Don’t judge a book owner by his book covers

Or: The demi-god prowess in the Luftwaffe.

One of the most recent additions to my library is up there amongst the strangest. It is also one of the most coveted and while I have not had to look very hard for it, I have had to wait a long time for one to appear in an affordable and clean form.

And now the blog is illegal in Germany and Israel. Oops.

The Revolution will not be released in paper-back

Today’s frustrating reading experience comes from David Eltis, The Military Revolution in Sixteenth-Century Europe (London: I. B. Taurus, 1995). On it’s face, this is an argument in favour of back-dating the start of the “Military Revolution” thesis, argued in the first instance by Michael Roberts in 1955, as occurring in the early 17th century. Eltis may be correct in identifying the most significant changes in the practice of warfare back a century or so, but you feel like that’s almost a happy accident. Eltis gets where he was going despite himself.

Revolutions of ink and gunpowder

[Cleaned up on the 20th, because I jumped the gun on the 2nd draft. All praise the mutability of the blogging medium, for only in this place can we correct our poor grammar and syntax and erase the evidence of our own carelessness!]

Oxford can be such a rich source of complaint that it could cause this blog to regress into a catalogue of daily irritations or institutional disorders. Instead, I will try and fill it with the better things Oxford can offer, if one is able to find them. Alas, a gripe has crept in. I will continue anyway.

It’s hard to keep up with the thinking…

This has been a full week, which is good, but it does cut into my lower priority writing time and that includes PBS blog updates. I have found a few minutes to rub together so here is an update.

August company

Back in May I answered a call for papers (cfp). I sent in a abstract based on the conference paper I delivered at K-zoo. One of the editors behind the cfp convened my session so he was able to judge my submission on more than a 150 word synopsis. Back in June I got word that my proposal was accepted and a few days ago I got an initial style-guide for submissions with May 2013 deadline for finished drafts. And, because I’m like that, I looked up the other contributors based on the cc addresses. It’s an impressive list.