[paradoxyl]

I'm sorry, this is just sententious bloviation. The sources are so thin, there's no reason to go around imputing all these fantastical ideas that somehow benefit your own beliefs. It's just boring and insipid to watch people fall into this trap over and over.

[jameshart]

This is a blog post (not a paper) written for a general audience by an academic summarizing content he has gone into greater detail on in his other blog posts which generally have more links to further reading - and this one also opens with suggestions of three or four books that provide a deeper overview of the topics it goes into.

It also doesn’t pretend to be anything other than the author’s opinion about how fantasy world builders might better incorporate real world historical analogues into their stories for greater verisimilitude – and, yes, to further Bret Devereux’s explicit agenda which is to counteract what he sees as historical misinformation perpetuated by fantasy authors adopting a sheen of ‘based in realistic history’ while actually doing a disservice to ancient and modern people and their histories.

[applfanboysbgon]

> It also doesn’t pretend to be anything other than the author’s opinion

The annoying part of the article is how it very much pretends to be some kind of objective truth and that fictional stories are bad and wrong for not adhering to the author's exact view of historical militaries. Every sentence he writes about fantasy stories diverging from his view is dripping with contempt for the authors, as though they're ignorant at best if not outright mentally challenged for daring to write their fictional worldbuilding in a way that is not congruent with his expectations.

I'm not going to build a catalogue of every one of his irritating statements (it would be about as long as the article), but, take, for instance: "Fans of fictional worlds will have often run into the most egregious examples of the failure to think in these terms". That is not a man sharing his opinion, that is a man asserting that his opinion is objectively correct and that anyone who disagrees are so stupid they must not've thought of all the details he thought of, else they would have come to see his light. Not once does he stop to consider that perhaps an author did do their research, and that their work was informed by a specific piece of research or simply an interpretation that differs from his own, or that they deliberately chose to take liberties because fiction is about crafting a compelling narrative moreso than creating an autistically-perfect simulation of the existing world.

> counteract what he sees as historical misinformation perpetuated by fantasy authors adopting a sheen of ‘based in realistic history’

Ah yes, realistic history like... Star Trek. It seems much less like his agenda has anything to do with counteracting misinformation and everything to do with being the archetypical "AKSHUALLY" nerd who gets off on correcting people in extremely pedantic and not actually meaningful ways.

[istjohn]

Edit: The prominently displayed title of the blog is "A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry." It's precisely what it says on the tin.

He's a military historian writing for a popular audience who naturally get much of their intuitions from pop culture. Of course he's going to find unrealistic elements in creative works. I've never seen him dismiss the overall value of a work due to these unrealistic elements. I enjoy having my misapprehensions acquired from pop culture corrected by an expert. I imagine many of his loyal readers first discovered him through one of his critiques of military depictions in The Lord of the Rings like I did. If you don't enjoy that, he's just not for you. No need to yuck my yum.

[K0balt]

Do you read the title? IMHO the article absolutely delivers, and when we are talking about fantasy writing, opinions are facts inside their context. An actual “well founded” opinion about fiction is next level pedantry at its finest.

[SJC_Hacker]

Agreed, the article contained a lot of speculation and not many historical examples. It was more about what the author thought “made sense” than what reality was.

It was also quite long winded. Probably could have been summarized to maybe 3 reasons. Oddly enough I don’t see “money” mentioned, at least not simply, and that should probably be reason #1

[RetroTechie]

> Oddly enough I don’t see “money” mentioned, at least not simply

"the entitlement principle (service as the flip-side of the coin for some set of rights or status)" and

the employment principle (separate from the vocational principle). We may sum it up with, “recruits show up purely as an economic transaction: service for money” – it’s a job.

Close enough.

> and that should probably be reason #1

Article goes on to explain that:

it is fairly rare for pre-modern armies to function purely ‘as a job.’

Which makes sense: humanity's history of picking fights with fellow humans goes back much further than the history of money itself. And even where they overlap, there's other reasons for recruits to enter an army.

Much of pre-modern societies were organised around master-servant, slavery, nobility, family clans & related concepts. Free market economies with individuals striving to maximize the amount of gold nuggets in their pouch, is a relatively recent concept.

[sdenton4]

Yeah, it's nice to overlay this with Graeber's Debt - there's cyclic chunks of history where no one has little bags of coins to buy the 10ft poles needed to explore the dungeon. (par example.) Sometimes because the monetary system collapses entirely, sometimes because the nobles have hoovered up all the available silver, and don't have the means to make more.

In those periods, people work more on credits and debts, which shade directly into systems of social obligation and caste when extended over time.

(As you note) It's also very historically recent that 'making money' was seen as any kind of reasonable choice for someone with power. The political and merchant classes are typically quite separate (the exceptions prove the rule); the merchants are picking up an under-explored source of power that is mostly uninteresting to the the ruling class.

[jameshart]

I guess it’s so long-winded you never made it to the four paragraph section, about 20 paragraphs and two subheadings in, about economic motivations for recruitment?

> The first place most modern folks’ mind goes, of course, is to pattern this task off of their own jobs and so to assume that these fellows are under arms because they are paid to be, which I am going to term the employment principle.

[jcranmer]

It is a little rich to simultaneously complain that the article is too long, that it didn't go into enough detail, and that it didn't support your pet theory. Maybe if you'd read the article, you'd find out that not only does the author discuss money as a motivating factor as the first example (precisely because it is popularly hold to be the main motivating factor) but then immediately explain why it was the least important motivating factor for pre-modern societies.

It's also worth mentioning that directly linked from this blog post are several in-depth examinations of historical military systems, including Mongol, broader steppe nomad (note that the Mongols were exceptional), Roman, Carthaginian, Macedonian, Greek, and Gallic specifically covered in depth, and a couple of other cases (e.g., Medieval Europe and Mamluk examples) more covered in passing. The detail you think is lacking can easily be found in those blog posts.

You can also find a nice summary of the different motivating factors at the end, with 21 specific examples distributed among them. Is that not enough for you?

[antasvara]

I do think it's worth looking at a few of his other posts (I'm a fan) to lend some credence to this one speficially. The more history-focused (so not aimed at worldbuilders) pieces are consistently well-sourced in a way that most blogs aren't, and he has a pretty long history of this same level of care.

Does that make him infallible? Of course not. But it does mean I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt here.

[gspetr]

You're right about reason #1. And you've probably heard about strong contenders for #2 and #3.

There's a famous quote attributed to the Italian military commander Gian Giacomo Trivulzio in 1499.

When asked by King Louis XII of France what preparations were needed to invade the Duchy of Milan, Trivulzio responded: "To carry out war, three things are necessary: money, money, and yet more money."

[ggm]

If you think its quite long winded taken note it's title includes PART 1

[red_admiral]

Oh you haven't seen the four-part series on iron (https://acoup.blog/2020/09/18/collections-iron-how-did-they-...) that ended up with parts (I, II, III, IVa, IVb, addendum).

The Helm's Deep series ended up with 8 posts. Well worth reading.

[tolciho]

Why would "money" be necessary?

https://acoup.blog/2025/01/03/collections-coinage-and-the-ty...