponents of prehistoric pacificism persuasively suggest that low population density among prehistoric tribal hunter-gatherers – and the potential costly nature of violence between them – both allowed for and pushed towards avoiding conflict, typically by migration.

Another issue is that even if or where Paleolithic societies were violent, the scale of that violence was necessarily limited or disorganized – in the nature of feuds and raids or ambushes and skirmishes. Some argue for what is termed endemic warfare – in which “war is often ritualized with a number of taboos and practices that limit the number of casualties and the duration of the conflict”. Of course, endemic warfare could readily escalate into actual warfare without such limits.

Others have also asserted various historic or prehistoric event horizons that saw the escalation of war. One such is the development of missile weapons such as bows or slings allowing for less risk than melee combat. Another more commonly argued one is the horizon between the Paleolithic and Neolithic – with the increased sedentism from agriculture in the Neolithic seeing a corresponding increase in the intensity of scale in war.

One obvious model for theories of prehistoric war is more recent or contemporary tribal warfare. And one could argue that tribal war remains the predominant model for war in general – that most wars in history are tribal wars at heart.

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Types of War (Preamble)

Posted on by

Second Floor, Northwest Gallery. Mural of War by Gari Melchers. Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C – photographed by Carol Highsmith (public domain image)

 

 

TOP 10 TYPES OF WAR

 

I always found wars a fascinating subject of history as a hobby of mine, from the comfortable armchair of hindsight and the fortunate perspective of being well removed from any firsthand experience of them.

Hence, I’ve ranked my Top 10 Wars of history, but it doesn’t end there. No, indeed there’s my Top 10 Types of War in history, as the broad types of war arguably outrank individual wars in historical importance – or at least rank as high as a tool for the study of individual wars, albeit many wars fall into or consist of more than one type of war.

Just some notes – there is almost an infinite variety of types by or into which one can classify wars. One could even compile a top ten for types of types of war, classifying types within broader themes – political, strategic, technological, and so on. I have a mix of types from different broad themes, although I tend to focus on types by strategic doctrine or technological nature of weaponry.

This is also one of my more unusual top ten lists where I don’t count down from tenth to first place but instead simply count out in the reverse direction, from first to tenth place. What’s more, I’ve ranked them mostly in chronological order rather than historical importance, although there’s a general overlap between the two, as longer history tends to coincide with their greater impact, albeit not always. I haven’t included tier rankings, as I would rank all but the tenth place entry as S-tier or god tier – and tenth place as X-tier or wild tier.

Interestingly, six of my top ten types of war are ancient or even earlier, so much so that they might be regarded as transcending mere types of war to being archetypes of it. On the other hand, four are distinctively modern – and by modern, I mean twentieth century and onwards – but have effectively reshaped war in their own image.

 

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Wars (Special Mention: Alternate History Rankings)

Posted on by

Cover of the SF Masterworks edition of The Man in the High Castle by P.K. Dick, arguably the most famous of SF fictional depictions of Axis victory in WW2

 

 

I’ve ranked my Top 10 Wars of history, essentially by combination of iconic status and idiosyncratic preference. But how do they rank by plausibility of their alternate history victory scenarios, ranked from most plausible to least plausible – that is, how plausibly could the war have gone the other way?

Well, they rank almost entirely differently as it turns out, with the exception of one entry from my Top 10 which remains in the same place ranking (in tenth place).

There are some anomalies – one in particular – in my alternate history rankings, because of the discrepancy between their historical plausibility by which I’ve ranked them and their fictional popularity or profile, albeit I tended to reflect that discrepancy by awarding my X-tier or wild tier ranking. If I had done my alternate history rankings solely by their fictional popularity or profile, that one entry in particular would be so far above the rest as to basically be its own list, but sadly for it, the historical plausibility of its fictional alternate history scenarios lags far behind their popularity or profile.

Interestingly, the alternate history rankings divide neatly into halves. The first five entries are the most plausible or those for which the alternate history scenarios even seem more plausible than the actual historical outcome. In other words, it seems more plausible for the war to have gone the other way than the one it actually did. The second half or least plausible entries are the reverse – where alternate history scenarios of victory by the other side seem so much less plausible than the historical outcome, notwithstanding their popularity or profile in fiction for my wild-tier entries.

 

S-TIER (GOD-TIER)

 

(1) GREEK-PERSIAN WARS

 

It was tough to choose the top spot for alternate history plausibility as there were at least three entries where the actual outcome seemed more implausible than the alternatives or just downright miraculous for the victors. However, I went with the Greek-Persian Wars as the highest ranking in this respect – particularly given that there were two of them, with two of the most famous battles won by the Greeks against the odds, one in each war, the battle of Marathon and the naval battle of Salamis. The Greeks themselves attributed their victory at Marathon to divine intervention, with the god Pan winning it for them. Io Pan! Io Pan Pan!

I mean, the world’s largest empire in territorial extent at the time – as well as the largest empire by percentage of world population ever – against the small and fractious Greek city states, with some even remaining neutral?  It seems no contest, particularly when that empire conquered the Greek cities of Ionia in Asia Minor and subjugated or defeated states such as Thrace in Europe

 

(2) ALEXANDER’S CONQUEST OF PERSIAN EMPIRE

 

From one Greek-Persian war to the next, it was a close call for top spot for alternate history plausibility between the OG classical Greek-Persian Wars and Alexander’s conquest of the Persian Empire. Both had historical outcomes that seemed more implausible than the alternatives or just downright miraculous by winning against all odds.

Alexander’s conquest also has the additional factor of being one of those wars that hinge on one man as commander or conqueror, such that the historical outcome seems impossible without that man.

In the end, the classical Greek-Persian Wars just edged out Alexander’s conquest as the former involved a fractious coalition of small Greek city states while Alexander was fortunate enough to have the larger and more concrete state of Macedonia he inherited from his father – and even more so the army his father had forged into the instrument of a hegemonic power.

Stil, it is hard to imagine anyone other than Alexander with the audacity or ability to achieve the same conquests. What if there was no Alexander? There almost wasn’t, with his lucky escape from death in the Battle of Granicus River, which would have seen his historic conquests nipped in the bud.

At the other end, there is the alternative history scenarios of what Alexander might have achieved if he had not died at only 32 years of age at the height of his conquests.

 

(3) SPANISH CONQUEST OF AZTEC EMPIRE

 

The Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire was the third of my close contenders for top spot as wars where the actual outcome seems the implausible alternate history victory scenario.

In some ways, the Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire seems even more implausible than the classical or Hellenic Greek-Persian Wars. There are simply no parallels to just how lopsided Spanish victory was in their conquest of the Aztec Empire, conquering an empire of millions in less than three years with forces numbering only in the hundreds – or three thousand at their most numerous. And like the conquests of Alexander, much of the Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire seemed to hinge on the character of Cortez as commander.

However, in the end the Spanish Conquest slipped down to third place behind the other two entries, because if Cortez hadn’t happened when and how he did – say the Cuban governor Velasquez had succeeded in apprehending him – then something like his conquest of the Aztec Empire would have happened at some point, what with that empire poised on the precipice of revolt and the Americas poised on the precipice of pestilence.

That reflects that Cortez and his Spanish forces effectively led a revolt by far more numerous native American allies – compounded by the Spanish advantages in guns and steel, or above all germs, and yet further by the Aztec disadvantage of “an inherently unstable system vulnerable to a loss of prestige under even moderate challenges”.

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

(4) MONGOL CONQUESTS – MONGOL INVASION OF EUROPE

 

I ranked the Mongol Conquests just below my god-tier of alternate history plausibility. For the Mongol Conquests, the actual historical outcome seems the implausible alternate history victory scenario, both at their starting point to occur at all and at their finishing point of defeat or withdrawal from the high tide of their conquest.

You have the starting point of the Mongol Conquests, so incredibly exploding out of nowhere. Well, perhaps not out of nowhere. The Mongols – and the nomadic herding tribes on horseback in the Eurasian steppes in general – consistently punched far above their weight in wealth or population as noted by historians Azar Gat, John Keegan, and Walter Scheidel’s “steppe effect”.

Still, the Mongol Conquests are one of a select elite of wars that seem to hinge on one man as commander or conqueror, begging the alternate history question of the great man theory of history – what if that great man didn’t happen? Without Temujin, better known as Genghis Khan, to unite the Mongols and lead them to empire, would the Mongol Conquests have ever begun?

And then there’s the finishing point at the high tide of the Mongol Conquests – when the Mongols seem an unstoppable juggernaut, particularly in their invasions of Europe. Could the Mongols have conquered Europe? The actual historical outcome, the Mongol withdrawal from Europe, seems so much more implausible than the alternatives, particularly when tied with the interpretation that the Mongols withdrew from the historical stroke of fortune for Europe of the Great Khan’s death. However, I tend to agree with interpretations that “the Mongol invasion concluded when the geography was no longer in their favor” – the limits or fringes of the steppe effect as it were.

 

(5) HUNNIC WARS – HUNNIC INVASION OF ROMAN EMPIRE

 

It seemed only fitting to rank the Huns in the same tier as the Mongols for alternate history plausibility, where the actual outcome of the Hunnic invasion of the Roman Empire seems the implausible alternate history victory scenario. The Hunnic defeat at the Battle of Catalaunian Fields seems genuinely miraculous (for the Romans) as does the Hunnic withdrawal from Italy the following year, except the latter even more so from the sheer papal mojo of Leo as Roman imperial envoy.

Indeed, the Huns and Mongols closely resemble each other in their conquests or invasions in Europe.  The former were a more substantial presence in Europe, both in the seat of their empire and their furthest advances westwards, although the latter had far more extensive conquests in the rest of Eurasia. That extends even to the uncanny resemblance that both appeared to withdraw from further European conquests with the historical stroke of fortune of the death of their supreme leader, Attila for the Huns and the Great Khan Ogedai for the Mongols – although the impact of the former was greater and more immediate with the dissolution of the Hunnic empire.

However, historians debate whether the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields was indeed a Hunnic defeat, and whether it was indeed of historical importance in any event. Similarly, historians debate the actual reasons and historical importance for the Hunnic withdrawal from Italy. There’s the arguments or interpretations that Attila’s interest in the Roman Empire was only to the extent of raiding and tribute, albeit on a grand scale, rather than conquest. Hence the Mongol Conquests just edge out the Hunnic invasions of the Roman Empire in my alternate history plausibility rankings.

 

 B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

(6) PUNIC WARS – SECOND PUNIC WAR

 

And now we move to alternate history rankings where the historical outcome seems the most plausible, although the Punic Wars also seem to offer tantalizing glimpses of an alternate history of Carthaginian victory. That’s mostly from Hannibal’s tactical military genius in the Second Punic War, although perhaps the better Carthaginian prospect of victory was in the First Punic War, had Rome not adapted itself to Carthaginian naval superiority.

Ultimately however, they’re just glimpses, given Rome’s adaptability and unmatched ability to raise armies, with even Hannibal’s tactical genius just a flash in the pan of Roman victory. Reading Roman military history often prompts me to see the Romans as the Soviet Union of ancient history – winning through the manpower to replace one legion after another.

 

(7) VIETNAM WAR

 

Another alternate history ranking where the actual outcome seems the most plausible, except perhaps for the timing of it.

At best, modern counter-insurgency has become the subject of intense debate as to whether there are effective or viable strategies for victory by the side countering the insurgency. Even those who propose there are concede that such strategies are necessarily narrow, limited, or operate within hard constraints of discipline and restraint.

At worst, it has become a trope for notoriously difficult prospects of success. The Princess Bride film even adapted it for the iconic gag of breaking the rule “never get involved in a land war in Asia” as the most famous of classical blunders. Funnily enough, military historian H.P. Willmott observed as much in earnest by arguing that Japan was the only Asian country the United States could defeat.

As such, alternative history scenarios usually propose the United States “winning” by not being engaged or involved at all, or at least in lesser degrees. Willmott opined specifically with respect to Vietnam that potential defeat was inherent in the concept of a limited war as one of the limitations.

Occasionally you see alternate history glimpses of American victory, if only leaving behind an enduring state as in the Korean War. I’ve seen scenarios argued with various degrees of plausibility as to how the United States might have “won” the war – that tend to be clustered near its starting point or its finishing point, with the former being more persuasive for obvious reasons.

 

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

(8) SECOND WORLD WAR

 

Yes, we’ve come to my wild tier for alternative history victory scenarios, and what else to top it but the Second World War?

After all, it’s the big one for alternate war…and it isn’t.

That’s because of the discrepancy between the fictional depictions of its alternate history victory scenarios and their historical plausibility.

Alternate history scenarios for German victory in the Second World War are the most prolific and popular of all alternate history scenarios – in fiction, such that it has whole anthologies and its own entry in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (“H!tler Wins”).

And yet, such alternate history scenarios seem so much less plausible than the actual historical outcome of Allied victory – so much so that German victory seems an incredible long shot from the outset, only getting longer the further you go into the war. Indeed, the more plausible alternate history scenarios would seem to involve the Allies doing better than they actually did, including posing the question of how Germany was able to start the war at all. The most plausible alternate history scenarios of German “victory” are those that involve Germany not fighting the war in the first place.

There are alternate history scenarios for Japanese victory in the Second World War but they tend to be only as a consequence or side effect of German victory – often with things looking grim between the two of them after their shared victory (as in The Man in the High Castle, where Germany is planning to attack Japan).

As for alternate history scenarios for Italian victory…I’ll just leave it here like the joke it is. Come to think of it, the whole Axis seems like set-up for a joke, albeit with a black sense of humor for its casualties and destruction – “Germany, Italy, and Japan walk into a war…”

And really, Germany should not regard itself as all that different from Italy when it comes to alternate history victory scenarios – as I like to quip, paraphrasing the witticism that the Soviet Union was just Upper Volta with rockets in the Cold War, Nazi Germany was just Italy with rockets in the Second World War.

 

(9) COLD WAR

 

The Cold War is something of an alternate history scenario paradox, hence its wild tier ranking second only to, well, the Second World War.

On the one hand, its historical outcome of American victory also seems the most plausible, particularly with American superiority at the start and end of the Cold War.

On the other hand, the Cold War offers a plethora of alternative history scenarios, both fictional and counterfactual. In a conflict extending for half a century (or longer if you calculate it from the formation of the Soviet Union in 1917), there’s a lot of scope for American miscalculations or mistakes, more or greater than those that occurred in history, to potentially affect that outcome with varying degrees of plausibility.

Alternate history scenarios for the Cold War are not quite as prolific or popular in fiction as those for the Second World War – but seem more plausible. Firstly, because the communist bloc dominated the heartland of Eurasia, with greater population and resources beyond the Axis in WW2. Secondly, as historian Paul Johnson observed, the impatience of H!tler “made him so dangerous in the short term and so ineffectual in the long term (the very reverse of the Soviet strategists).”

Uniquely among my top ten entries (and for all but a handful of wars in contemporary history), the Cold War also has those alternate history scenarios where everybody loses – the scenario of the Cold War turning hot with a nuclear exchange.

 

(10) AMERICAN INDIAN WARS – SIOUX WARS

 

What the Second World War and Cold War are to alternate history in SF, the American Indian Wars are to alternate history in fantasy.

No, seriously – stay with me on this one.

For sheer historical implausibility, I would rank the American Indian Wars in general and the Sioux Wars in particular in F-tier or bottom tier, as my top ten entry with the least plausible alternate history victory scenarios.

Perhaps if the native American tribes had been more united, perhaps if they had more allies among other nations willing or able to aid them against the United States in the long term, and above all, perhaps if they had fought against the colonies from the very outset or the Americans had lost the Revolutionary War, things might have been different for them but it seems an impossibly long shot against the pervasive defeats of similar peoples throughout history – and indeed in the same historical period throughout the world elsewhere.

However, I rank it in wild tier for the profile of the Ghost Dance in fantasy – a profile that earns its own entry in the Encyclopedia of Fantasy as a theme in that genre. For example, the definitive war in fantasy, Tolkien’s War of the Ring, is won by a version of ghost dance, with a quest ultimately relying on and succeeding through the providence of a higher power.

In history, versions of the ghost dance recur in wars fought by those facing overwhelming material odds against them and hence resorting to supernatural means or their ideological equivalent in an attempt to win or delusions of victory – cough triumph of the will for the Axis in WW2 cough.

In history, ghost dances almost always in dead silence, not least the Ghost Dance. “In fantasy, where magic exists, and where gods may intervene to help the worthy at the last moment, versions of the Ghost Dance may underlie particularly moving moments when the weak and the honest humble their innumerable foes, or perhaps escape into an otherworld through a portal opened by the pattern of the dance.”

 

Top Tens – Girls of History: Top 10

Posted on by

The scene from the 1989 film Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, which I quote for the reference to historical babes

 

 

GIRLS OF HISTORY: TOP 10

 

“Bill: We gotta go, this is a history report, not a babe report!

Ted: But Bill, those are historical babes!”

 

That’s right – once again, I can find Fantasy Girls in anything.

Similarly to my Girls of Mythology, this is something of a personal novelty list, as my Girls of History don’t tend to have the same art or cosplay as my usual Fantasy Girls in popular culture – the holy trinity of comics, video games and anime of course, but also animation or fantasy and SF.

Although you may be surprised at the name recognition of the more distinctive girls of history and perhaps even more surprisingly, at the extent to which they do feature in popular culture, notably comics, film or television.

Also, comics artist Simon Bisley has done an awesome art collection of women from history, which features quite a few of my top ten entries. You can find it on his official website but I don’t feature any of it here, with one exception tightly cropped for fair use under copyright and because the full image is too racy, the same reasons that I don’t feature anything else from the collection.

While on the subject of art, there’s also a surprisingly prolific subculture of historical comics art on X or Twitter, usually featuring historical babes, by artists such as Gambargin, Centuriichan (a name shared with her signature female Roman legionary character), and Anonhistory (who likes to tease Centuriichan with a Pictish witch character, naked but for blue woad tattoos).

 

Ted: Oh, you beautiful babes from England, for whom we have traveled through time… will you go to the prom with us in San Dimas? We will have a most triumphant time! [princesses giggle]

Bill: Way to go, dude!

 

Sadly, Princesses Elizabeth and Joanna from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure won’t be featuring in my Top 10 Girls of History – but here’s who does!

 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

Scene from the 2006 film Marie Antoinette, starring Kirsten Dunst as the titular French queen  (fair use)

 

 

(10) MARIE ANTOINETTE (1755-1793)

 

Let them eat cake?

And yes, I know that statement being attributed to Marie Antoinette as demonstrating her ignorance of the plight of her subjects – as her answer to their protest that they had no bread to eat – is apocryphal at best and fictional propaganda at worst.

History’s most famous aristocratic party girl, albeit that fame may owe more to how the party ended for her.

Born an Austrian princess – okay, archduchess but basically the same thing – she became Queen of France through her marriage to Louis XVI as well as the target of those opposed to the monarchy, culminating with her being beheaded by guillotine along with her husband as part of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution.

“Long after her death, Marie Antoinette remains a major historical figure linked with conservatism, the Catholic Church, wealth and fashion. She has been the subject of many books, films, and other media. Politically engaged authors have deemed her the quintessential representative of class conflict, western aristocracy and absolutism. Some of her contemporaries, such as Jefferson, attributed to her as a cause of the French Revolution.”

 

RATING:

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

Lucrezia Borgia as portrayed by Holliday Grainger in The Borgias TV series 2011-2013 from her profile in the fan wiki (fair use)

 

 

(9) LUCREZIA BORGIA (1480-1519)

 

Basically a Renaissance mafia princess.

I just have a soft spot for the ‘bad girls’ of history, albeit that adjective is a matter of historical perspective. You can make arguments for my preceding entry as a bad girl – or indeed pretty much all my entries as bad girls – but we’re much more in bad girl territory with Lucrezia Borgia, if only through her family.

After all, she was the illegitimate daughter of Rodrigo Borgia in his reign as Pope Alexander VI, and it doesn’t get much more bad than popes having kids – except perhaps her brother Cesare, the model for Machiavelli’s Prince, who was arguably even worse than their father. . .

Her family arranged several marriages for her among the Italian aristocracy that advanced their own political position, lending itself to “notorious tales about her family”  that “cast Lucrezia as a femme fatale, a controversial role in which she has been portrayed in many artworks, novels, and films”. That role extended to the role of black widow for one of her husbands (even if through her brother Cesare) and poisoning or murder in general, such as the rumor that she had a hollow ring that she used to poison drinks.

“Lucrezia was described as having heavy blonde hair that fell past her knees, a beautiful complexion, hazel eyes that changed colour, a full, high bosom, and a natural grace that made her appear to “walk on air”.

 

RATING:

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

Tomoe Gozen as portrayed by Sayaka Akimoto in the Japanese 2022 TV drama The 13 Lords of the Shogun

 

 

(8) TOMOE GOZEN (1157-1247)

 

I had to get a ninja girl (or kunoichi) in there somewhere – even if the closest I could get was a female samurai (or onna-musha) and a possibly legendary one at that.

Tomoe Gozen is perhaps the best known female samurai by name, mentioned in The Tale of the Heike but not otherwise in any primary accounts of the Genpei War, a civil war between rival clans in Japan. She was famed as a swordswoman and archer, serving under the samurai lord Minamoto no Yoshinaka.

 

RATING:

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

Promotional poster for the Zenobia: Queen of the East film in production (fair use)

 

 

(7) ZENOBIA (240-274)

 

The first of three rebels against Rome in my Top 10 Girls of History, Septimia Zenobia ruled what has become known to posterity as the Palmyrene Empire – Roman client state gone rogue and conquering most of the Roman East, culminating with the conquest of Egypt as the jewel in its crown and threat to Rome’s grain supply as the breadbasket of the Roman Empire.

First wife and then widow of Odaenathus, the king who had elevated the city of Palymra to its supreme power in the Roman East, she effectively became the de facto ruler as regent of her son. She “remained nominally subordinate to Rome” but Palmyrene predominance in the eastern part of the empire was too much of a threat for Rome to tolerate and so Emperor Aurelian led a campaign against her to restore her realm to the empire. That forced her reaction to declare her son emperor with herself as empress, as well as Palmyra’s independence from Rome. That did not turn out well for either Palmyra or her.

It is disappointing that she does not the same iconic status and mystique as Cleopatra, as Zenobia achieved what Cleopatra only dreamed – a genuine rival state to Roman power in the eastern empire with real prospects of success – and was at least as hot, by the account of Edward Gibbon  – at least by the account of Edward Gibbon, that she was considered “most lovely,” and “equalled in beauty her [claimed] ancestor Cleopatra”.

“Zenobia has inspired scholars, academics, musicians and actors; her fame has lingered in the West, and is supreme in the Middle East…a heroic queen with a tragic end…Harold Mattingly called Zenobia one of the most romantic figures in history.”

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

Art by comics artist Simon Bisley from his Famous Women from History collection of Boadicea cropped to her face with frenzied battle expression for copyright fair use as well as the rest of the image being a litte too racy (although not as racy as it would be if she was fighting “sky clad” as is recorded of the Britons against the Romans)

 

 

(6) BOADICEA (? – 61)

 

You know her name, or maybe you don’t since it is one of many variants – Boudica or Boudicca in the Celtic language of Byrthonic connoting victory (so that she might also have been called Victory or Victoria) and Boadicea or Boudicea in Latin chronicles. There’s also a variant in Welsh as Buddug, which just sounds odd.

Anyway, she’s the second of my three rebels against Rome in my Top 10 Girls of History.

Queen of the ancient British Iceni tribe, essentially a client kingdom of Rome, “she led a failed uprising against the conquering forces of the Roman Empire in AD 60 or 61” and hence has become a British national heroine despite her defeat.

Her husband Prasutagus left his kingdom jointly to their two daughters and to the Roman emperor in his will, something which was always going to go badly as the Roman Empire in such dealings often resembled Darth Vader – “I have altered the deal. Pray that I don’t alter it further”.  In the case of the Iceni, Rome was particularly egregious – ignoring the will, annexing the kingdom, and according to Tacitus, flogging Boadicea and sxually abusing her daughters.

Boadicea led the Iceni and other British tribes in revolt, initially successful to the point that emperor Nero considered withdrawing from Britain, but ultimately defeated by the Roman legions under governor Paulinus in an admittedly impressive feat of arms despite being heavily outnumbered.

She evolved into a national icon from the English Renaissance to the Victorian period, not coincidentally with Britain’s female monarchs in those periods, Elizabeth and Victoria.

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

Anne Bonney as depicted in starring role in the first issue of the Image Comics series A Man Among Ye by writer Stephanie Phillips and artist Craig Cermak released 17 June 2020. She was featured in some smoking art in that comics series – and in her depictions in comics in general (fair use)

 

(5) ANNE BONNY (? – 1733)

 

I mean, you knew I had to have a pirate girl in my top ten and Irish pirate girl Anne Bonny eclipses the other female pirates, including her fellow pirate Mary Read

Enter some sort of pun on crossbones here – actually now that I think of it, most pirate lingo seems to double up as entendres…

Although, she was only a pirate for 61 days. 61 days?! She basically just had a couple of months Caribbean cruise as a pirate!

She joined the crew of John Rackham, alongside fellow female pirate Mary Read, for her brief, piratical career before being captured. My respect for her increases as she had her execution stayed – as did Read – on the basis of claiming to be pregnant. That worked out better for Bonny – Read died in imprisonment but Bonny was likely let go at some point, as she died a dozen years later or so.

“Amongst the few recorded female pirates in the Golden Age of Piracy, she has become one of the most recognized pirates of the era, as well as the history of piracy in general…Despite a career of only 61 days, Anne Bonny is among the most famous pirates in recorded history, primarily due to her gender. Within a decade, Bonny-inspired characters were already appearing in contemporary culture…An 1888 cigarette card depicted Bonny as a redhead, a trait that continues to this day despite no evidence supporting it. Swashbuckling cinema often included a dashing redhaired woman or female pirate companion, occasionally directly naming Bonny…By the 21st century, Bonny has appeared in hundreds of books, movies, songs, stage shows, TV programs, and video games. Almost every female pirate character, is in some form, inspired by Anne Bonny.”

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

Elizabeth Bathory as depicted in one of her appearance in comics – on the cover of a Dynamite series The Blood Queen Part 1: Reign in Blood released June 2014, art by Jay Anacleto and Ivan Nunes (fair use)

 

 

(4) ELIZABETH BATHORY (1560-1614)

 

And now we get to my biggest bad girl of history – I mean, you also knew I was going to get a vampire girl in there somewhere, even in my girls of history.

Of course, she wasn’t an actual vampire but essentially became one, literally bathing in blood as an icon of folklore, fantasy and horror – arguably second only to Dracula himself as iconic vampire, hence epithets as Countess Dracula or Blood Countess. Ironically, she was from Hungarian, neighbor to Dracula’s Transylvania and contesting that territory with Romania.

“Countess Elizabeth Báthory was a Hungarian noblewoman and alleged serial killer from the powerful House of Bathory, who owned land in the Kingdom of Hungary (now Slovakia). Báthory and four of her servants were accused of torturing and killing hundreds of girls and women from 1590 to 1610. Bathory and her cohorts were charged for 80 counts of murder and were convicted. Her servants were put on trial and executed, whereas Báthory was imprisoned…until she died in her sleep in 1614.”

My favorite folklore of her is that her spree started from her observation that her skin seemed fresher or younger from a servant’s girl blood after an accidental injury and she started bathing in the blood of virgins to retain her youth, hence her iconography as vampire or vampiric in nature (contrary to contemporary historical records and only evolving as a legend a century after her death).

I can’t feature Elizabeth Bathory without reference to my favorite fantasy art of her – the posthumous fantasy depiction by artist Olivier Ledroit in Requiem Vampire Knight by Pat Mills. (Posthumous that is, in that it is set in the afterlife – but not any afterlife you’d like to find yourself in, unless you were someone like Elizabeth Bathory).

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

S-TIER (GODDESS TIER)

 

 

Photo of Marilyn Monroe while filming The Seven Year Itch on the streets of New York. She apparently stopped at some point during the shooting of the famous “skirt scene” and posed for the reporters and photographers who were covering the film shoot. Photograph taken by Sam Shaw and published by Corpus Christi Caller-Times-photo from Associated Press (public domain)

 

 

(3) MARILYN MONROE (1926-1962)

 

Few modern celebrities have transcended their celebrity to become as historically iconic and none quite like her. Her image and name are instantly recognizable, indeed enduring as a valuable advertising brand, licensed to hundreds of companies.

Born Norma Jeane Mortenson, she became the Hollywood blonde bombshell – as well as emblematic of Hollywood itself, Playboy (as the literal face of the first edition of the magazine on its cover and in its centerfold), and “the era’s sxual revolution”, perhaps also the American Dream (or at least the American dream girl).

“According to The Guide to United States Popular Culture, as an icon of American popular culture, Monroe’s few rivals in popularity include Elvis Presley and Mickey Mouse… no other star has ever inspired such a wide range of emotions—from lust to pity, from envy to remorse…Art historian Gail Levin stated that Monroe may have been “the most photographed person of the 20th century”.

 

RATING:

S-TIER (GODDESS TIER)

 

 

Joan of Arc depicted on the cover art of The Mission of Joan of Arc collected edition by Philip Kosloski, Alexandre Nascimento and Jesse Hansen published by Voyage Comics, a Catholic comics publishing company (fair use)

 

 

(2) JOAN OF ARC (1412-1431)

 

The Maid of Orleans – teenaged military leader and patron saint of France, surprisingly prolific in cultural depictions showcasing her enduring popularity.

“Joan of Arc…is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orleans and her insistence on the coronation of Charles VII of France during the Hundred Year’s War. Stating that she acted under divine guidance, she became a military leader who gained recognition as a savior of France.”

Much of her religious originated from her claims of visions from angels or saints, but she walked the walk as much as she talked her talk, leading the French to victories “paving the way for their final triumph in the Hundred Years War several decades later’.

However, her divine fortune ran out with two unsuccessful sieges as well as being captured and handed over to her English opponents, Famously, they tried her for heresy and executed her by burning at the stake – which only served to increase her French religious mystique as martyr.

“After the French Revolution, she became a national symbol of France. In 1920, Joan of Arc was canonized by Pope Benedict XV and, two years later, was declared one of the patron saints of France. She is portrayed in numerous cultural works, including literature, music, paintings, sculptures, and theater…Joan is one of the most studied people of the Middle Ages, partly because her two trials provided a wealth of documents.Her image, changing over time, has included being the savior of France, an obedient member of the Catholic Church, an early feminist, and a symbol of freedom and independence.”

She’s also a magnet for alternative historical interpretations or revisionist theories – “theories she was an illegitimate royal child; that she was not burned at the stake; that most of her story is a fabrication; and that she escaped death at the stake”. My favorite of these was Margaret Murray conscripting Joan to Murray’s pagan witch cult thesis – in which Joan “was correctly identified as a witch”, but witchcraft was “a survival of the pagan old religion of pre-Christian Europe”.

 

RATING:

S-TIER (GODDESS TIER)

 

Cover of Cleopatra: The Last Great Queen of Egypt, history book for children by Samuel John published in 2025 (fair use)

 

 

(1) CLEOPATRA (70/69 BC – 30 BC)

 

Was there any doubt about the top spot? Although technically it’s Cleopatra VII – or Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator.

“Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC, and the last active Hellenistic pharaoh. A member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, she was a descendant of its founder Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general and companion of Alexander the Great. Her first language was Koine Greek, and she is the only Ptolemaic ruler known to have learned the Egyptian language, among several others.After her death, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire, marking the end of the Hellenistic period in the Mediterranean.”

Also famously the lover of Caesar, whom she aligned herself with to gain the upper hand in the civil war with her co-ruler and brother Ptolemy XIII. Even more famously, she was the lover of Caesar’s ally Mark Anthony in the Roman civil war with Caesar’s heir Octavian – to advance her Ptolemaic interests within Mark Anthony’s control of the eastern part of the empire as against Octavian’s control of the western half. Her alliance with Mark Anthony didn’t turn out well for either of them, with both taking their own lives in the face of their defeat by Octavian’s forces.

“Cleopatra’s legacy survives in ancient and modern works of art, Roman historiography and Latin poetry produced a generally critical view of the queen that pervaded later Medieval and Renaissance literature. In the visual arts, her ancient depictions include Roman busts, painting, sculptures, cameo carvings and glass, Ptolemaic and Roman coinage, and reliefs. In Renaissance and Barosque art, she was the subject of many works including operas, paintings, poetry, sculptures, and theatrical dramas. She has become a pop culture icon of Egyptomania since the Victorian era, and in modern times has appeared in the applied and fine arts, burlesque satire, Hollywood films, and brand images for commercial products.”

And yes – I know the historical Cleopatra wasn’t the bombshell as portrayed by Elizabeth Taylor in the 1963 film

Speaking of Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatra, I’ve always liked the cover of Asterix and Cleopatra, which was adapted from that film’s poster and joked about the epic cost of the film’s production – a cost which saw the film flop.

And speaking of Asterix and Cleopatra, Monica Belucci played Cleopatra in the 2002 live-action Asterix film, Mission Cleopatra.

 

RATING:

S-TIER (GODDESS TIER)

 

 

 

 

GIRLS OF HISTORY: TOP 10 (TIER LIST)

 

S-TIER (GODDESS TIER)

 

(1) CLEOPATRA

(2) JOAN OF ARC

(3) MARILYN MONROE

 

If Cleopatra and Joan of Arc are my Old Testament of girls of history, Marilyn Monroe is my New Testament.

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

(4) ELIZABETH BATHORY

(5) ANNE BONNY

(6) BOADICEA

(7) ZENOBIA

 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

(8) TOMOE GOZEN

(9) LUCREZIA BORGIA

(10) MARIE ANTOINETTE

 

 

Top Tens – History: Top 10 History Books (Honorable Mention: Roman History)

Posted on by

 

 

ANTHONY KALDELLIS –

THE NEW ROMAN EMPIRE: A HISTORY OF BYZANTIUM (2023) 

 

The history of the eastern Roman Empire – from founding to fall of Constantinople, with more than a millennium of history in between them.

By the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453 AD – on the threshold of the Spanish discovery of the Americas and marking the start of the early modern period – the empire was effectively reduced to the city itself with some spare change left behind in the couch in the Peloponnese.

It had come a long way – and fallen so far – from its glorious founding as new imperial capital from the former city of Byzantium by Constantine in 330 AD, reigning as sole emperor over the whole classical Roman empire. From that point the empire was almost inevitably destined to be divided (again) into western and eastern halves, with the latter ruled from Constantinople and almost inevitably destined to outlast the former.

The founding of Constantinople and its rule over the eastern empire that became the sole empire once its western counterpart fell prompts consideration of what to call that empire, which is addressed from the outset of the book – and in its title.

It was of course, as they considered themselves to be, the continuation of the Roman Empire, but it also had important distinctions from the former classical empire – distinctions that allowed it to endure as long as it did and not merely as a “pale facsimile of classical Rome” but “a vigorous state of its own, inheritor of many of Rome’s features, and a vital node in the first truly globalized world”.

Western history has borrowed from Constantinople’s former title Byzantium – as indeed does the book’s subtitle and its author as self-described Byzantist – to call it the Byzantine empire, often to the detriment of the empire’s continuity with the Roman Empire. I guess Constantinopolitan Empire doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.

That is something which this book resists, advocating persuasively against that usage. While it is no doubt a term with an unfortunate history of usage, much like the general usage of Byzantine as a pejorative adjective, I think the title of Byzantine Empire may well be too ingrained in common usage to shake.

The common alternative has been to call it the Eastern Roman Empire – a usage similar to that of various Chinese dynasties to distinguish their geographical extent at different times, such as the Southern Song dynasty.

The book makes a persuasive case for a title as the New Roman Empire but then doesn’t really use that beyond the book’s title and introduction, instead preferring to use Romania – a usage that I don’t think will catch on for potential confusion with the modern nation of that name. Also come on – neo-Roman Empire was right there!

As for the book’s history of that thousand-year empire, it’s pretty much summed up by that earlier quote about it as a “vigorous state of its own” – one which endured through “innovative institutions and a bottomless strategic playbook”, the latter including what in modern parlance is called soft power and set out in one of the book’s many engaging points.

Another engaging point is that the book plays into my preference for thematic history, not simply chronicling what happened but asking how and why it did – above all, the question of how and why the empire “lasted so long lies at the heart of the book”.

That can be broken down into further questions, which the book engages. How and why did it survive when the western empire didn’t? How and why did it almost succumb to enemies after that, notably the Persians and Arabs when it came within a heartbeat of falling? How and why did it then rebound after those and other occasions of decline?

As to the book’s big question of how and why it lasted so long, a fundamental part of the answer is reflected in its preferred usage of Romania – that the empire transformed itself to resemble not so much subjects under imperial rule as participants in a Roman nation state.

A further engaging point is that the author doesn’t shrink on occasion from laying down some snide snark – such as when channelling his inner Procopius, he lets the occasional barb slip that he really doesn’t like Justinian. He quips that the Plague of Justinian was the only thing the emperor didn’t want to name after himself – ooo, sick imperial burn! Of course, in this house, Justinian is a hero – although even I have to admit he overextended the empire.

Less engaging for me is when he detours into the endless theological disputes in the broader history of Christianity within the empire. Yes, yes – I know the history of the empire is intimately caught up with the history of Christianity within it but my eyes mostly glazed over when the book went there.

Except for the dispute over icons – that kept my interest, although I suppose it helped it just involved the simply use (or prohibition from use) of images and not some mindbogglingly pedantic semantics. Also, there was the book’s insight that the iconoclasts were not as, well, iconoclastic as they were made out to be.

Even so, I preferred the book’s more straightforward political and military history of when the empire was kicking ass or having its ass kicked.

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Books (Special Mention)

Posted on by

Romanticized statue of Herodotus in his hometown of Helicarnassus (modern Bodrum in Turkey) – image donated to the public domain and used by Wikipedia in their article “Herodotus”

 

 

TOP 10 HISTORY BOOKS (SPECIAL MENTION)

 

History is just one damned thing after another – and one top ten after another!

So I don’t just have a top ten history books, I have a plethora of special mentions. And by plethora, I mean my usual rule of twenty special mentions for each top ten, where the subject matter is prolific enough, as it is here – although presently it’s a work in progress as I shuffle between all my book special mentions over time.

So here are my four special mention entries so far for books of history.

 

 

 

(1) PAUL JOHNSON –

MODERN TIMES: A HISTORY OF THE WORLD FROM THE 1920S TO THE 1980S (1983)

 

“A latter day Mencken, Johnson is witty, gritty, and compulsively readable”.

 

Probably the most divisive entry in my special mentions, in part because Johnson is without a background as an academic historian. Instead, Johnson was a journalist and popular historian – although it makes you sit up and pay attention when you read that as a journalist he interviewed some of the historical figures in this book, as for example he states in a footnote he did with Kerensky (obviously in the latter’s exile as former leader of the Provisional Government of Russia overthrown by the Bolsheviks).

 

In part that explains the divisive nature of this entry – but perhaps mostly it’s the strength of his opinions and the prose style with which he expressed them, both of which (as well as that divisive nature) were reflected in this book.

.

Yes, yes – I know this book has been updated and reissued with various subtitles to reflect that (such as the one in my feature image) but I’m going with the original title.

 

It was the first book of history that I read from Johnson although afterwards I avidly read others by him as it was a huge influence on me in my youth. Not so much now as I’ve receded somewhat from him as I’ve perceived some of his more idiosyncratic opinions.

 

For example, I can agree with his assessment of Eisenhower as the twentieth century’s most successful president (although he also ranks Reagan highly, perhaps even higher in the later editions) but not so much some of the other presidents he ranked highly (or badly). Sorry, I will never see Nixon as anything but crooked, even if he demonstrated a certain amoral competence.

 

From the above one may divine his opinions to be conservative, of a distinctly Catholic and anti-communist kind – interestingly enough as he originally was left-wing before his ideological reversal on the road to Damascus, a metaphor I think he would have particularly liked given his beliefs and name.

 

Whatever one may think of his opinions, the virtuosity of his prose style was undeniable – perhaps the best of any of my special mentions, with a particular talent for turns of phrase and chapter titles, as illustrated by those for this book:

 

1 – A Relativistic World

2 – The First Despotic Utopias

3 – Waiting for Hitler

4 – Legitimacy in Decadence

5 – An Infernal Theocracy, a Celestial Chaos

6 – The Last Arcadia

7 – Degringolade

8 – The Devils

9 – The High Noon of Aggression

10 – The End of Old Europe

11 – The Watershed Year

12 – Superpower and Genocide

13 – Peace by Terror

14 – The Bandung Generation

15 – Caliban’s Kingdoms

16 – Experimenting with Half Mankind

17 – The European Lazarus

18 – America’s Suicide Attempt

19 – The Collectivist Seventies

20 – The Recovery of Freedom (in later editions – formerly Palimpsests of Freedom)

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

 

(2) GEOFFREY BLAINEY –

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE WORLD (2000)

 

“The most prolific, wide-ranging, inventive, and, in the 1980s and 1990s, most controversial of Australia’s living historians” – that last epithet was for his commentary on public affairs, so naturally I like him.

Geoffrey Blainey is Australia’s leading historian – and the leading historian of Australia itself, coining the definitive phrase for that history in the famous title of his book The Tyranny of Distance.

Wide-ranging indeed – upon graduating, Blainey initially eschewed academia for the private sector as a freelance historian, studying and writing the history of a mining and railway company in Tasmania.

He subsequently ranged through Australian history, with a focus on thematic history “organized around the exploration of the impact of the single factor (distance, mining, pre-settlement Aboriginal society)”.

Of particular interest to me, his range extended to the “rhythms” of global history – “two centuries of conflict in The Causes of War (1973)”, “examining the optimism and pessimism in Western society since 1750 in The Great See-Saw”, the history of Christianity, and the “tempestuous” 20th century.

And of course this book – which with my interest in global history I tend to regard as his magnum opus, apologies to The Tyranny of Distance.

What distinguishes Blainey in my eyes, both generally and in his book, is his eye for theme – especially themes outside the usual political or military history to which history is slanted, particularly global history.

A single volume history of the world must necessarily be compact yet Blainey not only achieves this but also seamlessly works in chapters on themes that elude other such histories.

For example, a chapter on the historical impact of the night sky on humanity. Or a chapter on the conquest of night by artificial lighting. Or of time itself by mechanical clocks in western civilization.

Or such resonant images or phrases that stick in the mind like Venice as the Silicon Valley of Renaissance Italy – through its glass-making as the cutting edge of technological innovation such as lenses for telescopes or microscopes, which I’m tempted to add to the conquest of time and night as the conquest of light.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

 

 

 

 

(3) J.M. ROBERTS –

THE TRIUMPH OF THE WEST: THE ORIGIN, RISE & LEGACY OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION (1985)

 

Greatly expanded from the BBC TV series he presented of the same title, this book similarly looks at what is Western civilization and its titular ambigous triumph.

Roberts was a classic old school British historian – and by old school I mean Oxford, ultimately returning to his alma mater as Warden of Merton College, an academic title like many others that evoke those of a fantasy novel.

Apart from his academic distinctions, he had many published works for which he was hailed as “a master of the broad brush-stroke” – or in other words that thematic style of history which is my favorite.

That style is on display in what I regard to be the crowning achievement of any historian – a history of the world, particularly if it also spans all of history, as Roberts did with his History of the World published by Penguin (usually as the Penguin History of the World).

Given the scale, it’s obviously not light reading – but is demonstrative of Roberts’ style that pithy phrases from it still resonate in my mind many years after reading it. Roberts evoking most modern wars in the Middle East as the wars of Ottoman succession for example, or Romanticism as a secularized Protestantism.

Roberts’ style and mastery of broad brush strokes is even more on display in The Triumph of the West, perhaps not surprisingly given its origin in the television series he wrote and presented (for which prose style and mastery of broad brush strokes are effectively sine qua non for engaging an audience) as well as its shorter volume than his world history.

The chapters – corresponding to the episodes of the TV series – effectively showcase its presentation of “the origins and evolution of Western civilization, and the transformative challenges and influence it has exerted on the rest of the world”:

  • 1 – One World (TV episode – Dangerous Gifts: the benefits and costs of Western influence)
  • 2 – A Sense of Direction (TV episode – A New Direction: Influences from Ancient Graeco-Roman and Judeo-Christian Culture)
  • 3 – Birth of the West (TV episode – The Heart of the West: The Middle Ages and Orbis Christiani)
  • 4 – The World’s Debate (TV episode – The World’s Debate: Islam and Christianity)
  • 5 – Defining a World (TV episode – East of Europe: Byzantium and Russia)
  • 6 – An Exploring Civilization (TV episode – The Age of Exploration)
  • 7 – New Worlds (TV episode – same)
  • 8 – A New Age (TV episode – Age of Light)
  • 9 – History Speeds Up (TV episode – Monuments to Progress: The Long Nineteenth Century)
  • 10 – The Confident Aggressors (TV episode – India: The Ironies of Empire)
  • 11 – Responses and Repercussions (TV episode – The East is Red: China in the Twentieth Century)
  • 12 – A Sense of Decline (TV episode – The Decline of the West :Two World Wars and The Great Depression)
  • 13 – A Post-Western World? (TV episode – Capitulations: Third World countries learn the price of dependency on the West)

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

Cover 2002 Free Press edition

 

(4) FELIPPE FERNANDEZ-ARMESTO –

CIVILIZATIONS: CULTURE, AMBITION & THE TRANSFORMATION OF NATURE (2000)

 

A book on the suject of human civilization – or rather, civilizations, arranged by environment, consistent with the definition of civilization in the subtitle as the transformation of nature.

The book essentially treats all human societies as civilization, or at least a civilization – eschewing attempts at ‘checklist’ of criteria that define a civilization, given the problems of previous attempts to do so for any that are universally agreed, instead looking at human societies in classic Toynbee terms of challenge and response to their natural environments, at least in origin.

While such an approach may have flaws in its lack of distinction between a ‘civilization’ and other human societies, the book does have much to offer from its thematic history of human civilization from a geographic and environmental perspective.

Firstly, it vividly impresses on you the extent to which human history and societies have been shaped by nature, at least in origin – including the most basic or stark features which one might otherwise overlook from a different thematic perspective.

This is most striking when it looks at those environments it groups together as the wasteland, worlds of ice or sand deserts, which can only support the most minimalist societies – minimalist that is, beyond surviving in them, prompting to mind the lines from the poem “Australia” by A.D. Hope, about men whose boast is not “we live” but “we survive”.

Perhaps its most insightful feature – which it states in its introduction – was its comparative history of civilizations, “arranged environment by environment, rather than period by period or society by society”, thus yielding comparisons across time and space that might not otherwise occur to the reader.

The evocative part and chapter headings (or subheadings) illustrate those environmental classifications:

  • Part 1: The Wasteland – Ice Worlds & Tundra, Deserts of Sand
  • Part 2: Leave of Grass – Prairie & Grassy Savannah, the Eurasian Steppe (the Highway of Civilization)
  • Part 3: Under the Rain – Postglacial & Temperate Woodland, Tropical Lowlands
  • Part 4: The Shining Fields of Mud (alluvial or river floodplains in the ancient Near East, China and India)
  • Part 5: The Mirrors of Sky – the Highland Civilizations of the New World and the Old
  • Part 6: The Water Margins (Civilizations Shaped by the Sea) – Small Island Civilizations and Seaboard Civilizations such as the Seaboard Civilizations of Maritime Asia or the Greek and Roman Seaboards
  • Part 7: Breaking the Waves (the Domestication of the Oceans) – the Rise of Oceanic Civilizations, the Making of Atlantic Civilization, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific – from the Pacific to the World

I was particularly fascinated by its comparison of grassland societies – prompting to mind, as such things tend to do, whether other grasslands might have produced the horse blitzkriegs that the Eurasian steppes did in other circumstances.

Or its subject of the oceans – how maritime navigation has been shaped by the distinctive currents and wind patterns of each ocean, with the Indian Ocean proving the most ”precocious’ for long distance navigation (indeed from the dawn of human history), the Atlantic being somewhat more tricky, and the Pacific trickier still (Polynesian island-hopping aside).

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

Top Tens: History – Top 10 Subjects of History (Special Mention)

Posted on by

Franz Luyckx painting ca 1660-1677 – Still life with a globe, books, shells and corals resting on a stone ledge

 

 

TOP 10 SUBJECTS OF HISTORY (SPECIAL MENTION)

 

But wait – there’s more!

Yes – I’ve done my shallow dip into the Top 10 Subjects of History but there’s yet more subjects for my usual twenty special mentions, of course with my usual wilder entries the further I go.

 

(1) HISTORIOGRAPHY

 

The history of history!

No, seriously – historiography has been called that, as “the study of how history is written, interpreted, and constructed over time…it analyzes the methods, sources, biases, and evolving interpretations historians use to study the past, rather than the events themselves”.

As such, almost all things in history also have their historiography. For example, the decline and fall of the Roman Empire has its history – the historical events that comprise that decline and fall – and its historiography, the latter predominated by the debate among historians over whether it was decline or fall.

Of particular interest to me within historiography are historical schools of thought – historical works or historians “grouped together by common, often ideological approaches” or coalescing about theories or theses of history (which rival the subjects of history for their own top ten list and special mentions).

Historical schools of thought can be for history in general – the Whig or Marxist schools of history for example – or for particular topics of history. As I said, the historiography of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire is predominated by schools of thought that argue it as fall or decline respectively, such as the so-called Movers or Shakers with respect to the barbarian invasions.

A more contemporary example is the historiography of the Cold War – usually classified as orthodox (the Soviet evil empire did it), revisionist (the American evil empire did it), and post-revisionist (the Soviets and Americans both kinda did it or it was bound to happen between them)

 

(2) PREHISTORY

 

The vast majority of human history is actually prehistory – largely synonymous with the Stone Age, overlapping with the origins of recorded history in the Bronze Age or Iron Age.

Setting aside hominin history extending back over 3 million years ago, anatomically modern humans or homo sapiens go back about 300,000 years – so prehistory is all but one or two percentage points of that, only overlapping with recorded history at earliest in the Bronze Age about the fourth millennium BC or so, coinciding with the invention of writing.

Prehistory doesn’t end there either. The origins of recorded history vary by place from Bronze Age to Iron Age. Even after recorded history began in those places, the majority of places – if not also peoples – around the world remained outside recorded history or at least did not record their own history and hence prehistoric in that sense (although the term often used for the latter is protohistory).

 

(3) MODERN HISTORY

 

From prehistory to its polar opposite – the pointy end of the history in the present, modern history.

Well, I suppose you could argue against the first proposition. Prehistory is the opposite of modern history in many ways but it is ultimately outside history altogether by definition so ancient history may be a better fit. Certainly that is the view of school curricula (at least where I am), which tends to divide history as a subject into ancient and modern history – the intervening medieval history tending to be reserved for more specialized college or university curricula.

And I suppose you could argue modern history tends to have an event horizon in the present, with modern historians preferring to give some space of time – say, five years or so – for the dust to settle on current events before including them in modern history.

Modern history is somewhat elastic from the present. Sure, the present marks its ending point but when does it begin? Some propose the subject of contemporary history from the end of the Second World War onward, but usually as a subset of modern history. The usual demarcation is from about the French, American or Industrial Revolutions onwards – with early modern history from the fall of the eastern Roman Empire or the discovery of the Americas by Columbus.

As much as I love ancient history, modern history is my favorite – because of its pointy end in the present. To me, that pointy end in the present – ultimately identifying how the events or themes of history manifest in the present – is what history is all about.

 

(4) MILITARY

 

Yeah – this is the big one.

Military history is obviously a subset of history in general, but one that outranks the others in popularity – perhaps not so much among professional historians but particularly among amateur historians, history buffs, and hobbyists (including myself).

After all, you don’t get other branches of history with the same obsession over factual minutiae of battles, uniforms, weapons, or you name it – or sheer enthusiasm for re-enactment or models. Social history? I think not.

It also is the subject within history of most interest to people serving in actual military forces or indeed military commanders, historical and contemporary, typically to apply the lessons of the past to the present and future.

 

(5) ALTERNATE & COUNTERFACTUAL HISTORY

 

Yeah – this is the other big one, albeit one that is more fully developed and popular in science fiction rather than academic or professional history.

Strictly speaking, alternate history is the fictional one while counterfactual history is the, well, factual one, but both are concerned with identifying pivotal events and turning points where history might have turned out differently.

 

(6) THEMATIC HISTORY

 

In a sense, I prefer all my history to be thematic history, looking beyond a chronology of events or people to the themes of history – cycles and pattern, plot and rhythm, cause and effect.

However, this special mention is for history with a particular thematic focus for its subject. We’ve already looked at one so far with military history and my entries from seventh to tenth place are effectively different variants of thematic history.

 

(7) SOCIAL HISTORY

 

“Social history, often called history from below, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past”- typically of society in general beyond the ruling class and political or military history

 

(8) RELIGIOUS HISTORY

 

Pretty much what it says on the tin – religious history or the history of religion, whether as social or political history.

 

(9) CULTURAL & INTELLECTUAL HISTORY

 

Again, pretty much what it says on the tin – history through the lens of culture in the case of cultural history, and the history of ideas or intellectuals in the case of intellectual history.

 

(10) ART & SCIENCE

 

Yes, there is actually art history and the history of science for those subjects, which tend to fall into the wider subject of cultural or intellectual history. Art history is the more distinctive and prevalent academic study of visual arts, usually at universities, albeit more for the study of art rather than history – typically as a field of study for artists or management of art galleries and museums.

However, there is also the more metaphorical level of the recurring debate over whether history is more an art or a science – with the evidentiary focus of the latter, particularly when coupled with archaeology or forensics, but also the aesthetic vibes of the former.

 

(11) BIOGRAPHY

 

“Biographical writings were regarded merely as a subsection of history with a focus on a particular individual of historical importance.”

I always find it surprising how much of history tends to be biography, even from the Greek or Roman historians onwards, albeit not always in the same way as modern biography.

 

(12) ORAL HISTORY

 

Most history, if not all history, originated from oral history in the broader sense as personal testimony (or hearsay). However, oral history in the strict sense is “the systematic collection of living people’s testimonies, memories, and experiences through recorded audio or video interviews.”

 

(13) FAMILY HISTORY

 

Again it’s surprising how much of history tends to be genealogy or family history – as it does biography, not coincidentally.

 

(14) COURT HISTORY

 

Yet again, much of history, at least prior to modern history, tends to be court history, in the broader sense of being written by the ruling class (as well as for and of them), and in the narrower sense of being written by or for members of the actual government or royal court, including its courtiers or officials, for the purposes of governance or official record.

 

(15) MICROHISTORY & MACROHISTORY

 

Microhistory focuses on single events or “small units of research” – asking “large questions in small places” and closely associated with social and cultural history.

“Macrohistory seeks out large, long-term trends in world history in search of ultimate patterns.”

 

(16) HISTORICAL MATERIALISM

 

It’s surprising just how much of Marxism is, or at least is framed as, historical analysis, albeit borrowing from Hegelian philosophy.

Of course, I’m not saying that it’s accurate historical analysis, although I have a soft spot for Marx’s adage that history repeats itself – the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. That might explain how Marx’s predictions from historical analysis were somewhat farcical themselves – and how Marxists have consistently shown a farcical ability to be surprised by historical events.

It was Marx’s collaborator Friedrich Engels who coined the term for this underlying historical analysis as historical materialism – “that view of the course of history which seeks the ultimate cause and the great moving power of all important historic events in the economic development of society, in the changes in the modes of production and exchange, in the consequent division of society into distinct classes, and in the struggles of these classes against one another”.

 

 

(17) HISTORY WRITTEN BY THE VICTORS

 

I couldn’t resist special mention for this popular maxim as a subject of history – a maxim often used to dismiss “mainstream” historical narratives as those “written by the victors” and assert alternative ones, sometimes leaning into the historical revisionism or outright pseudohistory of the next entries.

It is however an oversimplification worthy of its own top ten list.

There is of course truth to the maxim (otherwise it wouldn’t be one), particularly when states with their own literary history conquered other states or peoples without any of their own. The classic example is of the Roman Empire but even here there were Roman historians who wrote from the perspective of its opponents or against the empire – most famously Tacitus and the speech he attributed to the Caledonian chieftain Calgacus.

However, there are numerous counter-examples, some quite strident indeed such as the Lost Cause of the Confederacy from the American Civil War or the memoirs of German generals for history of the Eastern Front in WW2.

The maxim is weakened even further by other factors, such as when states are defeated rather than conquered and otherwise remain intact with their own literary history – or with the increasing number of historical sources in modern or contemporary history beyond any sort of “victorious” narrative control.

 

(18) HISTORICAL REVISIONISM

 

A term that can be misleading as it can be co-opted, particularly by those in my next entry seeking to legitimize themselves, but is more properly “the reinterpretation of established historical narratives, often driven by new evidence, perspectives or analytic tools”.

 

(19) PSEUDOHISTORY (HISTORICAL DENIALISM & NEGATIONISM)

 

We’re in the weirdest and wildest parts of “history” now – indeed, I’ve a feeling we’re not in history anymore.

Historians distinguish legitimate historical revisionism from historical denialism or negationism – the wholesale rejection of historical events or foundations of historical evidence. You know the usual suspects.

Historical denialism or negationism in turn is only part of pseudohistory (often overlapping with pseudoarchaeology or even pseudoscience) that “attempts to distort or misrepresent the historical record”. An intriguing variant of pseudohistory is cryptohistory which is derived from “the superstitions intrinsic to occultism”.

 

(20) S€XUAL HISTORY

 

I like to reserve my final special mention for my kinkier or kinkiest entry – hence this entry for s€xual history.

Typically the usage of this term tends to be for contemporary individuals – often styled as body count in slang, particularly on social media – but it is also a subject within historical biography and social history, the former for historical figures or individuals and the latter for historical societies or peoples.

And when it comes to the latter, s€xual history seems to be something of a paradox. On the one hand, there is a certain general consistency for human s€xuality throughout history for procreation, but on the other hand, you can find virtually every permutation of s€x somewhere in history, kind of like a rule 34 of the internet but for kink and history.

If it’s a kink, there’s history of it.