Three books on the Achaemenids (all bad)

[Jona Lendering]

Some time ago, Jasper invited me to write a review of a book on Achaemenid warfare. Unfortunately, it turned out to be one of the worst books I've ever read. I decided to make the review a bit "wider", integrating two other books, equally bad, to prove that not the authors, but Iranology itself has some serious problems. You can find the review here. It is rather long, but I seized the opportunity to address a lot of common misconceptions.

[D B Campbell]

I enjoyed your extended review, Jona.

I have not read Farrokh, but I expect part of his problem has been Osprey's insistence on inflexible deadlines (enforced by financial penalties) and inflexible word limits (every series has its own "word count", whether the author wishes to write more, or less). Osprey do not perform any quality check on the content -- I don't think it's unduly cynical to suggest that they rate the pictorial element higher than the text in their books -- but nowadays few publishers do check content. Nevertheless, I am willing to accept your verdict that this (like many other Osprey products) is "a bad book".

I must admit to enjoying Tom Holland's prose, while recognising (a few of) his historical failings. Your expertise has enabled you to highlight many more. But, like Farrokh's Osprey, this is clearly a publisher-driven product, to cash in on the success of Rubicon. I am willing to accept your verdict that this is "an unnecessary book", provided you qualify that verdict as being "unnecessary to Iranology" but very necessary to the publisher's profitability!

I hadn't even heard of the third book! But then, I'm not an Iranologist, and I'm unlikely ever to consult a book about Achaemenid religion. (While I am in confessing mode, Adorno and Horkheimer's "famous" Dialektik der Aufklärung is entirely new to me, too ... and I assumed that I was moderately well-educated!)

I agree that good scholarship should be accessible (see my recent comment elsewhere), but there is a delicate balancing act (for those within academic circles) in order to please the academics and the public. Of course, those of us who lurk on the fringes of academe don't give a *@$£ ! :wink:

P.S. I see that Tom Holland has written an essay on The Persian Way of War for something called Lapham's Quarterly. Have you read it?

[Jona Lendering]

I am willing to accept your verdict that this is "an unnecessary book", provided you qualify that verdict as being "unnecessary to Iranology" but very necessary to the publisher's profitability!

That's what seriously worries me - here in Holland, my very own publisher (a pretty good one that does check books and has a reputation for quality) has recently allowed a book to be published that contained no less than 250 errors. When I offered to correct it, one of the answers was "but we checked it on the internet". And that is the issue, I am afraid: the return of outdated interpretations through the world wide web.

The Wikipedia, in spite of the well-meaning efforts of countless volunteers (which prove that people are hungry for knowledge), can be a disaster. In Iranology, it certainly is, as all kinds of old ideas are now returning.

I hadn't even heard of the third book! But then, I'm not an Iranologist, and I'm unlikely ever to consult a book about Achaemenid religion.

Lincoln's book is the best of the three I reviewed; at least he checks his facts and what he is saying (that any ideology creates excesses and that religious imperialism is especially dangerous) is -in spite of the fact that it has often been said before- worth considering.

Adorno and Horkheimer's "famous" Dialektik der Aufklärung is entirely new to me

Another reminder, for me, that Anglosaxon and Continental scholarship are separated by more than just the Strait of Dover. DdA is an amazing work - utterly conservative in its conclusions, radical left-wing in its methods. There are two English translations (both called Dialectic of Enlightenment).
[url:13qdaq1v]http://frankfurtschool.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/summary-dialectic-of-enlightenment/[/url]

[Praefectusclassis]

I would like to point out that the new reading of the rules do allow a discussion about the problem of academy-audience-money. We have complained more than once about the quality (or lack thereof) of widely available publications (offline and online) and the gap between (usually) high quality academic publications and the wider audience.
Jona, you've been quite forthcoming with your criticism more than once. What's the solution? (and one that does not require a radical rethink of how society at large spends its money)

[Jona Lendering]

Jona, you've been quite forthcoming with your criticism more than once. What's the solution? (and one that does not require a radical rethink of how society at large spends its money)

I think its really very easy. People employed at the university must, for every scholarly publication, write a publication for the larger audience. This will lead to better publications for the general public (written by real scholars, instead of half-scholars like Tom Holland and Jona Lendering), and will force academicians to think more about what they are really doing.

At the same time, it will open up the small world of (e.g.) ancient historians. If social scientists read how ancient historians think about society and if methodologists read how they employ important concepts, the present generation of ancient historians will receive a lot of well-deserved criticism, but I have no doubt that they will learn from it. (I have met an ancient historian who understands the difference between a type and an ideal type, but they are all talking about typical-this and idealtypically-that.)

So I think that this simple measure cuts in two ways. That it is possible to be a serious scholar AND write for a larger audience, is -in Holland- proved by Pieter van der Horst, who has written many books for both audiences on Judaism in its Hellenistic context.

The ultimate direction must be a return to those books that were written in the early twentieth century: books that were interesting for the outsider and offered something new to the specialist. Think of Mommsen's Roemische Geschichte, Pirenne's Mahomet et Charlemagne, Huizinga's Waning of the Middle Ages, or Dijksterhuis' Mechanization of the World Picture.

Those titles are still in print. Obviously, people are willing to read serious books. You can also see their enthusiasm if you look at the Wikipedia. I have serious worries about it, but people are interested in knowledge and scholarship. So give them good books.

At this moment, many works for a large audience are written by half-scholars like myself, or by university people who have failed as researchers. It is easy to change that. (Sad for me, of course.)

[D B Campbell]

At this moment, many works for a large audience are written by half-scholars like myself, ...

Er ... why is that bad?! :?

(And, by the way, I think you are doing yourself a disservice by claiming only half-scholarship, Jona.)

[Jona Lendering]

At this moment, many works for a large audience are written by half-scholars like myself, ...

Er ... why is that bad?! :?

Because we do not see all complications. In my book on Alexander I misdated Zarathustra, believing that I had quoted the most recent literature on the subject; in fact, I had, but I did not know how the book had been received among Iranologists. No specialist would have made that mistake (which, I am glad to say, I could correct in the third impression).

I think that under the present circumstances, now that too many scholars are ignoring the larger audience, there is a lot of work to do for authors writing for the general reader. Those authors do their best, and some/many books are not bad. But in an ideal world, the universities take their responsibility.

[Praefectusclassis]

Is it that simple Jona, when researchers are graded by the volume of their academic publications? How are you going to motivate an academic to write essentially the same book twice? The books you mentioned above are extremely wide ranging in their subject matter, you know as well as I do that academics are now generally micro-specialists. And have to be, because they have to publish in academically highly regarded peer-reviewed journals.
Fact is, the current reward-structure in the Netherlands (and I think in at least the EU as well), promotes extreme specialization and publication for a small academic circle. That's not going to change until the bean-counters start putting a higher value on non-academic publications.

[Jona Lendering]

Fact is, the current reward-structure in the Netherlands (and I think in at least the EU as well), promotes extreme specialization and publication for a small academic circle. That's not going to change until the bean-counters start putting a higher value on non-academic publications.

Yep, but that is something we can change. It does not involve, as you said, "a radical rethink of how society at large spends its money". It never ceases to impress public servants when I say that I can make a living with a private school that tries to "popularize" scholarship, and that my books -which are pretty serious- sell reasonably well. And if I say to a publisher that the books by Dijksterhuis and Huizinga are still selling well, you can see that they suddenly realize that money can also be made by publishing books that do not contain 250 factual errors.

But I admit that there is a long way to go until scholarship is back where it belongs.

[D B Campbell]

... I had quoted the most recent literature on the subject; in fact, I had, but I did not know how the book had been received among Iranologists. No specialist would have made that mistake ...

You raise a couple of interesting points, Jona.

(1) You did not know how the book had been received, presumably because Iranologists hadn't shifted themselves to give it a timely and honest review. I can remember a time when reading a couple of book reviews alongside the book in question would've been mandatory, in order to gauge the worth of the book. Nowadays, many (most?) book reviews are either incompetent (the reviewer is not knowledgeable enough to analyse the book adequately), insubstantial (the reviewer doesn't have time to read and digest the book properly), or sycophantic (the reviewer doesn't want to antagonise the author).

(2) If you think that no specialist would've made the same mistake, you have probably overestimated the competition. I am not an Iranologist, and maybe Iranologists are a diligent bunch, but in the field of Roman military archaeology (which I flatter myself by pretending to know something about), so-called specialists make (and perpetuate) some shocking errors.

In the past, my attempts to rectify Number 1 by writing honest book reviews (like your critique of the Achaemenid books) have (unfortunately for me and for my career) alienated certain parties. Likewise my efforts to rectify Number 2 by pointing out certain fundamental errors (again, as in your review of the Achaemenid books). (The comment that "we all know it's a bad book but you're not supposed to say that in a review", made by a senior member of the UK archaeological establishment, was once relayed back to me, after I had made an honest assessment of Graham Webster's Roman Imperial Army.)

My position, which is most charitably described as "on the fringes of academe", allows me to do this, but only at the expense of having relinquished any hope of a mainstream academic career.

This is a very long-winded way of saying that we "half-scholars" have an important part to play. We can be the honest voice of our subject.

[Jona Lendering]

This is a very long-winded way of saying that we "half-scholars" have an important part to play. We can be the honest voice of our subject.

Yep, that's true: we have an opinion on scholarship that is independent of the power structure of the universities.

And that can be dangerous. I mentioned a book that contained 250 mistakes; because Dutch people who have anything to ask by mail usually come to me (for one reason or another thinking that I have more time than the official scholars), and because I was really sick of having to answer questions about that book, I put online the list of errors. Within three days, I had received rather unpleasant comments from ancient historians - even those which I counted among my friends, so I have decided to redefine my spam filter, and do not receive mail about that book anymore.

And if you read between the lines that it is possible, in Holland, to write a book with 250 factual errors, and still be employed by a university, then the answer is: yes.

[Jona Lendering]

For those interested, the Farrokh part of my review, which was once commissioned by Jasper, has been published by the Bryn Mawr Classical Review (here). I am still shocked that a book like this can be written by someone with a Ph.D.

[D B Campbell]

I again enjoyed your review, the second time around, Jona! I wonder if the suthor will respond on the BMCR blog.

[Jona Lendering]

I again enjoyed your review, the second time around, Jona! I wonder if the suthor will respond on the BMCR blog.

Probably; the earlier version created some unrest at the Wikipedia, and the author drummed up a lot of support (here), which did not refute my comments, and instead reverted to citing the book's blurb as a testimony of quality. I would not have noticed this if there had not been a lot of extra visitors to my website; and I hope I will not notice similar things, because right now, I'm terribly occupied with finishing a book. :wink: I've made my point, I think.