cool book!

My friend Rocky pointed this book out to me--it looks good!

Fusiliers: The Saga of a British Redcoat Regiment in the American Revolution by Mark Urban

The Royal Welch Fusiliers, who became the most celebrated British corps in the battle for America and served from the initial skirmish at Lexington in 1775 through the surrender at Yorktown in 1781, provide a narrative that mirrors the wider story, according to Urban (Wellington's Rifles). Drawing on letters and diaries, Urban paints an often grim but ultimately heroic picture of the life of the ordinary soldier fighting an unpopular war in a hostile environment. The Royal Welch Fusiliers—few of whom were Welsh—surrendered at Yorktown as a sadly depleted party of a few dozen men, but they and their leaders had learned important tactical lessons in fighting the Americans, especially the necessity of rapid manoeuvre. Former Fusilier officers like Harry Calvert would use the bitter lessons of America to educate an army that one day would defeat Napoleon. Urban, diplomatic editor of BBC's Newsnight, offers a British-army-centered version, but is admirably evenhanded in his analysis and conclusions. Readers interested in military history will appreciate this insightful and sobering perspective on soldiering in the 18th century. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

(no subject)

One board I read had a thread on the Sean Taylor shooting. One poster responded, "I sincerely hope we catch the responsible party, as vengance and justice are far more satisfying than mourning and rememberance."

Apart from the typos, I find the essential nature of the sentiment expressed very... disturbing.

props to Neil Gaiman--what a guy!

This has got to be the coolest thing I've heard of an author doing. Ever.

(no subject)

ganked from a friend who may not want to be identified ;-)

Furry Hip-hop!

Beowulf

Between these reviews and it being written (in part) by Neil Gaiman, I might actually change my mind and give this a try.

http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2007/11/beowulf-comments.shtml
http://network.nature.com/blogs/user/henrygee/2007/11/19/bigging-up-beowulf
http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/reviews/2007/beowulf.html
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/07mv233.htm

always learning something

Different bits of my life are always intersecting.

When I started learning about Judaism, I got taught a lot of the background to Jewish ceremonies, customs, and holidays the way kids in Sunday school do (yes, at least here in the States, Jewish kids go to religious school on Sunday, the way Christian kids do--except it's usually close to a whole day of *school* instead of just somethign to keep the kids busy while the adults are doing "real" services.)

I was befuddled by the typical Jewish Sunday-school description of the Seleucids as "Syrians". Now, to me this was nonsense. I'd studied the Hellenic period since I was little and had my first book on Alexander the Great, so I knew that the Seleucids were no more Syrian than the Ptolemies were Egyptian, and for the same reason--they were all descendants of Macedonians who had followed Alexander to Asia and picked up kingdoms as they fell out of his pockets.

(Of course, since modern day Syria is an Arabic, Islamic country and a deadly enemy of Israel, it makes sense for the rulers of ancient Syria to be called "Syrians" for propaganda purposes.)

In another instance, I've always laughed heartily at the revisionist 'historians' who try to pretend the pharaohs were subSaharan Africans. It's pretty obvious from depictions of Egyptians and black Africans in ancient Egyptian artwork that they were not. But I hadn't realised that the same mythmakers had been hard at work elsewhere.

The same sort of people who insist that Cleopatra was a black lady because she came from 'Africa' often claim Hannibal as 'African' (which he certainly was, but not in the sense they mean). Now, I know to be suspicious of that. The nation of Carthage ruled the coast of North Africa and a good bit of southern Spain, either directly or through alliances, for several centuries before their defeat and destruction by the Romans in 146 BCE. I knew that the Carthaginians were a Semitic people from the Levant, who intermarried a bit with native peoples and the Iberians and Celts in Iberia. What I hadn't fully twigged to was that the very capable Numidians (sometimes allied to Carthage, sometimes to Rome) who are often (from the same motives) depicted as black were, in fact, *Berber*.

This may seem like it's all a bit silly and hardly worth worrying about; skin colour isn't important (or shouldn't be) when compared to what people achieve and how they behave.

Except that I have a large army of wee (15mm high) Numidians that at some point I need to paint. So it's kind of handy to know that they should look more like Zinedine Zidane than George Weah...

courtesy of vikingcat

geography game

It takes a while, but it's fun. I scored about 51,000; I don't know West Africa, Australia, or the western Pacific very well.

...and from Numidia and Egypt southward

( perhaps more controversial musings )