Imperial Wars Always Come Home: patrickwyman.substack.com/p/imperial-w...
Pod: Tides of History, currently covering the Iron Age. Book: "The Verge," on the world around 1500. Coming soon: “Lost Worlds,” on prehistory. pwymanusc at gmail.
16,767 followers 428 following 1,657 posts
view profile on Bluesky
Imperial Wars Always Come Home: patrickwyman.substack.com/p/imperial-w...
a pretty good summary of the 21st century is that the humiliation of america's defeats in the middle east post-9/11 curdled into a reactionary politics that seeks affirmation in the humiliation of anyone who is an other: liberals, minorities, the global south, china, europe, whoever.
Revolutionary Temper. Highly recommend.
Nah you definitely have the background for it, and he's a really beautiful writer - makes it easy for the reader
Have you read the new Darnton book? It’s so fucking good on this!
I love reading early modern histories where the received narrative is "principled revolutionaries read Great Thinkers, got inspired, and revolted" and we see the reality is more "drunk guys were up to their eyeballs in inflammatory pamphlets full of fake news and started a riot"
Can’t take credit, that’s @bretdevereaux.bsky.social
Godspeed brother
It’s so funny that was the movie Antoine Fuqua made after Training Day
Just watched with @phoeberoi.bsky.social and @miloedwards.bsky.social for Masters of Our Domain - 2004's "King Arthur." Considering the cast and the potential of the subject matter, it's a bloated, godawful, incomprehensible morass with few redeeming qualities. I've seen it at least five times.
He can start by understanding that his actual job in this moment isn't crafting legislation or winning over Republican senators
It's just not that complicated. There's no magic line that's going to rally the support of the American people. Their support has to be actively rallied by being a person who's committed enough to the cause to make potential supporters get on board.
That's the spirit
I'm sorry if this isn't substantive enough but nobody is going to follow you if you don't sound competent, confident, and invested in the issues at hand. Leaders are supposed to lead, so sound like someone who's worth following.
We've still got plenty of time
So much of the (accurate) perception of Jeffries-Schumer-national Dem weakness has nothing to do with actions; it's that they sound like whiny, spineless people focus-grouping for a line that works. Just stand up there and talk like you actively give a shit! Show some passion! Just lead!
Now that's what I call Wielding Power on behalf of the American people
Whew wish I could help, what a cool find!
Holy shit incredible work here
Thank you, that’s so wonderful to hear!
Soon, I promise
May 5th, 2026: HarperCollins will release my new book, "Lost Worlds: The Rise and Fall of Human Societies from the Ice Age to the Bronze Age." I'm so, so excited - it's taken more than five years to get this book researched and written, and I can't wait for it to be out in the world!
Exactly, he was well suited to a particular moment and absolutely no others
To use another Union officer as an example, Custer: a man with terrible political instincts, generally poor judgment, an awful record at West Point, and few connections, but who made himself a general by age 23 through pure bravery and coolness in a crisis.
Don't Bernard America's Fall
Yeah the retired couple across the street from my mom - a pediatrician and a baker - are ready to burn it down. The vibe has shifted definitively
Is she the best? No. But it is a weird district, and I will say that at least she’s not Joe Kent, who would happily run trump’s equivalent of Sobibor.
My mom lives in Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez's district and I cannot put into words how angry the voters who put her in office are with her actions- a lot of boomer libs donated, canvassed, volunteered, and they expect real engagement. These legislators are going to pay a real political price.
Meanwhile, actual Dem voters are mostly going to think you're triangulating, soulless morons who can neither read the current political situation for what it is nor even competently advance your own interests, much less those of your voters and constituents.
If you accept Republicans' framing of immigration as fundamentally a problem and something that must be limited to preserve the integrity of the ethno-state, you're going to end up with slightly less monstrous fascism. Nobody who wants restriction is going to be convinced; they want the pure shit.
one sign that the “unitary executive” is less the restoration of an older constitutional order and more the imposition of a radical new one is that allowing the president to act untethered from most legal or congressional limits has largely just served to plunge the country into disorder
I checked in over there only to see Noah's dumb ass talking about Bluesky as the lib echo chamber - my guy, nobody on Bluesky thinks mass violence against migrants is the default policy position
I think that was me
Romans whose writing we have from the 4th-6th centuries AD didn't really know they were living through the fall of the Roman Empire in the west. A new emperor might fix things. If somebody can just get a handle on those dang barbarians, everything will be fine. Now, about that party next week...
The people who have done most of the terrible things in the human past weren't doing it because they wanted to be there, but because they felt like they had to. Everybody has a choice.
Nobody wants to get trampled in a carpet here
This is so obviously both the strategically and morally correct choice for any Dem elected official - fight, and tell the enemy (and that's what they are) what the consequences will be if they go down this road.
Great Khan Pritzker has my full and unqualified support
Macintosh 512K. I played so much Oregon Trail, Number Munchers, and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.
(unrelated but I want you to know how much joy that papakha has brought to me and now my kids!!!!!!)
It's the quotation marks that really tell you how much they care, appreciate their attention to detail
We've officially entered The Cool Zone
I myself have always of American society thought it to be a skyscraper, gleaming, waiting against a sky for a careening plane named Trump, Donald J.
Creating alternative structures of governance to replace the destruction of state capacity happening right now is essential. Hire laid-off federal workers. Build your own capacities. Nobody's coming to help.
It’s me, I fell for it, damn
It’s actually really informative about you and other ultra-wealthy people that you can’t distinguish between a proposed plan that had very little chance of becoming law - and would have to be passed by legislators, subject to judicial review - and a guy just taking stuff. Congratulations!
Super Troopers or Master and Commander
True, and it’s endlessly funny that one of those words is “hypertrophy,” nothing better than hearing a guy with tren oozing out his pores say it
Supposed to be a writer and used the word "force" three times in here, smdh
I don't love Westside as a system (RIP Louie) but bands and chains have so much to offer
I'm working a lot on power and rate-of-force production right now, and for that purpose, bands have a lot of utility - they force you to keep generating more force throughout the lift instead of getting to the sticking point and decelerating.
Great question! Bands offer "accommodating resistance," which means that the force curve of the movement is different than straight weight. Basically, it gets harder as you stretch the bands more toward the end of the lift. If you want to work on your bench/deadlift/squat lockout, they're awesome.
In November 2024, I made a list of things I thought the fascism theory of Trumpism predicted could happen.
Two options: 1) Robert Darnton, "The Revolutionary Temper: Paris, 1748-1789." 2) Marcus Rediker, "The Slave Ship: A Human History."
Oh yeah, there's a ton of contingency involved - if Majorian had better luck, if Valentinian III hadn't killed Aetius, if the Vandals hadn't destroyed the fleet in 468, etc
4Loko, no question
Yeah I've spent my whole adult life around PEDs - strength sports, bodybuilding, combat sports - and in this day and age there's zero excuse for not handling a cycle correctly.
My garage is always open
Love Mary Beard, she's outstanding, that's my first recommendation to almost everyone interested in Rome. For early Rome, Kathryn Lomas, "The Rise of Rome," is my go-to; the later we get, the less I like any one book.
We’re doing box front squats and back work while we talk about why the Roman Empire in the west fell apart! www.instagram.com/reel/DNrKOV1...
It's the literal definition of a critical juncture as institutionalists define one
Every raid on an American household will be broken down on YouTube and Spotify, make sure to like and subscribe
The sheer dosages, 2-3x what the Olympian was getting even in blast phases of his cycles
It's very effective as gender-affirming care for man-babies who never trained hard enough or bothered to hit their protein goals
I knew an ex-Olympic athlete who was part of a state-sponsored Eastern Bloc doping program and he was shocked by the dosages of testosterone his cop buddies were taking. All these guys are loaded up on strip-mall TRT, resentment, and white Monsters.
I really want to read the deep-dive investigation into steroid abuse in police departments that at least three people I'm aware of have been trying to write for years.
Checks out based on my experiences
Lmao that was my exact follow-up, nailed it
Oh we're gonna see so many headlines about guys who went 1-4 in a promotion that contains the word "XTREME" committing civil liberties violations
Military and ex-military didn't fit that profile - not that all of them were great people, but they weren't bully-ass quitters
I did Muay Thai and BJJ for many years and something I always found fascinating was how few law-enforcement officers actually stuck around. A few did, but for the most part, they'd come to a class or two, get their asses kicked, and never come back. Draw your own conclusions from that.
These are all guys who "squatted 500 in high school, believe me bro, it was epic, but then I hurt my knee"
Credit to the Trump administration (sarcasm, folks) - they finally found a home for all the Very Special Boys who always wanted an excuse to load up on steroids and bully people who aren't as broken inside as they are
Come work out with me and learn about the Eastern Roman Empire! www.instagram.com/reel/DNpApmR...
A new regular section of the show, @miloedwards.bsky.social & @phoeberoi.bsky.social ask @patrickwyman.bsky.social questions about a historical topic and goddammit he answers linktr.ee/mastersofpod
Plenty of people I knew in Washington growing up were deeply concerned about borders and migration and cultural change. Trump activated, shaped, and furthered a sentiment that was already widespread, and probably underrepresented, among the voting populace.
Yeah the area where we have the most evidence for mass migration in the Late Bronze Age is one of the few that actually seems to prosper in the succeeding period! (also, sorry if I came off defensive)
I'm so fond of Men in Tights. Is it why I ended up doing medieval history as a profession? I'm not going to say it was the whole reason, but it also wasn't NOT a reason
Lmao yeah if some of the most inbred, least competent rulers in an age of immense personal royal power can figure it out, we can do it
I'd suggest actually listening to what the episode says about migration in the Late Bronze Age
There have been times and places in the human past where group identity, defined by language and descent, has mattered a ton for how political units define themselves. There are a lot more times and places where language and descent haven't mattered much. It doesn't have to be this way.
The gap between what your average American "knows to be true" about people moving around the world and the reality is absurdly wide. Even among broadly liberal people, the idea that there HAVE to be limits on immigration is pretty standard.
It may have been the mainstream opinion in politics; it certainly wasn't among the general public
Not one single book or article, ever. Just a blank slate wandering around without a care in the world over here
It's easier to move people than it is resources, broadly defined. We have perfectly good tools - laws, social norms, schools, the concept of citizenship - for managing inter-group conflict. Use them and reap the benefits.
Migration is fundamentally good, and it's the job of governments to build institutions that allow people from wildly different backgrounds to live together in harmony and prosperity, not cater to xenophobic fear-mongering among people who have no idea what they're talking about
Yeah she was great! I’ve also really enjoyed her work on the death penalty. Beyond that, can’t say much.
Some incredibly good news: One year ago this week, The Onion returned to print. In that one year, we’ve grown to the 13th largest print newspaper in the United States, just ahead of the Boston Globe, and growing fast. In short, it’s working. So… thank you. Thank you for helping save this thing.
I've read his work extensively, supported him as a subscriber for years, and learned a ton from him, and that's an entirely reasonable read, IMO
Sorry to bother you if you've already made a list like this, but what do you recommend reading on the topic?
Charter school version of the grindset guy talking on the podcast about how he makes every day be two days so he's working harder than everyone
Mocking Ackman and his pretensions is praxis IMO
Ackman's voice would be perfect for "Roger Roger"
That’s awesome! Funnily enough, I remember working on the proposal for that book while I was at a conference there in 2018.
I’m sorry you feel that way. I fundamentally disagree with the idea that things can’t be meaningfully described as better or worse if you’re clear about the criteria and acknowledge that you’re talking about a range contained entirely within the profoundly terrible.
Yeah, true - the bleakest iterations of Roman slavery were as bad as anywhere and anytime in human history.
Noel Lenski and Catherine M. Cameron (eds.), "What is a Slave Society? The Practice of Slavery in Global Perspective." The joint introduction and Lenski's chapters are pretty good for laying out good categories of comparison between systems of slavery.
Yeah, Philip Kay made the argument that Roman slavery most closely approximated Brazil RE extremely high importation rates but consistent enslaved percentage of the population over time.
I'm fond of Lenski's scale for measuring the intensity of different systems of unfreedom. "Worse" isn't a judgment about evilness, it's a perfectly reasonable shorthand for "more intense in highly specific facets related to permanence of status, conditions of transport, cultural dislocation."
We don’t have explicit evidence for it but there are good reasons to think the Romans did the same thing RE mining labor