A third post in a single day?!?

Well, Hurricane Sandy has put my cable on the fritz, imperiling my ability to watch the Celtics and the Heat play the NBA season opener tonight, so I might as well add a third post.

More to the point, I thought I’d let everyone know that I have been partially co-opted by The Man, and am now one of five bloggers on the Society for Military History‘s Official Blog. You can find us under the unimaginative name of SMH Blog; it’s also linked in the Blogroll on the right. I think I’ll refer to it as SMHBLOG since the military loves acronyms. My first post there just went up. I’m joined by Brian Sandberg (of Historical Perspectives fame) and several other modern military bloggers, including one of the original military history bloggers, Mark Grimsley (Blog Them out of the Stone Age). They’re already talking about Clausewitz in Nigeria (kinda like “Shakespeare in the Bush” I guess, or Lawrence of Arabia) and Trenchard-as-policeman, so I better get over there and make sure they don’t get too comfortable in their modernity. It’s so passé.

We’re planning on posting ten posts per month with a regular rotation – we’ll discuss all sorts of topics “that showcase or comment upon academic military history.” Since I’ll continue to maintain this blog in its current format, here’s how I conceive of the division of labor between the two:

“Skulking will continue delving into the minutiae of early modern warfare, while my contributions here [i.e. on SMHBLOG] will tend more towards the contextual: discussing broader debates in early modern military historiography and their relevance to military history more generally, hinting at early modern precedents to modern military phenomena, distinguishing early modern practices and mentalities from more recent ones, and generally pestering military historians to remember that war existed before Napoleon and Clausewitz, and that it needs to be understood on its own terms.” [Note to WordPress: can you please not suggest “early modern presidents” when I spell-check “early modern precedents”? Our students have enough spelling issues as it is.]

For SMHBLOG I’ll probably tone down the charming combination of smarm, sarcasm and stridency that I’m sure you’ve all come to love on Skulking. Need to be a bit more academic there for respectability’s sake.  Gotta represent.

So feel free to add SMHBLOG to your RSS feed. Until I get tired of doing it, I’ll mention here when I post there, or when there are any interesting discussions going on there, from an early modern perspective of course. My next post there is scheduled for 9 November, and will summarize how I see the field of EMEMH organized. I think somebody asked that question once in a comment – when does EMEMH start and end? You’ll just have to wait till the 9th to find out what I think.