Adrian Goldsworthy

[sonic]

Yeah ok, but ultimately, how original is any historian's work? To some extent its going to be derivative, because they're basing their efforts on what they've already learned which is pretty much the same as the rest of us since they're looking up the same original texts and tramping around the same sites. Personally I'm not interested whether a particular author is 'clever' or 'run-of-the-mill'. From my perspective, there's every possibility that the author has uncovered some fact I wasn't aware of, and their opinion is as valid as anyone's. Naturally I have my opinion, and it may not agree. So? I know I don't know everything, I know there are people even on this site who can run rings around me on some subjects, but does that bother me? Not a lot. You can learn a subject but understand nothing. Understanding requires you ask questions. If we aren't challenged, then we stagnate, we sit on our laurels. That in my view is a failure, because people who sit on laurels generally become obstructive to those who want to learn and understand more and surely the whole point of this site is to enlighten?

 

Having said all that, I must confess I come across books I won't bother with. There are those pitched at people of a younger age or people entirely ignorant of things Roman. It's not that I discount such works, they do have some value but it's likely I've passed that point, and therefore I tend to conserve my funds for something deeper. As long as there's something I can learn from its pages, that's ok with me. Even if I feel the author's conclusions are hopelessly incorrect it doesn't actually matter because to understand the subject I have to discover why he reached those conclusions. It might just be I'm wrong, and there's been occasions on this site where other people have changed my mind entirely.

 

I am in agreement with this. I have read books in the past where I disagree with the writer over interpretation. I actually like to read these books as they give a different viewpoint to what I believe. In that way, I learn about other people's opinions and can formulate my own views accordingly. I have even been known to change my opinion! However, I dislike books where I am told something that is simply not true - such as a Roman legion had 10,000 men or the like. If I read something along those lines, I find it hard to continue reading, since I am then unsure of where further inaccuracies are incorporated into the text. This makes it hard to accept that author's conclusions: trust is everything in these cases.

 

I especially agree with the comment on people's views stagnating and their becoming resistant to new ideas. If an idea is faulty, it needs to be challenged by discussion and argument based on fact: I do not lay claim to the world's largest brain, but I believe it possible that I - and others like me - can have ideas and opinions worth the same as any so-called specialist. It is up to the specialist to convince me of whether their arguments are based on fact or hypothesis. If it's hypothesis, they need a sound basis for their judgement.

 

Goldsworthy gives - or makes the attempt to give - his readers the opinions and judgements of previous 'experts'. He then leaves you to make up your own mind. The difficulty with some of the more 'creative' historians is that they tend to only give their side of an argument, relying instead on blinding the reader with the infallibility of their case. The only time they give the opposite view is where they feel they have a strong case to refute it. This can lead to a biased inerpretation of the sources and may influence people who don't know the sources well enough to dispute the facts.

 

Maybe all of this makes me arrogant, or blinds me to the faults in my own judgements, but that is the reason why I am on this website: I want my opinions challenged by people who have knowledge that I don't, or whose opinions differ from mine but which are still based on valid interpretations of the facts. Authors like Goldsworthy attempt to give you the full spectrum of previous beliefs. To my mind these writers should be treasured, not dismissed as mere 'regurgitators' of fact. Those arguing on these lines are missing the point. Maybe their background reading is so widespread that they can claim that they've read everything that Goldsworthy quotes. For the vast majority of readers this isn't the case, and this explains why Goldsworthy et al are so popular. They allow readers to discuss Roman history with a wider knowledge of the previous opinions, rather than just one person's opinion, whether valid or not.

 

Right, I've gone on enough! I'm outta here!!

Edited April 3, 2008 by sonic

[phil sidnell]

It doesn't matter if that author writes the same old weary passages or covers the same familiar ground - its his bread and butter, his day job.

 

 

Ah, if only that were often the case, my job as a commissioning editor of ancient military history would be oh so much easier. In fact, there are very very few British authors specialising in this field who are lucky enough to be able to support themselves at it as their 'day job'. Most are academics who earn their bread and butter through teaching posts or enthusiastic 'amateurs' with 'ordinary' jobs. I think the fact that Adrian Goldsworthy is virtually unique in Britain in earning his keep by writing ancient military history as his main income suggests he must be doing something right. I only wish I could afford to commission him myself...

 

Oh, and Sonic, you only had to ask for a higher word count. I'll be expecting an extra 40,000 words on the next one then! No extension on the deadline, obviously .

 

Phil Sidnell.

[sonic]

It doesn't matter if that author writes the same old weary passages or covers the same familiar ground - its his bread and butter, his day job.

 

 

Ah, if only that were often the case, my job as a commissioning editor of ancient military history would be oh so much easier. In fact, there are very very few British authors specialising in this field who are lucky enough to be able to support themselves at it as their 'day job'. Most are academics who earn their bread and butter through teaching posts or enthusiastic 'amateurs' with 'ordinary' jobs. I think the fact that Adrian Goldsworthy is virtually unique in Britain in earning his keep by writing ancient military history as his main income suggests he must be doing something right. I only wish I could afford to commission him myself...

 

Oh, and Sonic, you only had to ask for a higher word count. I'll be expecting an extra 40,000 words on the next one then! No extension on the deadline, obviously .

 

Phil Sidnell.

 

Oh *@$%&

Edited April 4, 2008 by sonic

[sonic]

[At the moment he's writing a new book, so lecture tours are pretty much on the back burner. It also depends on who invites him to give a lecture. I know that he still gives papers around the world, but when he'll be back in the US I don't know. I'll ask him next time I speak to him.

 

You know him personally? Thats pretty impressive, how do you know him?

 

Sorry I haven't answered before: very rude of me!

 

Just luck really!! I was at Cardiff University when he was a Research Fellow and I attended the seminars given by Adrian and Louis Rawlings on the 'Republican Army of Polybius'. After that we've kept in touch.

Edited April 4, 2008 by sonic

[P.Clodius]

[At the moment he's writing a new book, so lecture tours are pretty much on the back burner. It also depends on who invites him to give a lecture. I know that he still gives papers around the world, but when he'll be back in the US I don't know. I'll ask him next time I speak to him.

 

You know him personally? Thats pretty impressive, how do you know him?

 

Sorry I haven't answered before: very rude of me!

 

Just luck really!! I was at Cardiff University when he was a Research Fellow and I attended the seminars given by Adrian and Louis Rawlings on the 'Republican Army of Polybius'. After that we've kept in touch.

Well let me tell you, AG would be a most welcome addition to our humble abode, so get cracking...!

[WotWotius]

You seem to assume that all alternative "sides" have already been discovered (by whom I wonder, if not historians?), and historians are merely to regurgitate the arguments that others have presented. I'd say that that's not history--it's elementary school. My view is that the job of an ancient historian (inter alia) is to discover novel re-constructions of events that better fit new and old information. That certainly is the attitude of great historians, like Momssen, Munzer, Meier, Hopkins, Syme, Millar, Brunt, Gruen, and Rosenstein. Each of these figures presented bold new appraisals of the available evidence in light of novel advances in fields like philology, prosopography, archaeology, sociology, economics, demographics, and so on.

 

But being novel for the sake of it, or just to please one particular customer, is of no value except possibly to promote someones career if the guy can get enough media attention for his novel reconstruction. History is about what happened. What might of happened is fun to speculate about (the source of your pleasure, as you describe) but if all you want to read is a list of learned 'what-ifs' then you're not actually dealing in history. Speculation can be very misleading. The UFO genre is based on little else and do you seriously expect me to believe everything these people write? Or that they actually know anything concrete?

 

It seems that the above quotations epitomise a major dichotomy in historical theory.

 

On the one hand, the past, in the abstract sense, cannot be pinned down in the present in its original context; it is an untamed cloud of the

[sonic]

I'm dying to see him lecture, does anyone know where he might in the midwest area, or if he even still does??

 

I've finally talked to him - he's so busy at the moment that it's hard to catch him!!

 

The bad news is that, as he's so busy, the earliest that he can see any lecturing in the US is Autumn (Fall) 2009!!

 

Obviously, this also means that he does not have time to join us here - however nicely I asked him. Maybe in the future, if his lifestyle slows down?

[Antiochus III]

Goldsworthy is an excellent historian, and he is well able to explain things both in depth and in detail. I feel like an expert on the punic wars now that i have read his book about them. Also, his book roman warfare is great, and cannae is good also. He definately uses the term subordinte ally quite a bit, at least in those books.

 

Antiochus III