[bee_rider]

Which historians? I haven’t listened to a ton of them…

The ACOUP guy seems to be pretty even-handed, some of his best stuff is pushing back on silly/impractical/stereotypical elements of Game of Thrones (itself an over-the-top response to Lord of the Rings).

I think in historians we tend to see a lot of excitement for their special thing (like all academics), but the stuff they get excited about looks like details to us.

[ethbr1]

When reading a specialist critique of a popular notion it's important not to conflate the strength of the argument against the popular notion with the strength of the argument for what the author proposes as true instead.

Almost any specialist can muster a well-supported argument to a layperson that "X is wrong."

Unfortunately, it's a substantial turn from "X is wrong..." to "...Y is true."

And a well-supported refuting of X shouldn't be transfered into credibility towards Y.

The acoup guy is a decent author, but sometimes he makes that pivot a bit too glibly and leverages the ignorance of his readers.