Book Review: SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard
Honest, balanced review of SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard. What this history book gets right, where it falls short, and who should read it.
World History
African, Asian, and global histories beyond Europe
Book Review: *The Greek Way* by Edith Hamilton
The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton – a balanced HBT review covering what the book gets right, where it falls short, and which readers will benefit most.
Book Review: The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple
A balanced, honest review of The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple – what it does well, where it falls short,…
Book Review: The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England by Dan Jones
Dan Jones’s The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England – is this sweeping narrative of England’s medieval warrior dynasty worth your t
1066 and the Norman Conquest: How a Single Battle Rewrote England Forever
A grounded look at 1066 and the Norman Conquest – how a single battle rewrote the English language and aristocracy
10 Lost Cities Buried By Volcanoes
10 ancient and historical cities destroyed by volcanic activity, with what archaeologists found, where they were, and what they reveal about the culture…
The Library We Lost
A grounded look at The Library We Lost – what was inside, how it was destroyed, what survived in fragments
History LLMs: 7 Essential Facts About Models Trained on Pre-1913 Texts
A new class of AI language model is being trained exclusively on texts published before 1913 — before copyright walls went up and before the modern world reshaped how humans wrote. Here’s what that means, why it matters, and what gets lost and found in the process.
The Plague That Reshaped Europe
A grounded look at The Plague That Reshaped Europe – how a single pandemic restructured feudal society, labor, and faith
The Day Pompeii Vanished: The Eruption That Buried Two Cities and What We Learned from the Ash
A grounded look at The Day Pompeii Vanished – the eruption that buried two cities and what we learned from the ash