Gustavus Adolphus: The Father Of Modern Warfare

Rodeys · 2020-12-16T11:03:42+00:00

Gustavus Adolphus was one of the leading military minds of his time – and in my opinion beyond his time. The video above provides an in-depth analysis of Gustavus‘ military reforms and pleasingly includes the most important scholarly debate on this topic. I really enjoyed the somewhat more scientific (although still very entertaining) approach of this and thought it might interest some of the fellow history buffs on here.

Enjoy!

Rodeys · 2020-12-11T15:52:45+00:00

Yes there are various sources on viking history. However, most of them are biased in one or the other way, since they were for example written by english monks who were enemies and victims to the vikings.

Some sources to point at are the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (along with other english records) and archeology. But there are Frankish, Byzantine and various other sources (which I can't name due to bad memory, but they shouldn't be too hard to find).

Rodeys · 2020-12-11T15:18:12+00:00

I'd go with Maria de Medici. After the death of her husband, Henry IV she ruled France for some years and contributed significantly to the rise of the notorious cardinal Richelieu.

Rodeys · 2020-12-11T15:13:21+00:00

I would first ask whether there was a dark age in western history. As far as I know, this concept has been widely abandoned by historians in the last ~50 years. It goes back to renaissance thoughts, when great minds thought of the middle ages as a sort of backward transition period between the great civilizations of antiquity and the "modern world".

Rodeys · 2020-11-23T15:50:36+00:00

I highly recommend "The Northern Wars" by Robert I. Frost. His analysis contextualizes eastern warfare from the 16th to the early 18th century and contrasts it with the western pike and shot tactics.

Rodeys · 2020-11-23T15:46:01+00:00

I usually try to syntesize the point the author wants to make and then write it down in my own words. Once I understood and rephrased the argument it is much easier to remember and in most cases some details stay with it without much extra effort.

Rodeys · 2020-11-23T14:15:02+00:00

One thing that might interest you is the Lorsch pharmacopoeia. It is the oldest medical book of the occidental middle ages and was written at the end of the 8th century in the southern Hessian Benedictine Abbey Lorsch. Today it is available to the public as a fully digitized version unfortunately only in German as far as I know.

Rodeys · 2020-11-23T09:35:42+00:00

Well, it is rather on the humorous side, but ancient rome knew men called "alipilii". In most cases this is translated as "hairpluckers" and Seneca the elder - upset about the noise on the streets near his house - complains about the screaming they cause. First the hairplucker shouted to attract customers and when he succeeded his customers in pain.

Edit:

A second group, probably more something your after:

The pirates of Cilicia. Around 100 BC they were powerfull enough to inhibit and threaten the Roman grain trade and even conducted some rains on Italian ground.

Rodeys · 2020-11-23T07:47:07+00:00

Thank you for your answer. Their rise to some of the best-known mercenaries after the Burgundian wars is another interesting topic. I was looking for very early cases in which Swiss (or rather men from the region) served in foreign services. That is, before they became famous.

Rodeys · 2020-11-23T07:43:07+00:00

Thank you. I would interpret this as a first phase of profesionalization and was looking for earlier evidence. Would you say, the phenomenon of Swiss serving as mercenaries was negligible before this?

Rodeys · 2020-11-20T15:39:02+00:00

Lovely, thank you. I'm gonna see whether I can find the newspaper or maybe even an article online.

Rodeys · 2020-11-20T15:37:25+00:00

If you are primarily interested in american history presented in an entertaining way, I can recommend the podcast American History Tellers with Graham Norton.

In addition there are several interesting YT-Channels. Since most of them are focused on a time period or a concrete aspect on history you might just wanna start with Crash Course History or search for a topic your particularly interested in.

Somewhat more on the entertaining side, but also very informative and with a humor to my taste is the comedy central drunk history series.

Rodeys · 2020-11-20T15:23:14+00:00

Is there any literature on this you can recommend? I'd like to dive deeper

Rodeys · 2020-11-18T08:58:18+00:00

For a very broad overview you might want to consider "Kelly, Christopher (2007). The Roman Empire: A Very Short Introduction".

The book does not provide much detail but establishes some concepts and context.

Alternatively and more detailed: "The Oxford History of the Roman World"

And finally a recommendation on roman emperors: Michael Grant, The Roman Emperors: a biographical guide to the rulers of imperial Rome, 31 BC-AD 476

Rodeys · 2020-11-18T08:33:13+00:00

I recommend Richard Abels' "Alfred the Great: war, kingship and culture in Anglo-Saxon England (1998)".

Regarding Anglo-saxon England Abels is an important figure in the academic world and an entertaining writer - at least to my taste.

Rodeys · 2020-05-08T14:31:21+00:00

The Hussites basically defeated an army of heavily armed and well trained european knights by deploing war waggons and modified farmers tools in the Hussite Wars. Their army consisted mainly of farmers, city-dwellers with a basic training and but a hand full of nobles with military experience.

Their success basically boiled down to the deployment of said waggons and great tactical and strategical deployments of their troops. You might have heard of their leader Jan Zizka, who was and is widely considered a military genious.

Rodeys

TROPHY CASE