Hunt JaninCritiques

This was a strange one.

First things first - in my opinion book is solid 3.5 stars but due to the no option when it comes to half stars I rounded it to four. It is not four but definitely ain't three for me. Will explain why.

As I said it is a strange book.

I have read several books on ancient Greek, Roman, Middle Ages, in general Asian, European [from everywhere, if I start wont stop] warfare written by authors that kept the pace and tone of their books on par with standard academic literature. Lots of archaeological findings, discussions on various surviving written works and sources etc., not to mention hard-core discussions on the armies, commanders, organization, weapons, training, society, finance and so on, so on. So, very thorough, very academic and, oh man, detailed to the t. After going through these books there are wonderful bibliographies to read further and expand the knowledge.

I am in love with this, believe me. Investigating further works, chasing down books ..... ah, the rush.

But here is the point - it takes time and ... did I say time :) which is something I understand but for the most people reading about wages for Greek mercenaries (cannot cite the work, need to find it but I think title is Greek mercenaries) for three chapters is something that would drive the entire endeavor to the ground. Of course I am saying this will happen in case of general reader not so interested in historical elements but interested in the topic, learning something new without spending semester chasing down gazillion books about metal structure of spears and weapons of period before finally getting to few words about the actual topic (in this case mercenaries).

What authors achieve here is to make a book friendly to somebody who just wants to inform oneself on the topic - rise of professional armies, mercenaries, in the Middle Ages and Renaissance Europe up to a point where national armies began to take precedence. In a very informal way (this surprised me a lot to be honest, but it was a good experience) reader is presented information on a variety of people, nations and very eccentric warlords (mercenary captains) that have marked some of the deadliest periods in Europe's history and that have caused such loss of life it took Europe long time to recover.

Authors truly take time to explain all the terms (even when quoting from other sources) and present lots of facts. Now when you read this book (when compared to the above mentioned more academically oriented books) lack of footnotes is glaringly obvious but only until you reach to the end of the book and find all the references to the notes. Second thing is, quoted sources come from all over the place - contemporaries, modern scholars (say from 18th century to modern days), but also from the Internet. Now, quoting Internet sources is not something you come across too often, and that is for the reason (reliability in today's world is ..... lets say questionable for majority of posted materiel), but as a quick guide to other works (considering the authors intent with the book) it works just fine. Also it is not just Internet references, lots of books referenced in the bibliography are excellent follow up reads for those who get hooked on topic. And they do quote quite a few specialist for the topic and time period.

So as a true academic work, this book is three stars. But for bringing to the light some of the weirdest and eccentric people that marked the conflict in Europe, various nations and groups that took professional soldiering as their trademark but got forgotten in the meantime, and by doing that in very popular way, without too much specialist terminology (and taking time to explain terms that do come up) this book deserves solid half star which translates to 4 stars.

It is very hard these days to find books that try to bring any of the subjects in a layman terms. Once upon the time books like this were more accessible and present. Most books I come across today just simply do not act as initiation tools but try to be handy manual to be used without further research, they try to be very poor readers digests that usually degrade to picture book formats and very little information on how to learn more.

I think that authors have succeeded in creating an entry level book that will definitely interest readers and enable them to use it as a reference guide to start further studies and exploration of this most interesting (and if you look at war as a disaster, then also unfortunate but nevertheless integral part of every society) subject that, once it has risen its head, it never disappeared from the battlefields of past, today or even tomorrow.

Recommended.

It isn’t often that I bother to leave a negative review. For the most part, I close the book and move on. However, this is an interesting case. Mercenaries in Medieval and Renaissance Europe by Hunt Janin and Ursula Carlson is a book I have had for six years. I received a review copy through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program, but I get enough review requests that I cannot do a formal review of everything; so it sat unread.

Recently, I’ve been enjoying Jeffro Johnson’s Advanced Dungeons and Dragons first edition campaign reports on his blog, which led to me taking a look through the the brief rulebook, Chainmail: Rules for Medieval Miniatures by Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren. Jeffro is best known for exploring Appendix N and its influence on D&D, but recently he has also been looking at how players in the 1970s interpreted the concept of a role playing game, and how that differs from how the game is played now.

Chainmail is a set of rules for miniature wargaming in a medieval setting, and as such it has a brief but dense summary of how medieval warfare was conducted embedded within it as the behavior of the various units you can field is explained. In particular, any unit in the game can be fielded as a mercenary unit, but that unit can randomly stop obeying the player’s orders, or even flee the battle entirely. This is counter-balanced by the units being cheaper to field, allowing you more total troops.

I decided I should pick up Mercenaries in Medieval and Renaissance Europe as a more in-depth coverage of that topic. At first, I was reasonably pleased. It is a relatively short book, written in a pretty accessible style for the non-expert, taking care to explain terms of art that a general audience might be unfamiliar with.

However, as I got into the book, it started to seem quite different than my expectations. The back cover blurb claimed the book draws heavily on contemporary accounts, but in the introductory chapters, covering medieval and renaissance warfare in general, I found that most everything cited was just a quote or a paraphrase from a secondary source.

I hoped for a different pattern to emerge in the following chapters, but I only found more of the same. The section on medieval weapons and armor at least cited Anna Comnena’s account of the crossbow from the Alexiad, but that account contains a ridiculous exaggeration of the power of a twelfth-century crossbow.

"The crossbow is a weapon of the barbarians, absolutely unknown to the Greeks…this instrument of war, which fires weapons an enormous distance, as to be stretched by lying almost on one’s back; each foot is pressed forcibly against the half-circles of the bow and two hands tug at the bow, pulling it back with all one’s strength toward the body….In the firing, the string exerts tremendous violence and force, so that the missiles wherever they strike do not rebound; in fact, they transfix a shield, cut through a heavy iron breastplate, and resume their flight on the far side."

The authors did at least mention that medieval commentators had a tendency to overstate the numbers of men in a battle, casualties, and the scope of a victory. For example, in the preface, the authors compared the number of men of listed in an account of a papal campaign in Corsica in 1445 as 16,000, while the financial records indicate there could have been more than 1,000. Yet, when it comes to the Alexiad, they fail to take the same care. The Knight and the Blast Furnace by Alan Williams is a standard work here, using careful measurement and experimentation to determine what weapons could or could not penetrate armor. It is admittedly out of print, but summaries of its important points are easy to find if you care to look.

One of the main criticisms I see of this work in other reviews is that the authors frequently cited webpages. On a first glance through the notes, it didn’t seem overly prevalent, but a closer look reveals a number of sources in the notes such as “Medieval Warfare”, which means www.medievalwarfare.info when you consult the bibliography. In principle, I don’t care if an author cites a webpage. Authors of other popular works of history like Ed West have done so in Path of the Martyrs. I did so myself in the crossbow discussion above. I do however think the authors might have dug a little harder in many instances.

Also contrary to some other reviews, the authors haven’t simply passed on falsehoods. The weapons and armor section seems poor to me, but I also note is is the least footnoted, and the errors contained therein are at least popular ones. Janin and Carlson correctly note that Hruodland, captain of the Breton Marches was likely killed by angry Basques, even if that complicates the narrative of the Song of Roland.

Overall, I don’t think I could recommend this book, despite the overlap of its subject matter with my interests. Much of the material is repetitive, and it is organized strangely, skipping back and forth across centuries within a few paragraphs. I think a much shorter, more focused volume might have turned out better, but I also don’t know exactly what the publisher asked of these authors.

I think I might get more out of the books in the bibliography complied here. Perhaps that is the true value I have received.

This book would be useful for those who seek a better understanding of life in Medieval and Renaissance Europe. While the book covers a range of nearly a thousand years, the information flows in a roughly chronological order. The authors present information that not only could benefit someone interested in military history, but anyone interested in the everyday lives of both peasant and nobility. Military units were employed in wars and crusades, but often there were long periods of idleness. If not in the active pay of a noble, these men often turned into brigands, terrorizing the countryside. So not only do we learn of military life, both in camps and in battle, but also how local life could be disrupted when these men turned outlaw.
The book does not flow well, and is a challenge to read. Often notes and asides interrupt the pace, and tax the concentration of the reader. However, I think overall there is enough interesting information to make this book worth the effort.

This book is a great introduction to a problem that will affect millions of people in the coming century. It is not an overly technical explanation, so that makes it an inviting read for all people interested in the topic. The book design is somewhat cheap and it could definitely use more visual stimulation (especially since it's an introductory book), but for me that didn't take away too much from my experience. I would recommend this.

Interesting short vignettes, scattered time frames, short chapters, too many "asides" to explain terms used disrupted the flow of the chapters.½

I cannot recommend this book. Mr. Janin is an author who has covered many topics, but his knowledge of the Middle Ages is quite shallow. The book reads like a well-written undergraduate paper, with heavy reliance on secondary sources. Although I appreciated being reminded three times in the first 45 pages that pages become squires and squires become knights, I gave up on the book when Mr. Janin began to cite and quote web sites.

Not recommended.

I tried so desperately to read this book to no avail.

I realized it would be more of a textbook read than what I'm used to. But, I was still looking forward to the information with no expectations of the writing style.

Sadly, I couldn't ignore the writing style. So full of i.e.'s and e.g.'s (not to mention unnecessary parenthetical definitions) that I could never get a simple flow of the images the text was trying to convey.

I'll stop my review with that as I was only able to make it through the first 2 chapters and was unable to retain any of the substance. Other minds may be better suited to this book so I am also not putting a rating to it.

This is an excellent resource to discover documentation regarding the Medieval and Renaissance Mercenaries. It is written in textbook format and extremely easy to read. I learned a lot of history, and I believe this is appropriate nonfiction reading for high school students as well.

This book does an excellent job of taking some of the less famous events in Medieval History and makes them more accessible to the general public. I did not know much about Medieval history and felt this book did a good job of covering the more important figures such as Machiavelli and El Cid as well as mentioning the stories of people under them who have been lost to history. The book flowed nicely and bridged the gap between a standard history textbook and a historical recreation of the events. Would recommend reading with easy access to Wikipedia as I often found myself looking up people and places.½

A very thorough and patient explanation of the impending sea level rise that will affect coastal areas. The book is not overly long nor difficult to read, and is overall a good introduction to the topic, as it attests itself. Given these qualities it's too bad the book's design did not extend beyond chapter, subchapters, paragraphs, bullet points and the occasional illustration (charts and photos). This book is a great opportunity to let the visuals help the reader in understanding and retaining information, as well as being able to look back for certain tidbits and cross reference things. At the very least the book could have been in color for the illustrations and photos. That said, I'm glad to have read an intelligent and straightforward account of something that can be so polarizing in the wrong hands.½

Whether rising sea levels can be attributed to long term patterns of climate change due to the dynamics of the earth or human impact, it is happening at a rapid rate. This book addresses probable causes in an impartial way. More importantly it looks at the most vulnerable locations globally for the potential for storm surges, flooding and inundation, salt water contamination, loss of life, destruction of infrastructure and more.

Within the next century (and beyond) it will be necessary to anticipate and protect against rising seas. We are beginning to solidify the scientific knowledge necessary and we have the technology. While there is little political and financial will to support the costly measures needed, little to nothing will be done.

Reading this book takes awhile to absorb all that is packed in a couple hundred pages. It is understandable, interesting, and full of information I probably should already know. I found myself reading lots of excerpts to my husband which we discussed. Sad to acknowledge that the United States is not a leader in action despite the coastlines threatened on its own shores.

What I take away from this reading is the need to educate our children in geology/climate/politics - starting now - to change attitudes, ponder ethical obligations, and encourage more ideas for protecting our planet's population, economics, security, etc. Many of the scientists who became experts in their fields had their interests and careers sparked by Geology 101 courses. In my opinion, we could start much sooner.

Recommended reading.

"Rising Sea Levels, An Introduction to Cause and Impact." by Hunt Janin and Scott A. Mandia. This book, an early reviewer selection, is a reasonable survey of the impacts of Rising Sea Level at a global level. The authors present both a condensed summary of the science underlying Global Warming, with its unfortunate side effect of rising sea levels, and a wide ranging estimate of the specific effects on the areas of the globe most vulnerable to its effects. Everyone should be made aware of the message that they bring to the table with this book but since it is presented in such a straight forward, undramatic manner with no sensational headlines or dire predictions it is not likely to reach enough people to do any good. The last couple of chapters are an attempt to project into an uncertain future and seem to suggest that even if we don't know precisely how much sea level rise will occur, we can be sure that it is going to keep on rising for a very long time and it probably would serve us well to start planning, and preparing, for it.½

This book made an important issue easy to understand, I found it interesting to learn about the complicated way the earth react to certain issues. And the long term prospects for different areas in the world. It was not to scientific for me and I enjoyed reading it.

This book is well-researched and makes a convincing case that one of the most threatening implications of global warming is its impact on coastal population centers due to rising oceans. I especially appreciated its discussion of the likely impacts on specific at-risk regions in the next 50 and 100 years, as well as the innovative measures some of these regions are already taking to mitigate the impact. Unfortunately, however, the book is written in the style of a scientific article and may not attract and hold the attention of many mainstream readers.

The book is interesting. The analyses are well thought out and reasonable. The section on the scientists should be in an appendix. There are several typos in the book. I would recommend the book. The sections on specific coastal areas and the ice basins was especially well done.

This guide to for customs and etiquette of the Netherlands was not particularly helpful as far as planning for my upcoming travel there. Most of it boiled down to be polite, don't be arrogant, and respect other people which is good advice but not really targeted to the Netherlands. There were some good points about the Dutch being very direct people and to not take offense at that as well as tips on what to do if invited to someone's home. There are also sections that would be useful to someone making an extended stay and/or conducting business in the Netherlands