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Book Reviews by Trevor J Davis
De Rei Militari, 2022
The crusades are a source of nearly constant and perennial fascination for scholars and a wide se... more The crusades are a source of nearly constant and perennial fascination for scholars and a wide section of the public. The complex mixture of medieval politics, warfare, and religious idealism, coupled with debates over the relevance of medieval holy wars to modern conflicts, has effectively enshrined the crusades as an important fixture of medieval scholarship. Indeed, every year sees the publication of new books on the crusades, ranging from narrative histories aimed at popular audiences to specialist monographs for other scholars. By contrast, books specifically focused on the history of the Crusader States of Outremerthe Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Principality of Antioch, the Counties of Edessa and Tripolitend to generate far less buzz and interest, particularly outside of academia, leaving the study of Frankish Outremer as the purview of specialized historians and archeologists. Helena P. Schrader's newly published The Holy Land in the Era of the Crusades: Kingdoms at the Crossroads of Civilizations, 1100-1300 aims to rectify this dearth of popular literature by writing an accessible book aimed at amateur hobbyists and college undergraduatesan admirable goal, considering the difficulty in accessing specialized academic studies on the history of Frankish Outremer. However, while the resulting work is not without merit, it unfortunately has significant flaws that prevent it from being easily recommended without substantial caveats and corrections. Schrader is not a crusades historian by profession; she earned her PhD in history at the University of Hamburg, where her research primarily focused on the life and career of Gen. Felix Olbricht (a participant within the July 20 th 1944 plot against Adolf Hitler). She has since written extensively about the crusades (among other historical topics) in the context of historical fiction, and this marks her first foray into writing a non-fiction book on either the Crusaders or the Crusader States. Her experience in writing historical fiction is evident in her prose, which is concise, elegant, and generally straightforwardall virtues when writing for a popular audience, although this can come at the cost of specificity and nuance. In terms of internal structure, the book is divided into ten chapters, not including the introduction, a small concluding chapter, end notes, and a bibliography of recommended readings; these are supported by some (truly excellent) maps, examples of period art, dynastic family trees, and artistic reconstructions of archeological findings, all of which contribute to the attractiveness of the work and provide useful assistance to an amateur or undergraduate reader.
De Rei Militari, 2020
In this excellent monograph, Peter Purton endeavors to shed new light on the important role of mi... more In this excellent monograph, Peter Purton endeavors to shed new light on the important role of military engineers in medieval warfare. Rather than focus on the fairly well-known technical accomplishments of medieval architects and engineers, this study is devoted primarily to uncovering the elusive individuals who designed and produced these formidable devices, the means they used to create them, as well as the avenues by which professional knowledge was transmitted and developed by successive generations of engineers. Purton ambitiously seeks to cover technological and intellectual developments in Europe from the 5th century Roman empire up through the beginning of the 16th century, with some coverage (where relevant) of similar events in the Islamic world. Given that most medieval architects and engineers remain anonymous (given the scant explicit mention of them in most of the primary sources), this is an ambitious task, but Purton does a remarkable job of scouring chronicles, military manuals, pipe rolls, and other primary sources to try and draw as full a sketch as possible of medieval military engineers and their craft.
Papers by Trevor J Davis
Religion and World Civilizations: How Faith Shaped Societies from Antiquity to the Present, ed. Andrew Holt. , 2023
“Crusader States – Missionary Efforts”; “Medieval Europe (1000-1450) - Christianity and the Found... more “Crusader States – Missionary Efforts”; “Medieval Europe (1000-1450) - Christianity and the Founding of Medieval Universities”; "Witch Hunts”; and “Enlightenment Critique of Religion”; “Platonic Influences on Christianity”; “Christian Missionary Efforts in China”; “Founding and Influence of Cluny Monastery”; “Founding of Pennsylvania”; “Creation of the Underground Catholic Church in China”; “Francis Xavier’s Mission to Japan (1549)”; “Tokugawa Shogunate’s Anti-Christian Policies”; and “Impact of the New Laws of 1542”.
Medieval Warfare Magazine, 2022
Teaching Documents by Trevor J Davis
Course Description/Objectives This course serves as a survey of the history of ideas in the conte... more Course Description/Objectives
This course serves as a survey of the history of ideas in the context of modern western civilization and culture. At the heart of our investigation will be the question of what we mean by modern not merely as a reference to a specific historical epoch (i.e., the recent past and present), but as an intellectual concept that can be distinguished from the “premodern” (distant) past. If historians often use the term “modern” to denote recent events, the word also contains strong cultural connotations of progress, a term that permeates both our contemporary intellectual and cultural discourse - after all, who wants to be described as “ancient” or “medieval”?
We will investigate this shift in perspective through the lenses of cultural and intellectual history, using a mixture of relevant scholarship and primary sources, with particular reference to three specific sub-topics:
1. Defining and understanding distinctively modern ideas (i.e, natural/human rights, the Cartesian concept of the tabula rasa, or Hobbes’ notion of the “state of nature,” for example) and understanding the particular philosophers and schools of thought who contributed to their creation and development.
2. The proliferation of skepticism of all kinds in modern Western societies not simply in intellectual and academic discourse, but in popular culture and social life.
3. The emergence and proliferation of pseudo-historical mythologies that offer compelling and widely adopted (if often dubious) explanations for what, exactly, distinguishes the modern epoch from pre-modern history (i.e., the “Conflict Thesis” that originated within Enlightenment polemics to distinguish between the “superstitious” and “savage” world of premodernity versus the “rational” and “scientific” modern world: the “flat earth,” for example, and its association with a barbaric medieval past, in contrast with a more rational and scientific present).
(MSU) Course Description/Objectives This course serves as a survey of world history from 1500 A.D... more (MSU) Course Description/Objectives This course serves as a survey of world history from 1500 A.D. up to the present. Our course will begin by examining the Early Modern period, with the rise of nation states and European empires that vied for power in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, frequently coming into contact (militarily, economically, and culturally) with civilizations that had previously been far removed or completely unknown to Europeans of earlier centuries. Then, we will consider the nineteenth century and the transformative power of the Industrial Revolution, which intensified competition among these increasingly global empires as they competed for resources and territory to fuel their economic and military expansion. Industrialization also would inspire a strong reaction by relative newcomers to the world stage (such as Germany, the United States, and Japan) that would come into conflict with older imperial powers such as France, Britain, Spain, and Russia as they sought to carve out their own empires on the global stage. This will then enable us to evaluate the historical context of the great-power conflicts and socioeconomic changes wrought by the World Wars and the Cold War, with competing military alliances being supplanted by the hegemonic superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union from 1945 onwards. Our examination of modern history will help us understand the context of our current historical moment, as well as to interpret how these events and processes occurred within their own historical context. As such, students should expect to become acquainted with key developments, events, figures, and processes in world history from 1500 to the present.
Dual Credit course syllabus for the second half of the standard US History survey course.
Syllabus for Dual Credit US History (1133) - Midwestern State University / Founders Classical Aca... more Syllabus for Dual Credit US History (1133) - Midwestern State University / Founders Classical Academy of Corinth.
De Rei Militari, 2022
The crusades are a source of nearly constant and perennial fascination for scholars and a wide se... more The crusades are a source of nearly constant and perennial fascination for scholars and a wide section of the public. The complex mixture of medieval politics, warfare, and religious idealism, coupled with debates over the relevance of medieval holy wars to modern conflicts, has effectively enshrined the crusades as an important fixture of medieval scholarship. Indeed, every year sees the publication of new books on the crusades, ranging from narrative histories aimed at popular audiences to specialist monographs for other scholars. By contrast, books specifically focused on the history of the Crusader States of Outremerthe Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Principality of Antioch, the Counties of Edessa and Tripolitend to generate far less buzz and interest, particularly outside of academia, leaving the study of Frankish Outremer as the purview of specialized historians and archeologists. Helena P. Schrader's newly published The Holy Land in the Era of the Crusades: Kingdoms at the Crossroads of Civilizations, 1100-1300 aims to rectify this dearth of popular literature by writing an accessible book aimed at amateur hobbyists and college undergraduatesan admirable goal, considering the difficulty in accessing specialized academic studies on the history of Frankish Outremer. However, while the resulting work is not without merit, it unfortunately has significant flaws that prevent it from being easily recommended without substantial caveats and corrections. Schrader is not a crusades historian by profession; she earned her PhD in history at the University of Hamburg, where her research primarily focused on the life and career of Gen. Felix Olbricht (a participant within the July 20 th 1944 plot against Adolf Hitler). She has since written extensively about the crusades (among other historical topics) in the context of historical fiction, and this marks her first foray into writing a non-fiction book on either the Crusaders or the Crusader States. Her experience in writing historical fiction is evident in her prose, which is concise, elegant, and generally straightforwardall virtues when writing for a popular audience, although this can come at the cost of specificity and nuance. In terms of internal structure, the book is divided into ten chapters, not including the introduction, a small concluding chapter, end notes, and a bibliography of recommended readings; these are supported by some (truly excellent) maps, examples of period art, dynastic family trees, and artistic reconstructions of archeological findings, all of which contribute to the attractiveness of the work and provide useful assistance to an amateur or undergraduate reader.
De Rei Militari, 2020
In this excellent monograph, Peter Purton endeavors to shed new light on the important role of mi... more In this excellent monograph, Peter Purton endeavors to shed new light on the important role of military engineers in medieval warfare. Rather than focus on the fairly well-known technical accomplishments of medieval architects and engineers, this study is devoted primarily to uncovering the elusive individuals who designed and produced these formidable devices, the means they used to create them, as well as the avenues by which professional knowledge was transmitted and developed by successive generations of engineers. Purton ambitiously seeks to cover technological and intellectual developments in Europe from the 5th century Roman empire up through the beginning of the 16th century, with some coverage (where relevant) of similar events in the Islamic world. Given that most medieval architects and engineers remain anonymous (given the scant explicit mention of them in most of the primary sources), this is an ambitious task, but Purton does a remarkable job of scouring chronicles, military manuals, pipe rolls, and other primary sources to try and draw as full a sketch as possible of medieval military engineers and their craft.
Religion and World Civilizations: How Faith Shaped Societies from Antiquity to the Present, ed. Andrew Holt. , 2023
“Crusader States – Missionary Efforts”; “Medieval Europe (1000-1450) - Christianity and the Found... more “Crusader States – Missionary Efforts”; “Medieval Europe (1000-1450) - Christianity and the Founding of Medieval Universities”; "Witch Hunts”; and “Enlightenment Critique of Religion”; “Platonic Influences on Christianity”; “Christian Missionary Efforts in China”; “Founding and Influence of Cluny Monastery”; “Founding of Pennsylvania”; “Creation of the Underground Catholic Church in China”; “Francis Xavier’s Mission to Japan (1549)”; “Tokugawa Shogunate’s Anti-Christian Policies”; and “Impact of the New Laws of 1542”.
Medieval Warfare Magazine, 2022
Course Description/Objectives This course serves as a survey of the history of ideas in the conte... more Course Description/Objectives
This course serves as a survey of the history of ideas in the context of modern western civilization and culture. At the heart of our investigation will be the question of what we mean by modern not merely as a reference to a specific historical epoch (i.e., the recent past and present), but as an intellectual concept that can be distinguished from the “premodern” (distant) past. If historians often use the term “modern” to denote recent events, the word also contains strong cultural connotations of progress, a term that permeates both our contemporary intellectual and cultural discourse - after all, who wants to be described as “ancient” or “medieval”?
We will investigate this shift in perspective through the lenses of cultural and intellectual history, using a mixture of relevant scholarship and primary sources, with particular reference to three specific sub-topics:
1. Defining and understanding distinctively modern ideas (i.e, natural/human rights, the Cartesian concept of the tabula rasa, or Hobbes’ notion of the “state of nature,” for example) and understanding the particular philosophers and schools of thought who contributed to their creation and development.
2. The proliferation of skepticism of all kinds in modern Western societies not simply in intellectual and academic discourse, but in popular culture and social life.
3. The emergence and proliferation of pseudo-historical mythologies that offer compelling and widely adopted (if often dubious) explanations for what, exactly, distinguishes the modern epoch from pre-modern history (i.e., the “Conflict Thesis” that originated within Enlightenment polemics to distinguish between the “superstitious” and “savage” world of premodernity versus the “rational” and “scientific” modern world: the “flat earth,” for example, and its association with a barbaric medieval past, in contrast with a more rational and scientific present).
(MSU) Course Description/Objectives This course serves as a survey of world history from 1500 A.D... more (MSU) Course Description/Objectives This course serves as a survey of world history from 1500 A.D. up to the present. Our course will begin by examining the Early Modern period, with the rise of nation states and European empires that vied for power in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, frequently coming into contact (militarily, economically, and culturally) with civilizations that had previously been far removed or completely unknown to Europeans of earlier centuries. Then, we will consider the nineteenth century and the transformative power of the Industrial Revolution, which intensified competition among these increasingly global empires as they competed for resources and territory to fuel their economic and military expansion. Industrialization also would inspire a strong reaction by relative newcomers to the world stage (such as Germany, the United States, and Japan) that would come into conflict with older imperial powers such as France, Britain, Spain, and Russia as they sought to carve out their own empires on the global stage. This will then enable us to evaluate the historical context of the great-power conflicts and socioeconomic changes wrought by the World Wars and the Cold War, with competing military alliances being supplanted by the hegemonic superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union from 1945 onwards. Our examination of modern history will help us understand the context of our current historical moment, as well as to interpret how these events and processes occurred within their own historical context. As such, students should expect to become acquainted with key developments, events, figures, and processes in world history from 1500 to the present.
Dual Credit course syllabus for the second half of the standard US History survey course.
Syllabus for Dual Credit US History (1133) - Midwestern State University / Founders Classical Aca... more Syllabus for Dual Credit US History (1133) - Midwestern State University / Founders Classical Academy of Corinth.