AGreatDivorce

ACOUP - Practical Polytheism, Part I: Knowledge

Next, I'm moving on to Bret’s four-part look at how ancient polytheistic religious belief systems worked. To start off, he lays a foundation of how ancient polytheism differs from our “pick-and-choose” sense of deity selection often seen in video and tabletop games. Ancient believers didn’t “pick” their gods; rather, what was important to them was knowing how to appease the gods in order to make sure they could get the things they needed. So how was that knowledge learned and passed on?
The text for this recording is from A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, the blog of history professor, Bret Devereaux, whose work you should absolutely support with your eyes, your clicks, and, if you are able, your bucks.
Anyone wishing to engage with Bret, check out these links:
Original post for this recording - https://acoup.blog/2019/10/25/collect...
Dr. Devereaux’s blog, A Collection of UnmitigatedPedantry - https://acoup.blog
Dr. Devereaux’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux
Dr. Devereaux’s Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/user?u=20122096
Episode on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QMsuQJlmGc
 
And if you wish to support me, please like, share, and subscribe!

ACOUP - Oaths! How do they Work?

This time, I’m covering Bret’s religion related posts.To start, I’m covering his one-off analysis of how oaths and vows worked. What were oaths and vows, how did they different, what did they mean to the folks who took them... and how does our modern media often get these mechanics wrong?
The text for this recording is from A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, the blog of history professor, Bret Devereaux, whose work you should absolutely support with your eyes, your clicks, and, if you are able, your bucks.
Anyone wishing to engage with Bret, check out these links:
Original post for this recording - https://acoup.blog/2019/06/28/collect...
Dr. Devereaux’s blog, A Collection of UnmitigatedPedantry - https://acoup.blog
Dr. Devereaux’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux
Dr. Devereaux’s Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/user?u=20122096
Episode on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KQa9MvKrzQ
 
And if you wish to support me, please like, share, and subscribe!

ACOUP - Luigi Cadorna Was The Worst

As a small addendum to his two-parter on No Man’s Land, Bret spends an article going over the endless failures of the World War I general he sees as deserving the moniker “The Worst”: Italian Army Chief of Staff Luigi Cadorna. To support his choice, Bret outlines the numerous failures of Cadorna and what traits, exactly, make him the worst.
The text for this recording is from A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, the blog of history professor, Bret Devereaux, whose work you should absolutely support with your eyes, your clicks, and, if you are able, your bucks.
Anyone wishing to engage with Bret, check out these links:
Original post for this recording - https://acoup.blog/2021/10/08/collect...
Dr. Devereaux’s blog, A Collection of UnmitigatedPedantry - https://acoup.blog
Dr. Devereaux’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux
Dr. Devereaux’s Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/user?u=20122096
Episode on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HBYiQobDDQ
 
And if you wish to support me, please like, share, and subscribe!

ACOUP - No Man’s Land, Part II: Breaking the Stalemate

Here in the second half of his two-part look at World War I trench warfare, Bret turns now to solutions. What solutions were actually tried by generals to break the stalemate, which ones didn’t work... and what was it that finally DID?
The text for this recording is from A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, the blog of history professor, Bret Devereaux, whose work you should absolutely support with your eyes, your clicks, and, if you are able, your bucks.
Anyone wishing to engage with Bret, check out these links:
Original post for this recording - https://acoup.blog/2021/09/24/collect...
Dr. Devereaux’s blog, A Collection of UnmitigatedPedantry - https://acoup.blog
Dr. Devereaux’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux
Dr. Devereaux’s Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/user?u=20122096
Episode on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wECHo5o-ApE
 
And if you wish to support me, please like, share, and subscribe!

ACOUP - No Man’s Land, Part I: The Trench Stalemate

Now, we’re turning to the two-parter of Bret’s analysis of the trench stalemate in WWI. Here, in the first post of his No Man’s Land series, Bret outlines the realities of trench warfare and how they differed from our popular depictions of the western front. Specifically, here he looks at what strategies didn’t work to break the stalemate and why.
The text for this recording is from A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, the blog of history professor, Bret Devereaux, whose work you should absolutely support with your eyes, your clicks, and, if you are able, your bucks.
Anyone wishing to engage with Bret, check out these links:
Original post for this recording - https://acoup.blog/2021/09/17/collect...
Dr. Devereaux’s blog, A Collection of UnmitigatedPedantry - https://acoup.blog
Dr. Devereaux’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux
Dr. Devereaux’s Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/user?u=20122096
Episode on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92GhJaixOqE
 
And if you wish to support me, please like, share, and subscribe!

ACOUP - The Battlefield After the Battle

This time, I’m tackling Bret’s World War I focused uploads. So obviously, I’ll be starting here, where Bret takes a look at film and video game depictions of medieval and ancient battlefields. Why is it that such battlefields are often depicted as muddy, cratered, burning wastelands? And if such a depiction isn’t accurate to history, then where does it come from?
 
The text for this recording is from A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, the blog of history professor, Bret Devereaux, whose work you should absolutely support with your eyes, your clicks, and, if you are able, your bucks.
Anyone wishing to engage with Bret, check out these links:
Original post for this recording - https://acoup.blog/2019/10/18/collect...
Dr. Devereaux’s blog, A Collection of UnmitigatedPedantry - https://acoup.blog
Dr. Devereaux’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux
Dr. Devereaux’s Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/user?u=20122096
Episode on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8-vz1PCERg
 
And if you wish to support me, please like, share, and subscribe!

ACOUP - This. Isn’t. Sparta. Retrospective

I’m throwing this one in as a bonus since the Vicky2 series was a little short. In this post, Bret uses the three-year anniversary of his This. Isn’t. Sparta. series to take a look back at the series and assess how it holds up. Specifically, he first covers the background of his writing the series: what inspired him to do so and what the nature of the scholarship was that he drew from. Then he moves on to address critiques made on the series. 
The text for this recording is from A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, the blog of history professor, Bret Devereaux, whose work you should absolutely support with your eyes, your clicks, and, if you are able, your bucks.
Anyone wishing to engage with Bret, check out these links:
Original post for this recording - https://acoup.blog/2022/08/19/collect...
Dr. Devereaux’s blog, A Collection of UnmitigatedPedantry - https://acoup.blog
Dr. Devereaux’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux
Dr. Devereaux’s Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/user?u=20122096
Episode on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LcFggZYLvg
 
And if you wish to support me, please like, share, and subscribe!

ACOUP - Teaching Paradox, Victoria II, Part III: World’s Fair

Closing out his look at Victoria II, Bret takes a look at a selection of different systems throughout the game and how accurate or flawed their simulation of real historical systems are. Slavery, the Scramble for Africa, colonization all offering varying degrees of accuracy for their real world counterparts, which Bret breaks down topic by topic.
The text for this recording is from A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, the blog of history professor, Bret Devereaux, whose work you should absolutely support with your eyes, your clicks, and, if you are able, your bucks.
Anyone wishing to engage with Bret, check out these links:
Original post for this recording - https://acoup.blog/2021/09/03/collect...
Dr. Devereaux’s blog, A Collection of UnmitigatedPedantry - https://acoup.blog
Dr. Devereaux’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux
Dr. Devereaux’s Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/user?u=20122096
Episode on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQNu-oRewOA
 
And if you wish to support me, please like, share, and subscribe!

ACOUP - Teaching Paradox, Victoria II, Part II: The Ruin of War

Turning now to Victoria II’s treatment of war and peace, Bret examines what the game’s mechanics say about post-industrialized war. Specifically, how the game’s focus on populations and the rising destructiveness of warfare, combine to create a simulation where war becomes increasingly larger, increasingly more brutal, and increasingly not worth it... but the incentives driving the players to war, still push them towards global conflict.
The text for this recording is from A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, the blog of history professor, Bret Devereaux, whose work you should absolutely support with your eyes, your clicks, and, if you are able, your bucks.
Anyone wishing to engage with Bret, check out these links:
Original post for this recording - https://acoup.blog/2021/08/20/collect...
Dr. Devereaux’s blog, A Collection of UnmitigatedPedantry - https://acoup.blog
Dr. Devereaux’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux
Dr. Devereaux’s Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/user?u=20122096
Episode on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZWe6eTcaTU
 
And if you wish to support me, please like, share, and subscribe!

ACOUP - Teaching Paradox, Victoria II, Part I: Mechanics and Gears

This time, I’m tackling the second of Bret’s Teaching Paradox superseries. This one, a three-part look at Victoria II. To begin, Bret outlines Vicky2’s differences in historical time frame as well as game design philosophy before moving on to discuss the game’s focus on populations, rather than states, and its particular focus on the effects (good and bad) of the industrial revolution.
Just a head's up: It will be a while (as in a few months) before I post anything related to Bret's recently wrapped up Teaching Paradox series on Crusader Kings III. I record and schedule these bundles of narrations months in advance (save the occasional one-offs), and when I scheduled this series, the CKIII posts had not yet been started. Now, as this is coming out, the whole series is done! So, it will be a bit before they appear in my feed. 
The text for this recording is from A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, the blog of history professor, Bret Devereaux, whose work you should absolutely support with your eyes, your clicks, and, if you are able, your bucks.
Anyone wishing to engage with Bret, check out these links:
Original post for this recording - https://acoup.blog/2021/08/13/collect...
Dr. Devereaux’s blog, A Collection of UnmitigatedPedantry - https://acoup.blog
Dr. Devereaux’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux
Dr. Devereaux’s Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/user?u=20122096
Episode on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQLGVvCU8qc
 
And if you wish to support me, please like, share, and subscribe!