The Public Square for July 2026
Attention Citizens!
Not that much to update this month! I was gone on vacation for a while in June, and after I got back there have been a lot of World Cup related distractions. I got some writing done, but it’s all still a mess and nothing is quite in the right order yet, so I’m leaving it at 0% for now. Whenever it stops being a bunch of random thoughts on a topic and starts becoming recognizable as a piece of writing with a beginning, middle, and end, I’ll bump it up to 10%, lol.
Q&A:
I’ll answer a bunch of questions today! If you’re interesting in asking a question for next month, leave it as a response to this post over on Patreon!
G asks… “Do you have plans or interest in covering history from parts of the world that are not European? (A little like the iroquois video) if so what are you interested in?”
The shortest answer to your question is that I mostly read European history, so those are the waters that my brain is usually swimming in. If I’m just sitting around and thinking random thoughts about history, 95% of the time they are about European history, and that’s usually where ideas for videos come from.
To be very analytical about my own interests for a moment, I find that I am most interested in power, and I find it the most fun to follow the most powerful states throughout history. But the moment that those same states become less powerful, my interest level drops. For example, I’m VERY INTERESTED in 19th century Britain, but not that interested in Plantagenet England (12th to 15th centuries) when England was a backwater. VERY INTERESTED in post-Punic Wars Rome, (say, post 264 BCE,) but not that interested in pre-Punic Wars Rome, when Rome was a backwater. VERY INTERESTED in 20th century US history, (say, 1945-1991,) not that interested in 19th century US history.
Using that as a framework, it becomes really easy to generate random ideas for videos. Doing videos about the 19th century, where there are 5 Great Powers, and I can pick and chose those most interesting aspects from each of them? Fun.
I will say that I’ve been a little self-critical lately, because China tends to be one of the most powerful states in the world whenever it is united, and yet I know very little about Chinese history. So in that respect I am a bit of a hypocrite. I’ve been thinking lately that I should educate myself, because CLEARLY we are all about to enter the Age of China, which means that the importance of Chinese history is bound to grow for the rest of our lives.
I don’t know if that will naturally lead to videos, but that’s been on my mind lately.
Oh, and I do have a bunch of books on the Incas staring at me from my bookshelf, in pristine condition, completely unread. I can’t help but think that that might become a video some day, but I would have to do a bunch of research to figure that out.
Drew Adams asks… “Are there any topics you feel the need to cover that you personally wish you didn’t have to? For example, if for whatever reason you hated covering the springtime of the peoples but still needed to to set the stage for German/Italian unifications”
Oh, that’s an interesting question.
The truth is that I’m pretty good at researching absolutely everything, and then cutting out all of the parts that I found boring. Or at minimum, squishing the boring bits into 2 or 3 sentences and moving on.
Let me try to think of specific examples…
Oh, here’s a recent example. I did SO MUCH WORK on The Belgian Revolution for the Reform or Revolution? (1830 to 1832) video. The uprising, the military actions between the Netherlands and Belgium, and the extremely complicated negotiations that resulted in the Treaty of London (1839). I had pages and pages and pages written. But as I was working on it, I was just like… this is very complicated and very boring. So I squished it all into (I just checked) literally 3 sentences, and moved on. What I found more interesting was how people in Britain (including the King) were completely freaked out by the Belgian Revolution, which did make it into the final video. But, it’s important to note that I didn’t FORCE MYSELF to make a video about the Belgian Revolution, even though it was quite important for the period. I just found what I believed to be a much more interesting and important thing, which was Reform in Britain, and put all of my energy there.
I’m trying to think of an example from the ancient Rome videos, and the closest that I can think of is that I find explaining the relationship between Rome and its Italian allies (the Socii,) so tedious and boring. There are different levels, and they are constantly changing over time, and truthfully my brain just doesn’t care. I was always close to making a map breaking down Rome’s territory to show the different hierarchy levels of Rome’s allies, but it’s so boring to me, I couldn’t be bothered. In fact, I could feel myself getting bored just typing that previous sentence, lol.
So to answer your question, my first drafts are usually extremely long and boring, which means that I usually write up EVERYTHING and then figure out what actually belongs in the video later. So if I find a topic kinda boring, I’ve probably written up the long version in an early draft. In the best case scenario, I just cut the whole thing out if I find it boring. But I have many memories of taking several typed pages and being like “this all has to become one paragraph, just enough to give the minimum context for what comes later.”
That’s why I don’t give timelines for when the next video comes out, because my 20 hours of work on the Belgian Revolution turned into 3 sentences in the final video, lol.
Dommynation asks… “Do you have any intention of going back to doing videos about Rome or do you intend to stick in your current direction? Follow up as well, do you ever intend on hiring on an editor or animator to help you out? Thank you!”
Yes, I intend to do more on Rome, but I’m not currently working on anything like that. I try my best to follow my natural interest so that I’m never “forcing” myself to make videos against my will, so I’m not CURRENTLY working on anything about ancient Rome, but I do think that it would EVENTUALLY be a lot of fun to start going through the Roman Emperors. Imagine if I dropped a 3 minute video on the Emperor Pertinax? Galba? Otho? That would be sick.
But ideally, I would like to pick up right where I left off, and for the next Roman video to be about Augustus. Which would obviously be a huge undertaking. Probably a little longer than a 3 minute video.
Oh, and an animator? No, not plans on doing that.
plifal asks… “what're your top 3 kurosawa films? :) you won't escape this question”
Since I cannot escape, I will answer this question. Prepare to be disappointed! The most basic Kurosawa list of all time!
#1 by a mile is Yojimbo (1961)
#2 is Seven Samurai (1954)
#3 is The Hidden Fortress (1958)
Basic, basic, basic! Obviously I like the samurai stuff. There are a few I still haven’t seen though, including Throne of Blood (1957) and Ran (1985), which I assume I will love.
Sara Hatch asks… “I saw that a biography of Hobsbawm is coming out, do you plan to read it? The Age of Hobsbawm: The Life of a Revolutionary Historian by Emile Chantal.”
I did NOT know that! How exciting! Yes, I will absolutely be reading that! What an exciting day!
Books I’ve Recently Enjoyed:
Kurt Vonnegut
Over my break I read Galapagos (1985), Bluebeard (1987), and Hocus Pocus (1990), all by Kurt Vonnegut. With those three done, I think that means that I’ve read every book published by Vonnegut, even including short story and essay collections. Pretty sure that’s true. Round of applause for me, mission accomplished, thank you very much. Of course those three books I read are all “lesser Vonnegut,” and since I read all three back to back to back I already cannot remember which plot is from which, but that’s okay.
Want my Definitive Top Five Vonnegut?
#1 - Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
#2 - Mother Night (1961)
#3 - God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965)
#4 - Breakfast of Champions (1973)
#5 - Slapstick, or Lonesome No More! (1976)
Clearly I favour the 1960s stuff.
Now I need a new project.
Films I’ve Recently Enjoyed:
Pressure (2026)
Listen, it’s the most dadcore movie ever created, but sometimes you absolutely must examine World War 2 through the prism of meteorology. Also, no, writer David Haig is NOT related to World War 1 villain Douglas Haig, but you’d better believe that your boy was Googling at lightspeed as the credits started to roll, I thought he might be a grandson or something.
Boxcar Bertha (1972)
I think this is the last Scorsese that I had never seen? Perhaps? It’s an obvious Bonnie and Clyde rip-off, made for basically no money by Roger Corman. This movie has a terrible reputation, OBVIOUSLY it’s derivative, OBVIOUSLY it’s trashy, but in my opinion it’s actually shockingly good. You might be thinking to yourself, “that all sounds fine, but does the male lead get crucified like Jesus?” Yes, in fact, he does!
Music I’ve Recently Enjoyed:
Paul Simon
For reasons that I cannot fully understand, I’m hardcore Simon & Garfunkel enjoyer, but a hardcore Paul Simon hater. Even though Paul Simon wrote everything for Simon & Garfunkel, it literally makes no sense. I know this is a crazy word to use, but I find his bad songs repulsive, my visceral reaction is like “yuck, this is disgusting.”
So for no reason whatsoever, I’ve been trying to brainwash myself into liking his music. Because he’s obviously a great writer, it doesn’t make sense that I wouldn’t like it. For the last month I’ve been listening to the following albums A LOT, like a stupid amount: Paul Simon (1972), There Goes Rhymin’ Simon (1973), and Still Crazy After All These Years (1975). My verdict is: you kinda can brainwash yourself into liking somebody’s music if you try hard enough!
From those 3 albums there are several all-time masterpieces, stuff like Still Crazy After All These Years, and yet on the same album there’s stuff that I somehow find REPULSIVE and DISGUSTING like 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. While I was typing this paragraph I was listening to 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover just to confirm that I actually felt this way, and I noticed that my face was stuck in a “yuck” expression the entire time.
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