Signed Copies of Oathbreakers - How to Get Them!
Plus a new essay by us on Elon Musk and a Carolingian phrase Musk doesn't understand
Modern Medieval
by David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele
Hello! A few folks have asked us how to order signed copies of Oathbreakers, so an update with good news!
Matt and David will be doing an event at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, MA on January 23. If you order a copy of Oathbreakers from Porter Square Books, we can sign it when we visit, and then they will ship it to you (domestic shipping only). Click the link here and ask for signature/personalization in the order comments.
In other news, we ended the year with an essay about Elon Musk’s love of the phrase “vox populi, vox dei” in the Toronto Star.
As Modern Medieval readers know, it’s first cited in the works of Alcuin of York, court thinker to Charlemagne (back to Oathbreakers!). But, as we write, “in doing so [Musk] wasn't celebrating the voice of the people. He was doing the exact opposite. Alcuin was decrying demagogues and fools who elevate the “tumult of the mob” over the wise counsel of experts.”
We write:
We’ve spent the last two years in a close examination of that history as we finished our new book Oathbreakers. What the actual past, rather than soundbites, teaches us is that even back then government was at its best when it elevated smart people and listened to experts. Certainly, there were cracks in the foundation of this long-ago empire, fissures that the wealthy could exploit. And that’s what they did. Charlemagne’s grandsons threw aside any thought of the good of the empire, and instead launched a brutal civil war that sundered the empire for good, at the cost of thousands of lives -- brother against brother, nephew against uncle, neighbors against neighbors -- on the field of battle.
But there were forces that worked against that greed as well. In 842, in the middle of the civil war, a nobleman named Adalard wrote to one of the warring brothers, asking him for peace, and warning him against bad counsel. You can tell who’s giving bad advice, the nobleman concluded, because it’s those who counsel division and only seek to benefit themselves.
They are wise words, with an obvious resonance today. Adalard, in composing his letter, was only able to look back on the horrific carnage of a bloody civil war fought between brothers – a battlefield that, to paraphrase one participant, left a feast for vultures and wolves. We must do better.
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I've been listening to the Rex Factor podcast, and struck by the parallels between Henry VIII and Trump. Especially encouraging factionalism among his "team," and destroying the fiscal stability established by his predecessor, not to mention his wives, diet, and capricious decision-making. We can learn from history.