Month: December 2024

Month: December 2024

2024 Year-Ender

a small farm on Vancouver Island flooded after a rainstorm with the wind moving the water and the sun low and masked by clouds

If you are aware of all Internet traditions, you remember that the end of the year is the time when Bookandsword Blog posts about the state of the author and the state of the blog. There is a lot to talk about!

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CFP: Many Faces of War V, and WAWIC 2025

Two conferences on ancient warfare will be held in the northern part of the United States next spring or summer.

Jeffrey Rop and Lennart Gilhaus are organizing the next War in the Ancient World International Conference as a dual online-offline event in Duluth MN and Münster DE.

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Xenophon is Still Sad

a screenshot from the Xenophon is Sad Tumblr account.  It has a map from the Anabasis in red and black at the top as a header image, a bust of Thucydides as a profile picture, and a series of quotes in black and white against an indigo blue background

An anonymous Tumblr account called Xenophon is Sad used to collect quotes where researchers disrespected or erased Xenophon the Athenian adventurer. Although Xenophon was a friend of Socrates and an extremely successful writer in many genres, his words leave many academics cold. The Tumblr has not been updated since 2021 but I found two more quotes which belong on it.

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The Timeless Value of Hardback Books

a set of wooden bookshelves with many covers facing out rather than side-on, the topics focus on history and archaeology
One of the stacks at Munro’s Books, Victoria BC, in May 2016

In my home office I am packed between what feels like half the output of Eisenbrauns and Dover Books, dust-jacketed hardcover books on Aelian the Tactician, self-published softcovers with the study notes of renaissance tailors, and the black brick-shaped bulk of Pierre Briant’s From Cyrus to Alexander. My hard drive and bookmarks folder are crammed with thousands more PDFs and links. Databases of medieval wills, Attic Red Figure pottery, and small finds are a click of my browser away. But even then, I believe that the choice to print a book makes sense today.

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