August, 2023 Research Update

Amici!  It is now September!

Apologies for this update coming a touch late, it got caught up with the start of the semester, some writing work (discussed below) and a trip to take our little one to see her 95-year-old great-grandmother.

Still, there is some research news.  To begin with, we have peer review reports for the book project back from OUP, much faster than expected.  They were, in the editor's words "generally positive," so we are continuing to move forward!  Equally heartening, they were quite detailed; reviewers are anonymous but whoever it was they understood the project well and were deeply familiar with the space it is inhabiting and as a result had some very useful, substantive suggestions.  The next step is for me to write a 'response letter' to the reviews clarifying which of their suggestions I will take on board and how the project will change to reflect that, along with a revised book proposal in line with those changes.

In this case, I think this should be relatively straight forward as while the reviewers did suggest some significant changes, I think I can make them without too much difficulty and without really compromising the project.  That makes it easy for me to basically accept nearly all of the reviewer's suggestions (and all of the significant ones), which in turn makes it hard for the reviewers to withhold their blessing on the final project (one already strongly recommended a book contract, the other wanted some changes first).

Once I write that, the editor plans to go back to the 'wanted some changes first' reviewer to see if the proposed changes satisfies them (I think it ought) and assuming that is the case then the editor will take the letter, the proposal and the endorsements of the two reviewers to the editorial board to sell them on the book.  If the editorial board decides they like it, then we sign a book contract and we've locked in our publisher.

That's not all I've been doing, of course.  I'm still finding time to chip away with a co-authored article on Roman strategy.  I've also agreed to write a review of Peter Heather and John Rapley's Why Empires Fall: Rome, America and the Future of the West (2023) for Foreign Policy.  I've finished my read-through and have my takes, so it is just a matter of finishing the draft of my review.  The review itself will of course be more comprehensive, but in brief, I think the model of shifting imperial economic and power structures they present early is very good, but the application of that model to the modern West feels a few years out of date, often pointing to negative indicators (income inequality, wage stagnation, declining global influence, etc.) which have reversed in recent years: income inequality is (very slowly) falling in the USA, real wages are (slowly) growing and 'the West' (really NATO) has of course spent 2022 and 2023 demonstrating quite vividly that they are not a spent force globally.  I also wish Heather (the ancient historian of the author pair) was a bit more transparent about elements of his description of Late Rome which remain contested, but then this is a book for a popular audience.

Naturally, this past month has also involved the start of the semester and indeed classes are now well underway, with all that entails. Both classes are well enrolled, although I will say my ancient history class is a bit sleepy; the class starts right after lunch and that may be the culprit.  But the Am. Mil-Hist class more than makes up for it, asking so many questions that I am sure we are doomed to be behind in the lectures forever.  Still, that is the best sort of teaching problem to have.

And that's been the month.  Since this is a pretty busy week, I'm afraid I don't have more for y'all.  On ACOUP, my plan is to run a guest post this week to give me time to give the peer review response letter the attention it deserves.  Then next week we may end up taking a look at the armor of Baldur's Gate III (and 5e in general) before diving back into the last few sections of our series on the Roman Republic.  After that, I suppose I ought to at last deliver the discussion of ancient colonization I promised!  More than enough to do!