Sean Manning

Descriptions of the armies of the Achaemenid Empire traditionally rely heavily on the Graeco-Roman sources, for the pretty good reason they give the only detailed narrative accounts. Still, it's a deeply unsatisfying state of affairs, and this doctoral thesis tries to somewhat redress the balance by relying also on the cuneiform records of Babylonia, which don't give any battle-accounts or colourful descriptions of the various contingents in the Great King's army, but do supply plenty if scattered detail about how soldiers were recruited and equipped.

This is still rather unsatisfying of course - we're still not getting a Persian view of the Persian army, let alone that of other subject peoples - but it's clearly an improvement.… (mehr)

Although not all of the essays in this anthology are to my liking, it is always interesting to read which ball players another person likes and why. My favorite of these is the one by Jim Bouton, by far, but there are many I liked. Jonathan Eig's essay on Lou Gehrig has inspired me to get and read his book on Gehrig; Roger Kahn on Jackie Robinson is an affecting remembrance of a friendship and a good effort at retrieving the reality of a black leader who has been sentimentalized and memorialized into a kind of self-congratulatory symbol of how good we are as compared to the generation before Jackie. Read this book, find your own favorite ball player.… (mehr)