Book launch TOMORROW at @bplmaps.bsky.social!!! 🏠

Always good to hear some positive-ish things about a weird computational spatial analysis paper one wrote for a volume on Nikephoros II. deremilitari.org/2025/10/geor...

"... Canada’s billionaires are siphoning off for themselves an ever-larger share of the nation’s wealth, at the expense of the rest of us." Exciting to see a new @lindamcquaig.bsky.social book on the horizon! www.dundurn.com/books_/t2211...

Just a quick reminder that we are still eagerly awaiting your paper proposals for the next IMC! ⏰🎓👇 @imc-leeds.bsky.social

Burg on the Berg in Bergland

Very excited to spread the news that @ryan1992reading.bsky.social and I are organising a session for the Leeds IMC next year on political culture in the High Middle Ages! Please drop us a message if interested and share widely.

For the EU, this should be a very urgent matter of national security. All EU member states should build on Denmark's wise strategy to phase out Microsoft products

"...every single one of these concessions to Trump—from axing the Digital Services Tax to slashing environmental regulations for extractive industries to massively increasing military spending—is also a concession to the corporate agenda of the Business Council and its members..."

Sounds good. "They've warned that a single lawsuit raised by three authors over Anthropic's AI training now threatens to "financially ruin" the entire AI industry if up to 7 million claimants end up joining the litigation and forcing a settlement." arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

Canada has bent over backwards to meet Trump's demands—on defence spending, border security, taxation, and foreign policy—yet the tariffs keep coming. If free trade means surrendering sovereignty with no return, maybe it's time to walk away.

"Bill C-2 isn’t just a domestic surveillance bill. It’s a Trojan horse for U.S. law enforcement—quietly building the pipes to ship Canadians’ private data straight to Washington." www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...

A gigantic stack of copyedits to read through over the weekend!

A semi-serious question: why are medieval lions moustachioed?

Beyond just the exciting news about the book, Krisztina has joined Bluesky so you should give her a follow, and doubly-so if you're interested in Italy, chess, or the Global Middle Ages!

Here to spread the word that my book, 'The Sons of St Augustine', is now on OUP's site. 📕🎉 Forthcoming in November/December 2025: global.oup.com/academic/pro...

When did Bertha of Sulzbach die, the first empress of Manuel I Komnenos? And why should you care? The answer is it matters a great deal because diplomacy with the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Principality of Antioch, and the Sultanate of Rum hinge on it. For more: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The experience of an eleventh-century English abbot, or just a normal day at Rome Termini? You decide.

Was discussing the enshittification of everything, but then opened the Wikipedia page on Manuel I Komnenos and recalled that some things were just always terrible.

If your in-house citation style does not include journal issue numbers, do not pass go, do not collect $200, go straight to jail and reflect on your crime.

“The joke goes that Canada is three companies in a trench coat.” @nolore.bsky.social's CORPORATE CONTROL takes a hard but necessary look at all the ways Canadian democracy is challenged by the country’s most powerful corporations. Get a copy here: buff.ly/m7PFzGS   #Booksky #Canada #Politics

Download TR 25.05 from our website: www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/downloads/ma... Or from Morrowind Nexus: www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mo... Release Trailer: youtu.be/i7Ufn_da_-c

First time buying a used book that happens to have the ex libris of a famous scholar on the inside.

A Byzantine woman I wish we knew more about was Agathe, third daughter of Constantine VII. Theophanes Continuatus reports that she liaised between the emperor and his officials and took care of him when ill. She seems powerful and important.

⏰️ Join us tomorrow for our next seminar! 👀 And check back on our account later this week for am extra seminar taking place in May!

I decided I should read all the published Venetian commercial documents that involve Byzantium. Take-aways: 1. My Latin is rusty and I know nothing about diplomatics. 2. Ship captains have weird names? 3. There are a dozen docs about one trip to Alexandria and not one hint about the cargo.

The 2002 videogame Morrowind was about a crumbling empire hubristically sowing the seeds of its own destruction. Definitely not relevant today.

Is Andor dropping three episodes a week because they don't think America is going to make it another full twelve weeks?

When Canada's best foreign affairs correspondent is saying things like this we are really in trouble.

University leadership: “unable to think and speak clearly about the nature of academic freedom and its relationship to a wider political society and who have been inept at political speech. This is no surprise since they have been elevated for their fundraising and managerial skills.”

Seeing a lot of fellow Canadians pleased that Carney is going to review the F-35, but don't forget that every time politicians get involved in big procurements it's a disaster, and if we don't patrol the north, the Americans will, Canadian sovereignty be damned. www.dundurn.com/books_/t2211...

And we have a cover!

It feels like I've been waiting forever to use @drdragases.bsky.social's best meme.

Publication day! My article 'Manuel I Komnenos’ policy towards the sultanate of Rum and John Kontostephanos’ embassies to Jerusalem, 1159–61' appeared in 'Crusades'. Did John Kontostephanos go to the Holy Land once or twice? I use this to look at Byzantine grand strategy in the mid-12th c.

I've just cleared a few to-do list items and been alerted that the first pre-ordered copies of Postal Intelligence have arrived (!) so now seems like as good a time as any to share some exciting and troubling tidbits from my ten years with Europe's postal technocrats 1/? #earlymodern 🗃️

It's tough to keep up with how terminology is used in adjacent fields. Is "Anglo-Saxon" an acceptable term these days for the people of pre-11th c. British Isles? I don't know and don't want to get cancelled. So it's just barbarians. Barbarians to the west, barbarians to the north, barbarians to...

Tomorrow, 5 PM GMT! Playing with Fools? The Emergence of the Jester on the Medieval Chessboard: Krisztina Ilko, University of Cambridge www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cambridge-...

No one really reads the pulse of America quite like Jeff Sharlet. If you haven't read the 'The Undertow' I highly recommend it, although prepare yourself because it's a harrowing experience.

Me too, Thomas Jefferson, me too.

As relevant as ever.

I wrote an article arguing that the Byzantine beacon chain that ran from the frontier -> Constantinople was part of Byzantine-Abbasid intellectual competition over ancient science and global imperial aspirations and now that it's accepted I learn that the Carolingians were playing the same game.

Theodore of Kyzikos: The wine is watery! The emperor is so very far away! Melancholy! Buddy, you live one afternoon's sail from Constantinople.

Wow, Past Lucas could be really naive. (To be fair to Past Lucas, this is a period in Byzantine history when the provincial population occasionally voted against the centre with their swords.)

It just occurred to me that my book came out a year ago today. Buy it if you haven't yet: www.dundurn.com/books_/t2211...

A ninth-century military manual penned in a state under constant attack has a more coherent vision of caring for the vulnerable than just about any western country. Byzantium: take care of the old and infirm US/UK/Canada: feed 'em to the woodchipper

We are officially coming off of X and focusing our efforts on fostering our archaeology community here! Please share our account around so that we can find our people! We look forward to meeting you all!🏺 #ancientbluesky #archaeology #classicsbluesky

Major's Hill Park is a green space in central Ottawa between Chateau Laurier and the National Gallery, and offers excellent views the Canadian parliament buildings. It has been a site of many pivotal events in Canadian history, like where I first read @hntdove.bsky.social's 'Justinian'.

yay proofs

Fellow Canadians interested in how the Americans or American-backed interests and capital have penetrated our economy for their own benefit might be interested in @lindamcquaig.bsky.social's 'The Sport and Prey of Capitalists: How the Rich Are Stealing Canada’s Public Wealth'.

Now that corporations & entities are people, since you can run for US president if you were born in the US or were here when the Declaration of Independence was made, Canada is eligible to run for US president. So is Lake Michigan.