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Thread: Some professors are idiot savants

  1. #1
    Roma_Victrix's Avatar Call me Ishmael
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    Default Some professors are idiot savants

    The rest of his lecture seems fine and I'm sure he makes many valuable contributions to his field as a worthy professional, but I was simply blown away by the jaw-dropping ignorance and inanity of the opening statement here by Dr. Matt Stolper for the Oriental Institute. I think it's a good case of someone being an idiot savant, i.e. being incredibly gifted or talented in one area, while lacking in others, in this case apparently never opening a book covering the basic universal history of the world.



    While the Persian Achaemenid Empire did encompass a huge portion of the literal, civilized, urbanized people of the world from the 6th to 4th centuries BC, to suggest it was merely missing one other literate, civilized, urbanized people is just bonkers. What a breathtakingly bad statement.

    I really wanted to enjoy the rest of the video, but right out of the gate this is just an unnecessary, disappointing albatross anchoring the entire lecture down towards the bottomless pits of the sea. He specifically mentions Greece as the "holdout" missing piece, but the larger colonial Greek world included ancient Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova (Pontic & Bosporan region), Bulgaria (Thrace), Albania & FYROM (Illyria), Libya (Cyrene), Sicily and southern Italy (Magna Graecia, or Megale Hellas), Sardinia, Corsica, southern France (Gaul), eastern Spain (Iberia, Hispania), etc.

    That doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of other contemporary Classic civilizations in the Western Mediterranean, namely Carthage and Rome, as well as the Etruscans. That doesn't even include Hellenized Illyrians and Thracians who became literate in Greek arts due to colonization, along with urbanized native Iberians influenced by Carthaginians and Greeks. His statement is even dumber considering that Warring States China existed to the east of the Achaemenids, which would be unified in the 3rd century BC into one large empire under the Qin dynasty, then the Han dynasty (which would bring the practice of writing to northern Korea and northern Vietnam). The previous Shang and Zhou dynasty Chinese of the Bronze Age had Oracle Bone and Bronze Script writing at the same time Greek Mycenaeans had Linear B and centuries before the Greek alphabet even existed. While solid evidence for writing in the Indian subcontinent is shaky before the 3rd century BC, the Edicts of Ashoka created under that king of the Mauryan Empire contain a fully developed Brahmi script that likely existed beforehand given the Vedic tradition. Then we have the ancient Zapotecs and Olmecs of Mesoamerica, an urbanized people who certainly had writing by about 500 BC if not earlier judging by the evidence of the Cascajal Block dated to roughly 900 BC.

    So according to Dr. Matt Stolper, all of India, China, Mesoamerica, the northern Black Sea region (Pontic Steppe), and Western Mediterranean region didn't exist until Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire? I want to say this is what happens to your brain when you sniff the smug farts of ancient Classical Greek historians all day, but even they acknowledged the very existence of Carthage, Rome and important western Greek colonies like Massalia (France) and Syracuse (Sicily).

  2. #2

    Default Re: Some professors are idiot savants

    It is important to remember that all academic degrees (well, at least those beyond a Bachelor's degree or equivalent) denote specialization and not education (in the usual meaning of the word). I agree that it's sad to see when someone with great erudition in one aspect of his field is missing basic knowledge in others; I've also met scholars who knew everything about ancient Rome but nothing about e.g. China (and I wouldn't put much trust in their knowledge of their own country's history, either).
    That said, I'd much rather deal with an autistic idiot savant than a lying scumbag who subscribes to Woke creed or even just pays homage to it for career purposes.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Some professors are idiot savants

    I think you are exaggerating a bit, guys. Stolper said that the Achaemenid Empire controlled almost every literate, complex society of the word and then mentioned Greece as an exception, although not explicitly as the single one. Technically, he is not necessarily wrong, because complex society is a subjective term and he could also consider all these regions listed by Roma as exceptions. I'm playing the devil's advocate here, but I think we should cut him some slack. It's an oral, introductory presentation of the Persian Empire addressed to the general public. I agree that his comment was inappropriate, but mistakes and generalisations are pretty standard occurrences in these speeches.

    Anyway, I think he was referring to the fact that the Achaemenid Empire had annexed the ''Cradle of Civilisation'' in its entirety, although he should have phrased that statement a bit more carefully. Stolper is a specialist in cuneiform texts of Achaemenid Mesopotamia, so he's probably a bit biased against anyone outside Iraq and Syria (the Persians probably included), but he's actually a very good professor. These idiot savants do exist, but, in my opinion, Stolper is not one of them. He just made a sloppy remark, but that was more the result of over-simplification and vulgarisation than ignorance. At least, that's how I interpret it. If you want to enjoy some toxic vendettas in the field, I recommend you the dispute between Iranian émigrés (nationalists and royalists) and pretty much the rest of the academia and especially Jonas Lendering. It must be one of the most absurd academic fights in history. A nice example of a clueless author, who is not even a savant.
    Last edited by Abdülmecid I; March 22, 2021 at 04:12 PM.

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    Sir Adrian's Avatar the Imperishable
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    Default Re: Some professors are idiot savants

    I agree and disagree. The man made a human mistake, however if we cannot expect academics to have a certain degree of precision and exactitude in their speech, who can we expect.
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    Default Re: Some professors are idiot savants

    I think he's definitely Eurasia-centric, and yes he neglected Carthage, the various Chinese states, much of India etc

    As for the one famous holdout, many Hellenic societies did not hold out. The "most literate" part of Hellas in 490 BC is arguably the portion that submitted, ie Lesbos and the other islands as well as Asia Minor (I mean we call it Ionia but IIRC Sappho and Alcaeus wrote in the Aeloic dialect), there's Pindar from Thebes, Thales of Miletos (I think Miletos was the first philosophic hotbed in Hellas) etc etc.

    Athens has its silver age but really that burns brightest after Plataea. When Xerxes crossed the Hellespont I think he already held in his hands the better part of literate Hellas.

    The mainstays of the anti-Persian allaince were Athens which had a growing literate tradition but in 490 they had one of the Seven Sages (Solon) and their other famous writer at the time was another lawgiver, Drakon. Maybe Aeschylus was on the up and up, but the best days were ahead (Persian Women etc). Likewise Sparta had a famous poet Alcman (had to google that one) and a famous lawgiver in Lycurgus but as a society it was borderline illiterate surely.
    Last edited by Cyclops; March 22, 2021 at 04:41 PM. Reason: lol wrote Solon twice
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    Roma_Victrix's Avatar Call me Ishmael
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    Default Re: Some professors are idiot savants

    Quote Originally Posted by Abdülmecid I View Post
    I think you are exaggerating a bit, guys. Stolper said that the Achaemenid Empire controlled almost every literate, complex society of the word and then mentioned Greece as an exception, although not explicitly as the single one. Technically, he is not necessarily wrong, because complex society is a subjective term and he could also consider all these regions listed by Roma as exceptions. I'm playing the devil's advocate here, but I think we should cut him some slack. It's an oral, introductory presentation of the Persian Empire addressed to the general public. I agree that his comment was inappropriate, but mistakes and generalisations are pretty standard occurrences in these speeches.

    Anyway, I think he was referring to the fact that the Achaemenid Empire had annexed the ''Cradle of Civilisation'' in its entirety, although he should have phrased that statement a bit more carefully. Stolper is a specialist in cuneiform texts of Achaemenid Mesopotamia, so he's probably a bit biased against anyone outside Iraq and Syria (the Persians probably included), but he's actually a very good professor. These idiot savants do exist, but, in my opinion, Stolper is not one of them. He just made a sloppy remark, but that was more the result of over-simplification and vulgarisation than ignorance. At least, that's how I interpret it. If you want to enjoy some toxic vendettas in the field, I recommend you the dispute between Iranian émigrés (nationalists and royalists) and pretty much the rest of the academia and especially Jonas Lendering. It must be one of the most absurd academic fights in history. A nice example of a clueless author, who is not even a savant.
    I don't want to crucify the guy over it, but it is alarming that a credited academic would make such a sloppy generalizing remark like that. I honestly can't tell if it was just poor wording on his part or a serious brain fart. It was a brief remark in a larger lecture that was otherwise very well presented, but it's honestly worse than nails on a chalkboard for me. If he simply meant the Near East or Cradle of Civilization that's one thing and he should have phrased it as such, but he generalized about the entire world and I'm not so sure he knows otherwise because he never really makes that crystal clear. It's far from the worst statement I've seen from an academic. However, it's a little more extreme than just, for example, a scholar of the Gutenberg Bible not realizing the Chinese had woodblock and even their own version of movable type before the 15th century invention of the printing press.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sir Adrian View Post
    I agree and disagree. The man made a human mistake, however if we cannot expect academics to have a certain degree of precision and exactitude in their speech, who can we expect.
    I want to believe it's just a slip of the tongue, but he doesn't correct himself anywhere in the lecture or contradict the idea, so you never know! In either case someone of his standing should be way more careful about that, because you can't assume everyone in the audience is even remotely historically literate, especially since this is projected to the general public on Youtube. I doubt it's done any serious damage, but it's still just incredibly misleading, especially if some high school student is watching it and then forms a solidified opinion about the ancient world based on it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cyclops View Post
    I think he's definitely Eurasia-centric, and yes he neglected Carthage, the various Chinese states, much of India etc

    As for the one famous holdout, many Hellenic societies did not hold out. The "most literate" part of Hellas in 490 BC is arguably the portion that submitted, ie Lesbos and the other islands as well as Asia Minor (I mean we call it Ionia but IIRC Sappho and Alcaeus wrote in the Aeloic dialect), there's Pindar from Thebes, Thales of Miletos (I think Miletos was the first philosophic hotbed in Hellas) etc etc.

    Athens has its silver age but really that burns brightest after Plataea. When Xerxes crossed the Hellespont I think he already held in his hands the better part of literate Hellas.

    The mainstays of the anti-Persian allaince were Athens which had a growing literate tradition but in 490 they had one of the Seven Sages (Solon) and their other famous writer at the time was another lawgiver, Drakon. Maybe Aeschylus was on the up and up, but the best days were ahead (Persian Women etc). Likewise Sparta had a famous poet Alcman (had to google that one) and a famous lawgiver in Lycurgus but as a society it was borderline illiterate surely.
    Literacy levels, now that's an argument!

    The great thinker and mathematician Pythagoras (c. 570 BC – 495 BC) came from the isle of Samos off the Aegean coasts of Anatolia, but he studied and founded his school in Croton, southern Italy (Magna Graecia). So perhaps you're right, especially since Archimedes of Syracuse in Hellenistic Sicily was a man of the 3rd century BC, well after the fall of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. Great thinkers aside, his statement is still ludicrous since we're talking about civilized, literate societies. Levels of literacy aside, there was still a literary output among the Etruscans and to a lesser extent the early Romans. Even the native Iberians in and around Greek and Carthaginian colonies of Spain minted their own coinage and apparently made inscriptions in Greek and Punic as far back as the 5th century BC, while a Greco-Iberian alphabet existed by the 4th century BC alongside other Iberian scripts.

    I could excuse Stolper for not knowing anything about native Iberians in Spain, but come on, Carthage and Rome? That's just a bridge too far.

  7. #7

    Default Re: Some professors are idiot savants

    Quote Originally Posted by athanaric View Post
    That said, I'd much rather deal with an autistic idiot savant than a lying scumbag who subscribes to Woke creed or even just pays homage to it for career purposes.
    No one said the professor was autistic. Anyway, what constitutes the "Woke creed"?
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  8. #8
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    Default Re: Some professors are idiot savants

    I don't know Roma, I don't think the Romans or the Zapotecs and Olmecs were particularly literate in cuneiform.

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    saxdude's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: Some professors are idiot savants

    I don't want to crucify the guy over it, but it is alarming that a credited academic would make such a sloppy generalizing remark like that. I honestly can't tell if it was just poor wording on his part or a serious brain fart. It was a brief remark in a larger lecture that was otherwise very well presented, but it's honestly worse than nails on a chalkboard for me. If he simply meant the Near East or Cradle of Civilization that's one thing and he should have phrased it as such, but he generalized about the entire world and I'm not so sure he knows otherwise because he never really makes that crystal clear. It's far from the worst statement I've seen from an academic. However, it's a little more extreme than just, for example, a scholar of the Gutenberg Bible not realizing the Chinese had woodblock and even their own version of movable type before the 15th century invention of the printing press.
    To be fair that's most posters in TWC and most Eurasian academics I've ever met. Though I think it can be forgiven considering the Near-East is likely the only thing in his mind at the moment of the lecture.


    BTW Roma, do remind me to revive that old "Mexican seige tower" thread you did a while back, we actually do have quite a bit of evidence on the subject of Mesoamerican fortifications and seige tactics that I've been meaning to post about.
    Last edited by saxdude; April 09, 2021 at 01:44 AM.

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    hellheaven1987's Avatar Comes Domesticorum
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    Default Re: Some professors are idiot savants

    Na, it is an undergrade course, don't make things too complicated.
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    Roma_Victrix's Avatar Call me Ishmael
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    Default Re: Some professors are idiot savants

    Quote Originally Posted by Cookiegod View Post
    I don't know Roma, I don't think the Romans or the Zapotecs and Olmecs were particularly literate in cuneiform.
    If you're not literate in Semitic Akkadian with flawlessly legible Cuneiform, you're not a real civilized person, and you can GET OUT.



    Quote Originally Posted by saxdude View Post
    To be fair that's most posters in TWC and most Eurasian academics I've ever met. Though I think it can be forgiven considering the Near-East is likely the only thing in his mind at the moment of the lecture.
    Maybe he simply had a brain fart and meant to say the Near East, the Eastern Mediterranean, or something, because it makes no sense in any other context. In either case this is a good venue to push back on that kind of misinformation, whether it was delivered intentionally or not, because a lot of impressionable people probably view these videos on YouTube. Hopefully some of them peruse TWC even though our charming forum seems to be going downhill in terms of user activity and daily visitors.

    BTW Roma, do remind me to revive that old "Mexican seige tower" thread you did a while back, we actually do have quite a bit of evidence on the subject of Mesoamerican fortifications and seige tactics that I've been meaning to post about.
    Sure thing, that was a great discussion. What made you think of that? Was it my mentioning of the Zapotecs and Olmecs above?

    Quote Originally Posted by hellheaven1987 View Post
    Na, it is an undergrade course, don't make things too complicated.
    I hope none of his undergrads walk away from his lesson with the impression that his statement was correct, without using critical thought or further investigation. It's a minor slipup but these things do cause some damage one way or another.

  12. #12

    Default Re: Some professors are idiot savants

    Quote Originally Posted by Roma_Victrix View Post
    I hope none of his undergrads walk away from his lesson with the impression that his statement was correct
    You can be reasonably sure that most will walk away without much recollection of anything he said, if that's any reassurance to you.
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    Default Re: Some professors are idiot savants

    He's clearly talking about the ancient near east with his statement, he's not teaching a course on global history but specifically contrasting Persia with its predecessors Assyria and Babylon. Don't let that stop you with posting nerdrage though.
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    EmperorBatman999's Avatar I say, what, what?
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    Default Re: Some professors are idiot savants

    Uh oh, this somewhat reminds me of a problem I've encountered trying to teach AP World to a student I'm tutoring. Specifically, my lectures have been painfully Eurocentric, and I'm effectively teaching AP Euro, not AP World. I talk of course about the Americas, India, Africa, and China, but usually in terms of how it relates to European interventions in those areas.

    Interestingly, the non-European country (arguably) whom I've put the most attention into has been the Ottomans, but this of course speaks to the fact I took a few graduate-level seminars on late Ottoman history.

  15. #15

    Default Re: Some professors are idiot savants

    I think there is a big misunderstanding. He's saying that the empire incorporated almost all of the literate complex societies of the ancient world. He's clearly talking about the region in the map as the ancient world and not globally.
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    Roma_Victrix's Avatar Call me Ishmael
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    Default Re: Some professors are idiot savants

    Quote Originally Posted by sumskilz View Post
    You can be reasonably sure that most will walk away without much recollection of anything he said, if that's any reassurance to you.
    In one ear out the other, I do remember those days as an undergrad, but then again even subliminal messaging in advertisements tend to affect our brains, let alone clearly enunciated statements at the beginning of a lecture by an academic who is an authority in this field. It would probably be less cause for concern if it was buried somewhere deep within a two hour lecture. Hell, I probably wouldn't have spotted or noticed it if that were the case. I was paying more attention than usual since I was listening to this with AirPods while doing otherwise tedious springtime yardwork, wanting to pay attention to a lecture instead of the wheelbarrows of leaves I was emptying into the woods.

    Quote Originally Posted by EmperorBatman999 View Post
    Uh oh, this somewhat reminds me of a problem I've encountered trying to teach AP World to a student I'm tutoring. Specifically, my lectures have been painfully Eurocentric, and I'm effectively teaching AP Euro, not AP World. I talk of course about the Americas, India, Africa, and China, but usually in terms of how it relates to European interventions in those areas.

    Interestingly, the non-European country (arguably) whom I've put the most attention into has been the Ottomans, but this of course speaks to the fact I took a few graduate-level seminars on late Ottoman history.
    Hey, if you're a little more cognizant of that fact and it actually impacts your lectures then my thread actually did some good around here, as intended.

    Quote Originally Posted by PointOfViewGun View Post
    I think there is a big misunderstanding. He's saying that the empire incorporated almost all of the literate complex societies of the ancient world. He's clearly talking about the region in the map as the ancient world and not globally.
    That's still not entirely clear that this was his intent, and at best is enormously misleading if he did things exactly as you described with his chosen phrasing. Again, a lot of undergrad students are not the most worldly people who just inherently know about ancient civilizations. Of course that's not always their fault. Public high schools in the USA range in quality from being very good like mine to being total garbage depending on the locale and available funding. Private schools are the same but with the added element of oftentimes too much sheltering and sometimes religious propaganda that downplays various fields of established science (especially evolutionary biology), even the field of history if there's a nationalistic need for revisionism in textbooks.

    Quote Originally Posted by Slaytaninc View Post
    nerdrage
    Very cute. Do me a favor and never post in another thread of mine ever again. You don't like my thread? You don't need to comment, let alone with snide remarks. I'm putting you on mute for the foreseeable future, considering your opinion usually isn't worth much anyways.

  17. #17

    Default Re: Some professors are idiot savants

    This criticism would make sense if he uttered it in such vagueness in an article but this was from a recording of a lecture. Life doesn't happen with a heavily edited final version.
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  18. #18

    Default Re: Some professors are idiot savants

    Quote Originally Posted by Roma_Victrix View Post
    The rest of his lecture seems fine and I'm sure he makes many valuable contributions to his field as a worthy professional, but I was simply blown away by the jaw-dropping ignorance and inanity of the opening statement here by Dr. Matt Stolper for the Oriental Institute. I think it's a good case of someone being an idiot savant, i.e. being incredibly gifted or talented in one area, while lacking in others, in this case apparently never opening a book covering the basic universal history of the world.



    While the Persian Achaemenid Empire did encompass a huge portion of the literal, civilized, urbanized people of the world from the 6th to 4th centuries BC, to suggest it was merely missing one other literate, civilized, urbanized people is just bonkers. What a breathtakingly bad statement.

    I really wanted to enjoy the rest of the video, but right out of the gate this is just an unnecessary, disappointing albatross anchoring the entire lecture down towards the bottomless pits of the sea. He specifically mentions Greece as the "holdout" missing piece, but the larger colonial Greek world included ancient Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova (Pontic & Bosporan region), Bulgaria (Thrace), Albania & FYROM (Illyria), Libya (Cyrene), Sicily and southern Italy (Magna Graecia, or Megale Hellas), Sardinia, Corsica, southern France (Gaul), eastern Spain (Iberia, Hispania), etc.

    That doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of other contemporary Classic civilizations in the Western Mediterranean, namely Carthage and Rome, as well as the Etruscans. That doesn't even include Hellenized Illyrians and Thracians who became literate in Greek arts due to colonization, along with urbanized native Iberians influenced by Carthaginians and Greeks. His statement is even dumber considering that Warring States China existed to the east of the Achaemenids, which would be unified in the 3rd century BC into one large empire under the Qin dynasty, then the Han dynasty (which would bring the practice of writing to northern Korea and northern Vietnam). The previous Shang and Zhou dynasty Chinese of the Bronze Age had Oracle Bone and Bronze Script writing at the same time Greek Mycenaeans had Linear B and centuries before the Greek alphabet even existed. While solid evidence for writing in the Indian subcontinent is shaky before the 3rd century BC, the Edicts of Ashoka created under that king of the Mauryan Empire contain a fully developed Brahmi script that likely existed beforehand given the Vedic tradition. Then we have the ancient Zapotecs and Olmecs of Mesoamerica, an urbanized people who certainly had writing by about 500 BC if not earlier judging by the evidence of the Cascajal Block dated to roughly 900 BC.

    So according to Dr. Matt Stolper, all of India, China, Mesoamerica, the northern Black Sea region (Pontic Steppe), and Western Mediterranean region didn't exist until Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire? I want to say this is what happens to your brain when you sniff the smug farts of ancient Classical Greek historians all day, but even they acknowledged the very existence of Carthage, Rome and important western Greek colonies like Massalia (France) and Syracuse (Sicily).
    I think what you are seeing is called hyperbole, exaggeration.

    Yes, the Persians were a long way from conquering every literate society but one, but of the major civilizations in their neck of the woods, only the Greeks had not fallen to the Persians. Rome and the other civilizations like the Etruscans I don't think we're in quite the same league as the Greeks, Babylonians and Egyptians civilizations of the time.

    The professor was exaggerating to make a point.

  19. #19
    hellheaven1987's Avatar Comes Domesticorum
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    Default Re: Some professors are idiot savants

    Quote Originally Posted by Roma_Victrix View Post
    I hope none of his undergrads walk away from his lesson with the impression that his statement was correct, without using critical thought or further investigation. It's a minor slipup but these things do cause some damage one way or another.
    Blah, I have seen much worse statements in various undergrade course, such as claiming warfare in Chinese Warring States was all about massive chariot battle or credit the success of German 1918 Spring Offense on superior German tank (and both show up in final).
    Quote Originally Posted by Markas View Post
    Hellheaven, sometimes you remind me of King Canute trying to hold back the tide, except without the winning parable.
    Quote Originally Posted by Diocle View Post
    Cameron is midway between Black Rage and .. European Union ..

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    Default Re: Some professors are idiot savants

    Quote Originally Posted by hellheaven1987 View Post
    Blah, I have seen much worse statements in various undergrade course, such as claiming warfare in Chinese Warring States was all about massive chariot battle or credit the success of German 1918 Spring Offense on superior German tank (and both show up in final).
    Its remarkable how many historians are so ignorant on military matters (and TBF how many military historians are out of touch with the current positions in general history).

    I had a reasonably capable historian (who specialised in North American history) state in a second year university course lecture (so we were halfway to a degree) "Stonewall Jackson defeated the British at New Orleans in 1815". My hand went up and he winced poor bloke. To his credit he thanked me for the correction and made a note (and didn't fail me for being a smart****).

    I recall one biographer of Talleyrand dismissing Napoleon's military talent as some sort of chicanery (not sure how you "cheat" a victory at Austerlitz but whatever) and on the flip side a positively hagiographic biography of Napoleon suggesting Talleyrand's sole role was adding mean comments to international correspondence.

    Duff Cooper OTOH wrote an interesting biography of Talleyrand: he was a well credentialed diplomat himself and clearly admired Talleyrand (or much about him) but he seemed to produce a fairly balanced view of the period. He seemed to have a sensible grasp of most areas (at least to a rank amateur like myself) and as a specialist diplomat his observations about his subject's professional performance were enormously engaging. It seems (in Coopers opinion) that Talleyrand was as silver-tongued and gifted an ambassador/negotiator/diplomat as ever pulled on a silk stocking, and his performance at Vienna over the two negotiating periods before and after the 100 days was as brilliant as has been recorded. I guess he did not attempt a serious critique of military, economic of social history, but his framing commentary suggested he was sufficiently informed as to not have his view warped by over-specialisation.
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