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A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
Personal blog · acoup.bloghistoryculture
A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry is a personal blog at acoup.blog about history and culture. Since 2019, 510 different Hacker News readers have linked it 1,268 times, most often “War at the Dawn of Civilization”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 4 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Bret Devereaux's acoup.blog for history that corrects popular myths about ancient and medieval life, from Rome and Sparta to chemical weapons and peasant work. It is often recommended as a weekly read.
- Recommended for · 4 comments
- Praised as a weekly history blog that covers popular media like GoT and EU4, and for its iron-working series.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
A look at history and popular culture
Most-linked posts?
- War at the Dawn of Civilization47 people · 51 mentions · first linked 2020-02-07
- Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore?42 people · 59 mentions · first linked 2020-03-20
- Why no Roman industrial revolution?36 people · 50 mentions · first linked 2022-08-26
- Bread, How Did They Make It?32 people · 37 mentions · first linked 2020-07-24
- A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry – A look at history and popular culture29 people · 31 mentions · first linked 2020-05-28
- Spartan School (2019)22 people · 23 mentions · first linked 2019-11-10
- Collections: Strategic Airpower 10119 people · 20 mentions · first linked 2022-10-21
- Iron, How Did They Make It? Part I, Mining18 people · 19 mentions · first linked 2020-09-18
- 1933 and the Definition of Fascism14 people · 21 mentions · first linked 2024-10-26
- Rome: Decline and Fall Pt 1: Words12 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2022-01-14
What Hacker News says?
I am not making a statement about the quality of life of poor people in the modern world. I do not think however that from a food security standpoint they are more precarious. I am fairly confident that the longer hours thing is false. Unless we are assuming like 70+ hours of work a week. https://acoup.blog/2025/08/22/collections-life-work-death-an... You can read https://acoup.blog/2025/09/05/collections-life-work-…
Comment linking /2025/09/05/collections-life-work-death-and-the-peasant-part-ivb-working-days/
on “Patrick Stewart has died”Submitted Why Archers Didn't Volley Fire as a story · 513 points
HN discussionA useful series of posts that thoroughly debunk this quote/meme. https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-...
Comment linking /2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-i-war-at-the-dawn-of-civilization/
on “Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders attack”Submitted Why no Roman industrial revolution? as a story · 509 points
HN discussionBret Deveraux is a PHD historian and a critic of Pressfield. He picks apart his argument for "universal warrior" and concludes it has an ideology behind it. The ideology is fascism. https://acoup.blog/2021/02/19/collections-the-universal-warr... edit: the earlier version of my post used the word "agenda" instead of "ideology", but that was a bit unfair given Bret himself gives Pressfield benefit of doubt. This artic…
Comment linking /2021/02/19/collections-the-universal-warrior-part-iii-the-cult-of-the-badass/comment-page-1/
on “The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday”Submitted Understanding the War in Ukraine as a story · 429 points
HN discussionI urge you to read this: https://acoup.blog/2024/10/25/new-acquisitions-1933-and-the-...
Comment linking /2024/10/25/new-acquisitions-1933-and-the-definition-of-fascism/
on “Trump wins presidency for second time”Submitted The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics as a story · 404 points
HN discussionTrue that the US's share of global GDP is lower than it has been. But there are many other ways to measure its power (and dominance), so it is easy to argue about this between reasonable people. Rather than make any specific point, I'd recommend acoup's detailed post about the US's overwhelming dominance across a huge swath of areas: https://acoup.blog/2022/07/08/collections-is-the-united-stat... I think he makes a…
Comment linking /2022/07/08/collections-is-the-united-states-exceptional/
on “The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE”Submitted Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications as a story · 352 points
HN discussion> Yes, I hold the "America is not a nation-state" perspective. I generally like the analysis by Bret Devereaux on this topic ( https://acoup.blog/2021/07/02/collections-my-country-isnt-a- ...), but if that's not convincing I don't have anything to argue this point on beyond my own experiences that "American" is a "civic group" but not a "national group". So, we'll just have to agree to disagree there. But that's def…
Comment linking /2021/07/02/collections-my-country-isnt-a-
on “IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites”Submitted Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction as a story · 334 points
HN discussionYes, I hold the "America is not a nation-state" perspective. I generally like the analysis by Bret Devereaux on this topic ( https://acoup.blog/2021/07/02/collections-my-country-isnt-a-... ), but if that's not convincing I don't have anything to argue this point on beyond my own experiences that "American" is a "civic group" but not a "national group". So, we'll just have to agree to disagree there. It doesn't reall…
Comment linking /2021/07/02/collections-my-country-isnt-a-nation/
on “IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites”Submitted How the weak can win – A primer on protracted war as a story · 316 points
HN discussion>> They are not used because somehow all countries pretty much agreed they’re way TOO effective and horrific That’s the story but it doesn’t hold up. Chemical weapons were used as recently as the Syrian civil war. I also think if they were really effective in modern warfare, Russia would have long ago deployed them in Ukraine. More here: https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...
Comment linking /2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-chemical-weapons-anymore/
on “Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment”Submitted Iron, How Did They Make It, Addendum: Crucible Steel and Cast Iron as a story · 281 points
HN discussionBrett Devereaux talks about this in relation to the Mongols and other nomads. Yes they didn’t “own” land but if you trespassed on their grazing pastures they would absolutely use violence against you: https://acoup.blog/2020/12/04/collections-that-dothraki-hord... The notion of a lack of land ownership is just fetishization.
Comment linking /2020/12/04/collections-that-dothraki-horde-part-i-barbarian-couture/
on “Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs”Submitted Iron, How Did They Make It? Part I, Mining as a story · 272 points
HN discussionNot in an obvious way, but "meninist" far right is obsessed with the whole "Rome was great until them libruls ruined it" trope. Ironically, Rome was actually unusually diverse for its times, and not just by virtue of having conquered so many different peoples: https://acoup.blog/2021/06/11/collections-the-queens-latin-o...
Comment linking /2021/06/11/collections-the-queens-latin-or-who-were-the-romans-part-i-beginnings-and-legends/
on “Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs”Submitted Iron, How Did They Make It? Part II as a story · 263 points
HN discussionYour first point, sad as it is, reminded me of this article I read, which gives clarity on how child soldiers are made in a way that I haven't read elsewhere, despite reading books on exactly that subject https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p... Not related, but I'll just close by saying I didn't have the same respect that I now have for rotating shafts at industrial facilities until I saw som…
Comment linking /2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-i-spartan-school/
on “LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online”Submitted The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part V: Ladders Are Chaos as a story · 260 points
HN discussionApart from the fact that the article doesn't support the point you're trying to make, as pointed out by other answers, historically, we have an excellent example of an extremely successful empire that embraced diversity and stuck around for, depending on how you look, a couple of millennia, namely Rome. Embracing diversity was a key factor in how Rome managed to expand and conquer it's (typically significantly xenop…
Comment linking /2021/06/11/collections-the-queens-latin-or-who-were-the-romans-part-i-beginnings-and-legends/
on “Arm China Has Gone Rogue”Submitted Rome: Decline and Fall? Part III: Things as a story · 225 points
HN discussionIt's funny - you're both right. Peasants (over 90% of the society) were usually working less hours but much harder than we do. And they were living in much worse conditions of course. Farming (especially without modern technology) is very cyclical, most of the time you have too much labour and too little land/food. Then for a few months you have too few people to do everything that needs to be done. And there was no…
Comment linking /2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-farmers/
on “Animation of how bridges were built in Central Europe in the Middle Ages [video]”Submitted Rome: Decline and Fall? Part II: Institutions as a story · 225 points
HN discussionA bit more detail on the subject of historical coinage and the place of gold in it: https://acoup.blog/2025/01/03/collections-coinage-and-the-ty...
Comment linking /2025/01/03/collections-coinage-and-the-tyranny-of-fantasy-gold/
on “El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender”Submitted Iron, How Did They Make It, Part IVa: Steel Yourself as a story · 218 points
HN discussion> Dictator was appointed by congress in times of crisis. A dictator was appointed by a consul, at the direction of the Senate, with the job of solving a specific problem. The history of the dictatorship in ancient Rome, before Sulla, is really interesting, and differs quite a bit from the popular understanding: https://acoup.blog/2022/03/18/collections-the-roman-dictator...
Comment linking /2022/03/18/collections-the-roman-dictatorship-how-did-it-work-did-it-work
on “Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election”Submitted Logistics, How Did They Do It, Part III: On the Move as a story · 216 points
HN discussion
