#in my biography of alexander the great

[ihavedonenothingright]

Important context: I know a lot of people on here are too young to remember this (and I wouldn't know if it weren't for my very nerdy parents) but grok was just kinda nerd slang for a while? Stranger in a Strange Land isn't all that obscure of a book, and a lot of Gen X nerds I know will just insert 'grok' into casual conversation as a way to indicate that they deeply and intuitively understand whatever you're talking about. I don't see it used as commonly by younger nerds, but it has its own existence as a slang term outside of the book itself. Calling it "that word from that one '70s book about a martian who founds a sex cult" is like calling the term ansible "that word from that one '60s book about an alien planet with sex churches" in that not only does it diminish the broader usage of the term, it also derogatorily emphasizes the erotic components of the novel in a way I find moralistic. It's fine to dislike the book or think Heinlein was weird, but I don't find the idea of ridiculing or critiquing books on the sole merit of "contains erotica" all that insightful. Nor do I think the erotic components are the most important part of Stranger in a Strange Land.

Basically, Musk chose to call the AI Grok because he was hoping to appeal to older nerds by invoking his own nerd street cred. It's like how Siri is programmed to respond to "I am your father," and a whole bunch of other random pop culture phrases; Silicon Valley tech bros want you to feel a sense of kinship and connection to them so that you'll continue to buy their products. This is not really a "Musk is a weird guy who reads weird books" moment, it's a "Musk wants your parents' money and approval, and so is spouting nerd culture references to get it" moment.

(Also I know this is off-topic, but please if you enjoy OSP, go read the books and myths and history they summarize for yourself. They exaggerate for comedic effect, but even outside of that, they're literally just two people and sometimes they get things wrong. I cannot tell you how many people I've met at classics conventions—usually kids—who parrot OSP jokes about The Aeneid back at me about how "Vergil stole everything from Homer." And I'm not the only one in academia who's had to give disclaimers at the start of certain classes that amount to "No, Rome did not 'copy' Greek mythology" because between OSP and Rick Riordan, that's the message a lot of people have gotten. I like them, and I like their videos, but if you're interested in the subjects they cover, please look into them on your own too. It's fun, I promise.)

so does anyone else realize that elon musk's new jerkoff image-creating AI is named after that word from that one 70s sci fi book about a martian who founds a sex cult or was i the only one who watched overly sarcastic religiously as a child

[terrible-shining-eyes]

Thinking about Kalanos... thinking about Kalanos and his self immolation... thinking about what it represents in the life of Alexander and how it affected him in the later part of his life... thinking about how it's emphasized in Arrian's Campaign of Alexander... as I often do.

[certifiedcoffeeaddict]

Is that about that time Julius Caesar got captured and held for ransom and he was so offended by the amount they demanded that he made them increase it by a lot (I think ten fold but could be wrong)

it's not but there's also pretty fun narrations about the pirate incident like:

(fun fact: caesar did in fact have them executed afterwards!)

previous post was about napoleon when he was sailing toward britain on the bellerophon (pretty much right before his exile to st. helene) :D

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Do we know the favorite books that the French revolution figures liked to read? (It could be anyone, Robespierre or Saint just or Louis xvi it doesn't matter).

Much like this old ask about revolutionaries’ favorite dishes, I can’t say I know of any instance of someone exclaiming: ”this is 100% my favorite book,” but at tops people mentioning books that they thought were good or bad:

In his memoirs, Brissot writes he’s picking up Rousseau’s Confessions for the sixth time, so I guess that could qualify as a favorite book? send help

We have this list of books seized at Robespierre’s place after his death.

According to the memoirs of Élisabeth Duplay, Robespierre would read ”the works of Corneille, Voltaire and Rousseau” for her family in the evenings.

In a short biography over Desmoulins written in 1834, Marcellin Matton claims his favorite book was René Aubert de Vertot’s Histoire des révolutions arrivées dans le gouvernement de la République romaine (1719), of which he always carried a copy. Matton is an infamous romanticizer it’s from him we have the stupid leaf myth for example, but I’m willing to give him some leeway here since he could have obtained the information from Camille’s mother-in-law and sister-in-law, who were his friends:

In one of his first classes, he received Vertot's Révolutions romaines as a prize. Reading this work transported him with admiration; in the future, he always had a volume in his pocket. It was for him an indispensable companion, it was his vade mecum. He used or lost at least twenty volumes. It is perhaps to this excellent work and to the particular work that he did on the discourses of Cicero and especially on his Philippics, that we owe the lively and sharp style which distinguishes all the writings coming from the pen of Camille .

Desmoulins was however less fond of Rousseau’s Confessions, in number 55 (December 1790) of Révolutions de France et de Brabant he admits that he abandoned the book after getting infuriated by it:

Not that I idolize J.J. as I did in the past, since I saw in his Confessions that he had become an aristocrat in his old age. How far he was from looking at an Alexander with the pride of this Cynic, to whom he is compared, and how painfully I saw that he united the opposite faults of Diogenes and Arisippus! It is a pleasant thing to hear the author of the Social Contract protest in his Confessions about the simplicity of the commerce of such great lords (M. and Madame de Luxembourg) he cries with joy, he wants to kiss the feet of this good marshal, because he wanted to accompany one of his friends, an office clerk, for a walk. Is there anything smaller, more ridiculous? I received, he says elsewhere, the greatest honor that a man can receive, the visit of the Prince de Conti, (an honor that Rousseau shared with all the girls of the Palais-Royal.) At this point I tossed away the book out of spite, and I admit, that I had to reread the speech on equality of conditions, and Julie's novel, in order to not hate the philosopher of Geneva, like Durosoy and Mallet du Pan; for the same principles, in the mouth of such a great man, are more condemnable and worthy of aversion than in the mouths of our two gazetteers, whom God created poor in spirit, and predestined as such to the kingdom of heaven.

In a diary kept over the summer of 1788, Lucile Desmoulins mentions reading L’Âge d’Or (1782) by Sylvain Maréchal (of which she also copied two verses, Le Trésor and Le contrat de mariage devant la nature, in a notebook the year earlier), Les Idylles et poèmes champêtres (1762) by Salomon Gessner, L’Hymne au soleil, suivi de plusieurs morceaux du même genre qui n’ont point encore paru (1782) by Abbé de Reyrac (where she wrote down the verse La Gelée d’avril), Nouvelles lettres anglaises, ou Histoire du Chevalier Grandisson (1754) by Samuel Richardson and  Les Noces patriarchales, poëme en prose en cinq chants (1777) by Robert Martin Lesuire.

In his memoirs, Buzot mentions enjoying the works of Rousseau and Plutarch:

With what charms I still remember this happy period of my life which can no longer return, when, during the day, I silently roamed the mountains and woods of the city where I was born, reading with delight some works of Plutarch or of Rousseau, or recalling to my memory the most precious features of their morality and their philosophy. Sometimes, sitting on the flowering grass, in the shade of some thick trees, I indulged, in a sweet melancholy, in the memories of the sorrows and the pleasures which had in turn agitated the first days of my life. Often the cherished works of these two good men had occupied or maintained my vigils with a friend of my age whom death took from me at thirty, and whose memory, always dear and respected, has preserved from many errors!

Wow any chance you can sound even more like an 18th century man stereotype, Buzot?

…and that’s basically all I can come up with for the moment. But add on if you know anything more! @louis-antoine-leon-saint-just @lazarecarnot maybe you would like to share your favorite books with us if you have any?

[pub-lius]

hiiii :3

i just read your response to an ask about your reason for disliking ron chernow’s alexander hamilton book, and i wanted to ask if i can still use it as source for some info. i’ve done my fair share of research on various topics and my opinions/what i’ve read differentiated strongly sometimes from what he wrote, but some things are just hard to come by (as somebody not from the US who doesn’t have local resources and has to rely on stuff i can find online). what do you suggest i do if i want more accurate info? i know the founders archive but other than that i haven’t found a lot of trustworthy sources concerning the amrev that aren’t $300 textbooks?

idk- sorry this is really long :,) i’m not sure in im making any sense haha

Girl have you seen the length of my posts? This is not long at all, and you make perfect sense.

And if you have seen my posts, you may notice that Chernow is my most frequent citation because of how valuable his biographies are as sources. He does intensely thorough research and his index and bibliography are so extensive, I can’t even make a joke about getting them as a tramp stamp.

Chernow is a great source and I do recommend any starting Hamilton scholar to get a copy, if you have the means and patience. The downfalls of it are its a hard read and his personal interpretations are heavily skewed and biased in various directions, which is only different from other historians because he doesn’t give proper evidence and substantiation to these claims. All you need to have in order to recognize this is basic critical thinking skills. Tl;dr: Chernow is a great source, he’s just fucking annoying and I hate him.

One very good thing about Chernow is that his book is so (painfully) extensive, that it can serve as a source for more than just Hamilton, so there’s no shame in using him as a source for *checks notes* how the island of St. Kitts and Nevis was formed from a volcano, if you’re into that.

I see your inability to access US propaganda and I raise you youtube documentaries. That may sound crazy, but you can put it on in the background and cross reference between them (usually repeated details are closest to the truth). They can also be entertaining, especially if they’re from the 80s (i love the 80s). Additionally, if you’re looking for archives, @maip--macrothorax can tell you all the benefits of Internet Archive (if they aren’t too busy borrowing all of the books on there /lh). You can also find a lot of things on the Library of Congress’s website, and also my favorite governmental department:

THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE!!

Go to the national park service, it includes all the battlefields, important buildings, where important buildings used to be, the houses of historical figures, and really pretty parks (also like mount gaymore (rushmore) and shit but wtvr). They have tons of information and great archivists and librarians and i long for their jobs. Also, American Battlefield Trust, Mount Vernon, The Museum of the American Revolution, etc. also have great sources and tons of information- along with wonderful reenactments that they have on youtube!!

I also do my best to make these sources as accessible as possible, so if you do some perusing you might be able to find some of this stuff here, but I am always happy to answer asks with links or research though I am very slow (sorry). And of course, my dms are open and I probably wouldn’t be totally infuriated if you found me at my local library and asked for directions to the non-fiction section. I am the personal librarian of tumblr.com, so ask away and I’ll be there!!

[wwillywonka]

How am i supposed to go about my day knowing that gene roddenberry got inspiration for k/s from Mary Renault’s Alexander the Great biographies which delved into the romantic/sexual nature of Alexander and Haphaestion’s relationship?

How am i supposed to be normal about the fact that someone asked him about it and he said “Yes, there’s certainly some of that—certainly with love overtones. Deep love. The only difference being, the Greek ideal—we never suggested in the series—physical love between the two. But it’s the—we certainly had the feeling that the affection was sufficient for that, if that were the particular style of the 23rd century.” !?!

Gene was out there saying “they’d be knocking regulation boots if society weren’t such babies about it’ and i have to just be normal? Can this be a post for everyone to be quite abnormal about this with me for a moment?

I DIDN'T KNOW THAT HE WAS INSPIRED BY THE ALEXANDER TRILOGY BUT THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE OMG????? brb gotta go reread those wowowowow thanks for sharing that knowledge with me. and yeess come along everyone, let's be abnormal about those gay old men in space.

[john-laurens-hamilton]

“The enemy’s system was perfectly defensive, and rendered the campaign insipid. Many of our sanguine citizens have flattered themselves with the idea of a prompt evacuation of Charleston. I wish the garrison would either withdraw or fight us. Adieu, my dear friend; while circumstances place so great a distance between us, I entreat you not to withdraw the consolation of your letters. You know the unalterable sentiments of your affectionate Laurens.”

This letter does not have a date. John Church Hamilton—responsible for the worst censoring of his father's letters—didn’t provide a date. What we have is just this passage, presumably because the rest of the letter was of undeniable romantic nature, and as we’ve seen before, J. C Hamilton was the one to manage, edit and publish his father’s documents at the publication of his biography, doing all he could to bury the remains of Hamilton's relationship with Laurens.

Nevertheless, this paragraph gives us a deep insight in just a few words. In every letter to Alexander, John urged him to write soon, and the last goodbye was a discreet way of saying a lot without saying much. As historians say, homosexual relationships at the time meant an incredible precaution. By saying Hamilton already knew his sentiments, he reaffirmed whatever he’d told him in person without giving away any undesired information

This concludes Laurens' letters to Hamilton. As Alexander kept them until his death in 1804—22 years after Laurens' death, and until his son J. C. Hamilton found them—, it's presumed a great number of them were deemed too sexual or explicitly romantic by him and destroyed to prevent somebody finding it out and damaging his father's reputation, which would be the opposite of his purpose at releasing the biography.

Maybe the rest had deteriorated with the pass of the years, maybe they're still here. But thing is, we just have 9 letters. And these are the important ones. Maybe a deeper sight can be seen on Hamilton's letters.

[jeannereames]

Any plans for Hephaestion's biography? I think all fangirls and fanboys alike are longing for one 🤩

I'm actually working on this even now. It's what my sabbatical is for. Playing for Keeps: Hephaistion and Krateros at the Court of Alexander the Great. (This is the working title; the final may or may not match.)

Witness my Work Wall. Those are all references to both men in the 5 bios + Polyaenus. Starting on other sources (Moralia, Deipnosophistai) tomorrow. (Today got blown on conference and the Netflix thing.)

Then I'll start putting it all together, discuss the sources and their narratives, etc. I've already made what I think may be a startling discovery, which I'm not ready to share. (In part because I might be wrong.)

[tumblydovereviews]

Hamilton: Why it Worked

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your king, George III. Welcome, to Hamilton."

I've been in a Hamiton funk lately. In fact, while writing this post I was actually watching the Disney+ recording of the musical!

It's not just because today is the Fourth of July and Alexander Hamilton ultimately played a major role in helping America become what it is today. It's not just because Moana 2 is dropping in a couple of months, which Lin Manuel-Miranda won't be a part of, and I'm coping by listening to his music and work. I've always been a Hamilton fan, and while I haven't had the time nor the money to actually go out and see it myself, I have enjoyed it via listening to the soundtrack, reading the giant book I have on it, and generally appreciating the work itself.

A concept like Hamilton was fairly unique at the time of it coming out- after all, who has ever heard of an idea as abnormal as a sung-and-rapped musical about one of the Founding Fathers? In a way, though, Alexander Hamilton himself held many characteristics of a perfect protagonist for a show with this concept; he was restless, impulsive, and always moving, just as the show is paced to be. Lin Manuel-Miranda got the idea for the entire musical by reading a Hamilton biography. He was inspired by Hamilton's personality and compared it to that of a rapper; namely, Tupac Shakur, joining the past and the present together to form a new creation.

Any great musical would need to be propelled by music totally, and Hamilton is no exception; in fact, the musical holds a unique advantage over other generic shows- as mentioned before, it's a sung-and-rapped through musical. The majority, if not all, of the show is sung-through. Not only does this allow for a unique point-of-view inside of the personal issues of the characters, but it also allows the musical to be highly accessible. As I mentioned before, I haven't actually watched Hamilton in-person; my main way of consuming Hamilton media is by 'watching' the musical via its array of songs. Unlike other musicals, I didn't need to worry about gaps in the narrative not being able to be sealed by dialogue or body language.

And, speaking of the songs, they're great as well! In a variety of genres, such as rap, jazz, and pop, there's a Hamilton song for everyone, really. Lin, Leslie, Renee, and the rest of the class are amazing singers, and the orchestra and sound department also aids in elevating the play's most dramatic moments. Some are my personal favorites are the opening song, Alexander Hamilton, What'd I Miss, You'll be Back, and The Schuyler Sisters.

But, perhaps the main factor in the wide appeal of Hamilton was how well the writing and casting managed to humanize people that seemed so far away from our time, people who we'd usually think as being foreign to our modern-day issues. The cast of Hamilton are diverse in race, ranging from Hispanic to Black to Asian, and are given personalities that can relate to what people nowadays are like. Hamilton is ambitious and prideful, while Burr is more introverted but vengeful to a fault. Instead of random historical names, the two men, and all of the other characters in the play, become real. There's a reason that people of all ages, from young teenagers to fully-grown adults, have all managed to grow captivated by these characters. They are human. They are us. Hamilton is us.

And, ultimately, this is why Hamilton has become such a big success, in my opinion. Hamilton works because it doesn't just act as a play; instead, think of it as a river, using music, characters, and comedy to connect two oceans together- the past and the present. What started off as a random idea that was scorned down upon by others has ultimately become a global phenomenon, and with the feats mentioned above, it's no wonder that Hamilton managed to become such a success both on and off Broadway. To this day, the play still sells out tickets regularly, and is viewed, listened, and acted to by millions all around not just the USA, but the entire globe.

So, this fourth of July, you don't need to bolt out the national anthem while wearing red, white, and blue and bursting out oodles of fireworks everywhere you go. Instead, if you have the ability to, I'd highly recommend watching or listening to the soundtrack of Hamilton. Because, no matter the holiday or the country you lie in, there's something for everyone in this musical.

[gardenwalrus]

Malcolm MacAlister Hall interview with Jane Asher, 'Forget Cakes… Jane Asher Talks about being Lazy, Leopard-Skin Boots and Learning to Live with the Darker Side of Life', Good Housekeeping (1 Feb. 2003)

Full article

When you think Jane Asher, you think cool, auburn, alabaster. You also think nice cake-lady. But, as is the case with anyone who has a spotless media record, there’s a great deal more going on. She is deeper, darker, lazier, more passionate than you would ever imagine. The perfect image that she’s acquired obscures this other Jane Asher, who knocks off The Times crossword for relaxation, describes herself as ‘left-leaning’ and discusses the idiocies of politicians with her husband, the cartoonist Gerald Scarfe, as he works on his drawings. ‘If you’re dealing with politics all the time you’ve got to be cynical, haven’t you?’ she says. When we meet, it’s the day after the Commons vote on extending adoption rights to gay and unmarried couples, and Jane is fizzing.

‘The debacle of Duncan Smith telling Tory MPs they had to take the three-line whip [meaning that every member must attend and vote according to the party line] - from a man who must be reasonably intelligent, it’s the stupidity that’s so mind-blowing,’ she says angrily. She speaks with a passion you wouldn’t begin to glean from reading between the lines of her biography: stage and film actress; astoundingly prolific author (18 books on cake design, home entertaining and childcare, plus three well-received novels); shrewd businesswoman (she has her own cake shop in Chelsea and Jane Asher branded goods are sold in Debenhams and supermarkets); mother of three children (Katie, 28, Alexander, 20, and Rory, 18); and wife of 30 years. At 56, she looks mesmerisingly beautiful to a jealousy-inducing degree: slim as a teenager and with an English-rose complexion, she genuinely appears 20 years younger than she really is. So, Jane: lucky genes, cosmetic miracle, or savage health and beauty regime? ‘I put it down to a combination of stress and stairs,’ she says. ‘There’s such an obsession now with reducing stress, but stress is just a natural part of living. And I grew up in a very tall house, and I still live in one now. I’ve had to run up and down stairs all my life.’ The tall house she grew up in was Wimpole Street in central London. Her father was an eminent consultant endocrinologist who identified Munchausen’s syndrome - where the patient feigns an illness to get admitted to hospital - and but for his modesty, it would have been labelled Asher’s syndrome. Her mother was a professor of music and an oboe teacher at the Royal Academy of Music. It was a happy, middle-class childhood. She and her sister Clare, now an Ofsted inspector, learned to curtsey at Miss Lambert’s School in Paddington. At 17, when she was working for the Radio Times, she was sent to cover a pop concert at the Albert Hall and met Paul McCartney in a corridor. He reportedly described her as a ‘rave London bird’. And the heavy-fringed Jane became the most famous girlfriend in Britain. It lasted five years, until she came home unexpectedly one day to find him with another girl. She walked out, and although he wrote And I Love Her and We Can Work It Out for her, she never returned. McCartney was said to be devastated. To this day, she has never spoken about it publicly. She has never spoken, either, about the death of her adored father who, struck by a terminal illness, committed suicide when she was in her early 20s. She has always politely insisted that these two events should not become just more public property. Her novels, surprisingly to some, have addressed serious issues - the traumas of infertility, betrayal and obsession. ‘Everyone gasps: “They’re so dark!”’ she says, ‘but life’s bleak and disturbing, isn’t it, really? We all float along pretending it isn’t, but when you stop to think about what’s going on at any moment, there’s probably a child screaming in pain within 10 miles of wherever you are. I don’t want to sound like a pessimist, but it’s bloody awful.

‘I don’t know why, but my fiction does tend to look at the blacker side. But hopefully with humour as well - as in life. In fiction, although it’s all invented, you probably are letting out more of yourself: your beliefs, your feelings, your attitude to things. I think when I’m writing fiction it’s almost like a bit of the real Jane is speaking to the reader.’ At weekends, the ‘real Jane’ likes to gather the family around her at their large house overlooking the Thames. ‘That’s when I do enjoy cooking for them all,’ she says. ‘Weekday cooking gets a bit boring when you’ve just got to feed everyone every day, but at weekends when I’ve got a bit more time I like experimenting with new things. It’s relaxing.’ Her family and her marriage to Gerald are clearly her foundation. ‘He’s just lovely and funny and we think the same way about things,’ she says. ‘Not that a 30-year marriage is all easy and wonderful, of course. But I’m very lucky I picked such a lovely man. It’s wonderful to have someone who loves you whatever you look like and whatever you do - I always think about that when he sees me in my bath cap, the most unattractive object in the world,’ she says, amid gales of laughter. ‘If you can pass the bath-cap test, I think you’ve got a very strong marriage.’ On most other subjects, she dismisses her achievements. ‘I’ve never been clever enough to plan a career for myself. I just sort of lurch from one thing to another,’ she says. ‘As a writer I have to have a deadline or I would never do it. It’s a combination of being lazy but also not being able to say no to things. But I’m just as happy lying on a sofa watching an old film and doing nothing. I don’t find it difficult to switch off and ignore piles of things I should have done. ‘Obviously I wrote all the books and did all the cake things because of the children. I didn’t want to leave them when they were young, and I could do those things from home.’ She made a conscious decision to put her children before her acting career, and turned down countless roles. ‘It wasn’t always easy. There were things I would have really liked to do, mostly plays. But I don’t regret it for a second. I think it’s made a huge difference, hopefully, to all of them being as happy as they are, that Gerald and I were around all through their childhood.’ And now that her children are grown, she has taken a role so far removed from anything else she’s done that it almost beggars belief. But it’s precisely because her children are now more independent and she fancies doing ‘something that’s terrific fun and in mainstream television again’ that she’s taking the unlikely role of the new proprietor of Crossroads Hotel. The revamped soap, set in a Birmingham hotel, is not in its third incarnation, and Jane will be playing Angel Samson, owner and queen bee of this buzzing hive of sex, intrigue, high-voltage frocks and clashing personalities. The word around the studio corridors is that the new, and hopefully improved, soap is going to be like Dynasty in the Midlands. Angel is described as being a superbitch, but what’s Jane Asher doing in the middle of this cat-fight? Can she even do bitchy?

‘Oh, yes,’ she says. ‘We’ve just done a scene where I’m absolutely horrible to Kate, the hotel manager, who’s played by Jane Gurnett. There’s nothing more fun than having a fight with someone you get one with. And,’ she adds, ‘we’ve got lots of wonderful frocks.’ She jumps up to riffle through her stage wardrobe, pulling out sequinned dresses and sky-high stiletto leopard print boots. ‘These are so tottery,’ she exclaims. ‘They make me feel like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.’ Despite her girlish enthusiasm for the role - and its frocks - she admits that this is the sort of part she might have once turned down. ‘If I’m honest, 20 years ago I probably wouldn’t have wanted to go into a soap, but they’ve changed so much. Now you get every kind of actor popping up in them, and they’re such a big part of our culture. When this came up, I really didn’t hesitate.’ The time was just right, it seems, for Jane Asher to mess with our perception of her again.

[areyougonnabe]

How would you suggest people get started learning about polar expeditions? I read Frozen in Time but I'm at a loss of where to go now 😭 any suggestions?

Hi!!! It depends on which era you're interested in!!

For Victorian exploration including the FE, I always recommend Erebus by Michael Palin, William Battersby's Fitzjames biography, and Barrow's Boys by Fergus Fleming. Now, all of those books have their flaws as many nerds (like me) will tell you, but they are all great starting points and will introduce you to the cast of characters/run of events of that era. Once you've advanced a bit, you could check out Dave Woodman's Unraveling the Franklin Mystery for an intensely detailed look at Inuit testimony; The Spectral Arctic by Shane McCorristine for an academic exploration of ghosts and clairvoyance in Victorian exploration; or Finding Franklin by Russell Potter for an overview of the search expeditions up to the present day. Michael Smith's Crozier biography is also a solid read. (EDIT: I forgot The Man Who Ate His Boots by Anthony Brandt if you want to know more about Franklin himself and his earlier expeditions!)

If you're more interested in the late Victorian/Edwardian era, commonly referred to under the "Heroic Age" umbrella, you have a lot of potential starting points....

That era could be said to have begun in 1897 with the Belgica expedition, one of the most chaotic and insane expeditions of all time. Madhouse at the End of the Earth by Julian Sancton is a RIDE of a book (more like FRATHOUSE at the end of the earth, amirite) and will get you started with two of my favorite figures of the age: it was the polar origin story of Roald Amundsen, and where he met a pre-pole controversy Frederick Cook (HIS SOULMATE).

For more Amundsen after the Belgica, I really liked The Last Viking by Stephen Brown. You could also check out Roland Huntford's biography buuut this blog is a No Roland Zone so I am hesitant to recommend him, even though re: Amundsen he's more legit than elsewhere.

The Worst Journey In The World is a classic for a reason: a really beautiful and detailed first-person account of Scott's last expedition that is a pillar of travel writing and the foundation for much of the historiography that came after. However, you could also start with A First Rate Tragedy by Diana Preston (which I haven't read yet but comes highly recommended) or even Cherry's biography by Sara Wheeler which is really excellent. OH and the graphic novel version of Worst Journey just released its first volume which is a WONDERFUL introduction to the story! Buy it here and support the artist!

I've also really enjoyed all of the other first-person accounts I've read, many of which are free & in the public domain: With Scott: The Silver Lining by T. Griffith Taylor and The Great White South by Herbert Ponting are super interesting and give you a taste of what it was like to really be there.

For Shackleton, definitely start with Endurance by Alfred Lansing and go from there. Shackleton's Forgotten Expedition is a good second step & will get you background on him and Scott (& Wilson). I have had Shackleton: A Life In Poetry by Jim Mayer recommended to me as well but haven't read it yet. After that, Frank Worsley (captain of the Endurance) wrote two books which are great supplements: Shackleton's Boat Journey and another one just called Endurance. And Caroline Alexander's The Endurance is really good too but it's a coffee table book with nice pictures, so grab a hard copy!

And last but CERTAINLY not least, I May Be Some Time by Francis Spufford is the be-all and end-all of polar exploration nonfiction, IMO. I'm just finishing a reread right now actually—I first read it post-Franklin obsession but pre-Scott obsession and honestly, it's an entirely different book once you're crazy about the Heroic Age, so while I have recommended it in the past for people just getting started, and still do, at this point I also kind of want to tell people to maybe wait until you've already reached a certain level of derangement to dive into it.

[borgialucrezia]

I know you focus more on Lucrezia and Juan (valid), but I was curious if you knew any books that went in-depth about Giulia? If not Giulia, any about the family in general, I just love the historical sources you pull from to parallel the show

hi!! i adore giulia so much! she's a truly captivating and intelligent figure to me as she wielded significant influence within her family based on the strength of her personality. remarkably at some point she defied the pope not just once, but twice, risking herself and her loved ones in the process. however, her close bond with lucrezia remains one of my most cherished aspects of the borgia history 🙏

“Admitedly, [Giulia] was quite different from Vanozza and in a manner that was not simply due to the great difference in their ages. Where Vanozza had been dedicated both to her own financial interest and her lover’s well-being, Giulia was lighthearted and featherbrained, never looking beyond the delights of today. and where Vanozza sought to tie her lover by submission and acquiescence, Giulia displayed an independence of spirit which kept Borgia’s interest at fever pitch even while such spirit could enrage him.”

— E.R Chamberlain - The Fall of the House of Borgia

“Vasari tells us, in his Vita degli Artefici, that over the door of one of the rooms in the Borgia Tower, the artist painted a picture of the Virgin Mary in the likeness of Giulia Farnese with Alexander kneeling to her in adoration, arrayed in full pontificals. Such a thing would have been horrible, revolting, sacrilegious.”

— Rafael Sabatini, The Life of Cesare Borgia

"The fifteen-year-old Giulia was already famous for her beauty. Giulia Bella, the Romans would call her a few years later, was not only beautiful, but intelligent, “endowed with gentleness and humanity.” Blond was the preferred hair color in those days, and legend has it that Giulia was blond. But a letter written to Cesare describes her as fusco (“dark complected”) with black eyes, a round face, and quidem ardor (“a certain vivacity”)."

— Emma lucas, Lucrezia Borgia

here are some fiction/biographies where giulia has highlighted roles (some of these books delve into giulia's relationship with rodrigo and the influence ower she wielded within the family, her political maneuvering and unwavering loyalty to her loved ones, capturing her fierce intelligence and her relationship with lucrezia) :

Lucretia Borgia According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day (Ferdinand Gregorovius)

The Life and times of Lucrezia Borgia, Maria Bellonci

Cesare Borgia: La sua vita, La sua famiglia, I suoi tempi, Gustavo Sacerdote.

Lucrezia Borgia, Emma Lucas

Cesare Borgia, Rafael Sabatini

The Fall of the House of Borgia, E.R Chamberlain

Blood & Beauty, Sarah Dunant

The Borgias: Power & Fortune, Paul Strathern

[uriekukistan]

omggg you're studying history!!!! that's so interesting, i love it! it was my fav subject while on high school 🥺 what's your fav period? what do you like the most about the major?

sending hugs 🫂🫂

ohhh this is actually kinda hard bc have a different fav period for different places if that makes sense. but i guess i've most consistently enjoyed classical history like since i was really young (so like ancient greece, ancient egypt, early roman empire). i even wrote fanfic abt the roman empire when i was in middle school (not historical fiction. specifically fanfic. with a self insert oc).

specifically i've always been really interested in alexander the great for some reason. like i am a one-person alexander the great fanclub, i think he was so cool. and he literally changed the entire course of history, ik that can be said for a lot of people, but considering the timing of it, it was just so impressive.....his empire was larger than the ottoman empire but like 2000 years earlier and he made it with like. way less troops and rudimentary military tech. took on a military like 6x his own and won. what a guy.

but i also really like 1300-1700 east asian history. the mongol invasion makes a really interesting dynamic. also an enjoyer of medieval europe. ugh. so so many interesting history things but im just rambling now.

honestly the history major is very different than the class was in high school, but still so fun. i get to work with a lot of documents which is cool (hence why i speak japanese, bc i work w a lot of early modern japanese documents for research purposes). probably one of my fav assignments i had was looking through old newspapers, finding Just Some Guy and using census documents, birth/death certificates, property records, etc, to write their biography. it was such an interesting experience.

thank you for the ask!! hope you're well :D

[fromkenari]

A mass of fools and knaves

The full email exchange between Alex Claremont Diaz and Prince Henry Fox Mountchristen Windsor from Chapter Nine of Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. Put here for my best friend to read.

A mass of fools and knaves A agcd@eclare45.com                8/10/20 1:04 AM to Henry H, Have you ever read any of Alexander Hamilton’s letters to John Laurens? What am I saying? Of course you haven’t. You’d probably be disinherited for revolutionary sympathies. Well, since I got the boot from the campaign, there is literally nothing for me to do but watch cable news (diligently chipping away at my brain cells by the day) and sort through all my old shit from college. Just looking at papers, thinking: Excellent, yes, I’m so glad I stayed up all night writing this for a 98 in the class, only to get summarily fired from the first job I ever had and exiled to my bedroom! Great job, Alex! Is this how you feel in the palace all the time? It fucking sucks, man. So anyway, I’m going through my college stuff, and I find this analysis I did of Hamilton’s wartime correspondence, and hear me out: I think Hamilton could have been bi. His letters to Laurens are almost as romantic as his letters to his wife. Half of them are signed “Yours” or “Affectionately yrs,” and the last one before Laurens died is signed “Yrs for ever.” I can’t figure out why nobody talks about the possibility of a Founding Father being not straight (outside of Chernow’s biography, which is great btw, see attached bibliography). I mean, I know why, but. Anyway, I found this part of a letter he wrote to Laurens, and it made me think of you. And me, I guess: The truth is I am an unlucky honest man, that speak my sentiments to all and with emphasis. I say this to you because you know it and will not charge me with vanity. I hate Congress—I hate the army—I hate the world—I hate myself. The whole is a mass of fools and knaves; I could almost except you … Thinking about history makes me wonder how I’ll fit into it one day, I guess. And you too. I kinda wish people still wrote like that. History, huh? Bet we could make some. Affectionately yrs, slowly going insane, Alex, First Son of Founding Father Sacrilege

McQuiston, Casey. Red, White & Royal Blue: A Novel (pp. 239-241). St. Martin's Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Re: A mass of fools and knaves Henry hwales@kensingtonemail.com                8/10/20 4:18 AM to A Alex, First Son of Masturbatory Historical Readings: The phrase “see attached bibliography” is the single sexiest thing you have ever written to me. Every time you mention your slow decay inside the White House, I can’t help but feel it’s my fault, and I feel absolutely shit about it. I’m sorry. I should have known better than to turn up at a thing like that. I got carried away; I didn’t think. I know how much that job meant to you. I just want to … you know. Extend the option. If you wanted less of me, and more of that—the work, the uncomplicated things—I would understand. Truly. In any event … Believe it or not, I have actually done a bit of reading on Hamilton, for a number of reasons. First, he was a brilliant writer. Second, I knew you were named after him (the pair of you share an alarming number of traits, by the by: passionate determination, never knowing when to shut up, &c &c). And third, some saucy tart once tried to impugn my virtue against an oil painting of him, and in the halls of memory, some things demand context. Are you angling for a revolutionary soldier role-play scenario? I must inform you, any trace of King George III blood I have would curdle in my very veins and render me useless to you. Or are you suggesting you’d rather exchange passionate letters by candlelight? Should I tell you that when we’re apart, your body comes back to me in dreams? That when I sleep, I see you, the dip of your waist, the freckle above your hip, and when I wake up in the morning, it feels like I’ve just been with you, the phantom touch of your hand on the back of my neck fresh and not imagined? That I can feel your skin against mine, and it makes every bone in my body ache? That, for a few moments, I can hold my breath and be back there with you, in a dream, in a thousand rooms, nowhere at all? I think perhaps Hamilton said it better in a letter to Eliza: You engross my thoughts too intirely to allow me to think of any thing else—you not only employ my mind all day; but you intrude upon my sleep. I meet you in every dream—and when I wake I cannot close my eyes again for ruminating on your sweetness. If you did decide to take the option mentioned at the start of this email, I do hope you haven’t read the rest of this rubbish. Regards, Haplessly Romantic Heretic Prince Henry the Utterly Daft

McQuiston, Casey. Red, White & Royal Blue: A Novel (pp. 241-243). St. Martin's Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Re: A mass of fools and knaves A agcd@eclare45.com                8/10/20 5:36 AM to Henry H, Please don’t be stupid. No part of any of this will ever be uncomplicated. Anyway, you should be a writer. You are a writer. Even after all this, I still always feel like I want to know more of you. Does that sound crazy? I just sit here and wonder, who is this person who knows stuff about Hamilton and writes like this? Where does someone like that even come from? How was I so wrong? It’s weird because I always know things about people, gut feelings that usually lead me in more or less the right direction. I do think I got a gut feeling with you, I just didn’t have what I needed in my head to understand it. But I kind of kept chasing it anyway, like I was just going blindly in a certain direction and hoping for the best. I guess that makes you the North Star? I wanna see you again and soon. I keep reading that one paragraph over and over again. You know which one. I want you back here with me. I want your body and I want the rest of you too. And I want to get the fuck out of this house. Watching June and Nora on TV doing appearances without me is torture. We have this annual thing at my dad’s lake house in Texas. Whole long weekend off the grid. There’s a lake with a pier, and my dad always cooks something fucking amazing. You wanna come? I kind of can’t stop thinking about you all sunburned and pretty sitting out there in the country. It’s the weekend after next. If Shaan can talk to Zahra or somebody about flying you into Austin, we can pick you up from there. Say yes? Yrs, Alex P.S. Allen Ginsberg to Peter Orlovsky—1958: Tho I long for the actual sunlight contact between us I miss you like a home. Shine back honey & think of me.

McQuiston, Casey. Red, White & Royal Blue: A Novel (pp. 243-245). St. Martin's Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Re: A mass of fools and knaves Henry hwales@kensingtonemail.com                8/10/20 8:22 PM to A Alex, If I’m north, I shudder to think where in God’s name we’re going. I’m ruminating on identity and your question about where a person like me comes from, and as best as I can explain it, here’s a story: Once, there was a young prince who was born in a castle. His mother was a princess scholar, and his father was the most handsome, feared knight in all the land. As a boy, people would bring him everything he could ever dream of wanting. The most beautiful silk clothes, ripe fruit from the orangery. At times, he was so happy, he felt he would never grow tired of being a prince. He came from a long, long line of princes, but never before had there been a prince quite like him: born with his heart on the outside of his body. When he was small, his family would smile and laugh and say he would grow out of it one day. But as he grew, it stayed where it was, red and visible and alive. He didn’t mind it very much, but every day, the family’s fear grew that the people of the kingdom would soon notice and turn their backs on the prince. His grandmother, the queen, lived in a high tower, where she spoke only of the other princes, past and present, who were born whole. Then, the prince’s father, the knight, was struck down in battle. The lance tore open his armor and his body and left him bleeding in the dust. And so, when the queen sent new clothes, armor for the prince to parcel his heart away safe, the prince’s mother did not stop her. For she was afraid, now: afraid of her son’s heart torn open too. So the prince wore it, and for many years, he believed it was right. Until he met the most devastatingly gorgeous peasant boy from a nearby village who said absolutely ghastly things to him that made him feel alive for the first time in years and who turned out to be the most mad sort of sorcerer, one who could conjure up things like gold and vodka shots and apricot tarts out of absolutely nothing, and the prince’s whole life went up in a puff of dazzling purple smoke, and the kingdom said, “I can’t believe we’re all so surprised.” I’m in for the lake house. I must admit, I’m glad you’re getting out of the house. I worry you may burn the thing down. Does this mean I’ll be meeting your father? I miss you. x Henry P.S. This is mortifying and maudlin and, honestly, I hope you forget it as soon as you’ve read it. P.P.S. From Henry James to Hendrik C. Andersen, 1899: May the terrific U.S.A. be meanwhile not a brute to you. I feel in you a confidence, dear Boy–which to show is a joy to me. My hopes and desires and sympathies right heartily and most firmly, go with you. So keep up your heart, and tell me, as it shapes itself, your (inevitably, I imagine, more or less weird) American story. May, at any rate, tutta quella gente be good to you.

McQuiston, Casey. Red, White & Royal Blue: A Novel (pp. 245-247). St. Martin's Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[burningvelvet]

thoughts on charlotte brontë's shirley so far (currently 1/5th of the way through)

- what's up with charlotte and her obsession with french people???

- i love the history of luddism but the political subplot of this novel is really making me mentally check out at times lol — how do you make this subject boring! i know i'm only on chapter eight but i honestly feel like so little has happened so far since i'm barely retaining anything due to the slowness of everything — villette was slow but had more interesting characters which kept my interest imo, and jane eyre was interesting and never slow (maybe a little in the beginning, but when it picked up it picked up quick). but this! i really hope this novel picks up when caroline and shirley bond - i think it will

- caroline forcing her cousin to read shakespeare like bible study and specifically choosing coriolanus for him to teach him moral, ethical, and political lessons... slay

- the three fuckboys coming to tea...

- i know the uncle is a giant asshole and sexist asf but when he was hating on marriage and was like "yeah no one should ever get married. especially not women. most couples are miserable." this was an example of the "the worst person you know just made a great point" meme in action

- no strong feelings about caroline's infatuation but i find it interesting to think about how cousins used to get married and/or fall in love with each other all the time and that was considered totally normal & now it's considered the most taboo thing in the world

- "The other day I put into her hands a volume of short fugitive pieces." Knowing Charlotte was such a Byron stan, and this takes place in his era, I'm assuming this was a reference to his work of the same name... my whole goal at this point is to pick apart the Byron references in the Brontë works — Anne is in the lead for quoting him in one of the best passages of Agnes Grey, though Emily takes the title of "creator of the most Byronic Byronic Hero," despite Charlotte being the biggest Byron stan of the three, to the point she not only read all his works and biographies, but drew fanart of one of her characters (Alexander Soult) that was based off him using a picture of him for reference lol

- the below passage reminds me so much of jane eyre:

[pub-lius]

do you know how hamilton felt about the madison-hamilton fallout? just realized everything i know about it is from madison’s perspective

oho boy do i

This has actually been a subject of interest of mine since I read The Three Lives of James Madison by Noah Feldman (great book, highly recommend). In the study of Alexander Hamilton, this is a crucial event that would define his proceeding political actions.

For some background for those who may not know what anon is referencing, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison were colleagues and "friends" (if you could call it that) from their time in the Confederation Congress until Hamilton submitted his financial plan to Congress, which was all in all about a decade. In that time, they lobbied for a convention to revise the Articles of Confederation, worked together in the Constitutional Convention, and wrote The Federalist papers together in defense of strong federal government together. The Federalist was like the manifesto of the Federalist party, which placed Hamilton at the head of that party, and, arguably, James Madison as well, until he switched to the Democratic Republican party.

Hamilton's experience was far different from Madison's, just in general, but especially when it came to close friendships between men. The closest relationship he had before James Madison was with John Laurens, who we know died tragically in 1782. Although we are all aware of my feelings on rat bastard Ron Chernow, I thought that this excerpt of his biography of Hamilton described this point very well.

"[Laurens'] death deprived Hamilton of the political peer, the steadfast colleague, that he was to need in his tempestuous battles to consolidate the union. He would enjoy a brief collaboration with James Madison... But he was more of a solitary crusader without Laurens, lacking an intimate lifelong ally such as Madison and Jefferson found in each other," (Alexander Hamilton, Chernow 172-73)

As Chernow mentioned, James Madison was already closely associated with Thomas Jefferson, who he kept well appraised of the circumstances in America while Jefferson was serving a diplomatic position in France. In my personal opinion, I think it was largely due to this that Madison began to attack Hamilton later on, since as soon as Jefferson arrived back from Paris, Madison suddenly had severe moral oppositions to Hamilton's plan, rather than just rational apprehension.

I also want to touch on Hamilton's perspective in their friendship, along with their fallout, specifically when it comes to The Federalist. Hamilton put such a high value on his work, and he held himself to a very high standard. There are a couple instances of him outsourcing his work to other men he admired, such as his last political stance, that the truth of an accusation can be used in libel cases. He asked several men to help him in writing a larger treatise on the matter than what he was able to make (due to yk the bullet that got put in his diaphragm), but these weren't just his friends. These men were very crucial figures in American law, which shows that, unlike men like Jefferson, he was very selective in who he chose to associate with when it came to his work.

This wasn't any different in 1787. When he chose John Jay and James Madison to assist in writing The Federalist, his reasons for both had nothing to do with their personal relationships. Jay was one of the most successful legal minds of the new country, and James Madison, was not only a Virginian, but was an absolute genius and fucking workhorse. If you like him or not, or if you like the Constitution or not, its undeniable that the Virginia Plan was absolute fucking genius, and Hamilton knew that.

This also shows a great amount of trust in Madison. Hamilton was an incredibly untrusting dude. He kept most of his emotions and personality away from work, and really the only people who knew who he was entirely were close family, one or two family friends included. They were the only people who knew his background, which is directly tied into his work, which was the most important thing to him. Without his work, in his eyes, he would have nothing. So for him to trust Madison with something he and the world viewed as one of his most important contributions to American history, that was incredibly significant.

Also I should mention that Hamilton definitely knew how important The Federalist would be, and this is clear in his introductory essay, which is confirmed that he himself wrote.

One thing that any Hamilton historians will agree on is that he was so set in his ways. If there was a moral or philosophical question before him, he would think about it constantly, consult his books and his peers, and once he decided on his stance, there was little to no chance of changing that. The Federalist are, if not anything else, the basis of Hamilton's political thinking. Hamilton, being the arrogant bitch that he was, assumed that every other genius would be equally steadfast in their beliefs.

But James Madison was different in that regard. He was also very tied in with his state's interest, as well as that of the planter class. Hamilton also had a strong bias towards his state and class, but not with the same attitude as someone who was born into it.

Therefore, when Madison openly opposed his Report on Public Credit with a speech in the House of Representatives, Hamilton viewed it as a deep betrayal of his trust, his work, and his principles. Hamilton saw this as a devastating insult to everything he stood for by someone he thought he could completely rely on. This was the 18th century burn book.

That speech immediately kicked off Hamilton lobbying to oppose Madison's counter-proposal, which he won because, frankly, Madison hadn't been expecting Hamilton to immediately come at him with the full arsenal, but Hamilton didn't half-arsenal anything. It was after that that Hamilton was able to process what had happened. According to one of Hamilton's allies, Manasseh Cutler, Hamilton saw Madison's opposition as "a perfidious desertion of the principles which [Madison] was solemnly pledged to defend." Ouch.

The final break between them was on the subject of the National Bank aspect of Hamilton's plan. This is when Madison redefined himself as a Democratic-Republican with a firm belief in strict construction of the Constitution, giving Hamilton free reign to take out his hurt feelings on him through the art of pussy politics* and this entirely dissolved the friendship that had once been there.

*pussy politics (noun): a form of politics in which grown men act like pussies by only supporting the governmental actions that benefit their families/wealth/land/class/etc. and it is very embarrassing and frustrating to sit through

Hamilton would spend a large part of his career battling Madison, and talking a lot of shit about him, which is what has allowed me to paint this stupid ass picture of two grown men fighting over banks. The personal language that he uses in regards to Madison is very different to the accusatory tone he took with his other enemies, and that in it of itself says a lot, but I hope this was able to shed some light on why Hamilton felt the way he did and what exactly he felt. Again, I love talking about this, so feel free to ask follow up questions!