I spent August teaching, vibing, working on a still secret project and most importantly: running 97 Poets of Revachol (poets.rolling.cz) again. And it was a great, even if tiring experience. Also, moving furniture around the hospital in Terezín meant that I managed to listen to quite a few books. The biggest surprise was Creative Historical thinking, the weirdest and most intense experience was Conspiracy Against Human Race. Overall the best would be probably Schelling with Arms and Influence.
Creative Historical Thinking
Michael J. Douma
My review from Goodreads is quite funny here, because…it was the first there. Following:
It needs to be acknowledged that this short reflection (hard to call it a review) is very much influenced by the simple fact of being seemingly the first on this app, feeling like a person carving random doodles with a knife to a piece of art somebody created with love and care. On the other hand, the book has been published for seven years now: I am quite sure that the author is already waiting „oh, so what people will say?“.
I will not say much. I was positively surprised and entranced by the beginning of the book: by the very call for creative historical thinking, by the fluidity of the arguments, playfulness of the metaphors and clear reasoning why is creativity a framework of its own. Great stuff, rough around the argumentative edges, but still very inspiring.
I am not sure if I got any value from parts about writing and advice for young historians: I still hope that I qualify as one, but different environments etc. I got some inspiration from the education parts, but at the same time, having been mostly focused on that, there were only a few bits of something I would call „new“. Hard to judge.
Closer we get to the ending, the more the book dissolved into a number of anecdotes and little quirky ideas of different value. Personal history of your house? Uf, okay. Essay into disappearance of hats as a way of critiquing historical methods? Great, interesting, inspiring – while not leading anywhere. And that pattern replied itself.
The key question is then: do I think this is an important, crucial, rigorous book I would recommend to people to up my status as the „solid historian recommending good books“? No. Was it an enjoyable and inspiring read? For sure. Make of it what you want.
(and if the author ever reads it – the take away is that the book _is_ clear positive for the world, it just stands in a very, very peculiar position)
Playing with the Past: Digital Games and the Simulation of History
Matthew Wilhelm Kapell, Andrew B.R. Elliott
Very diverse with points both strong and weak and many, many surprises. Great kaleidoscope of approaches to writing about video games, inspiring in more ways than one (including: “oh, I do not want to go there”).
Arms and Influence
Thomas C. Schelling
1. Power is mostly about influencing choices, not destroying capabilities
Schelling’s central insight is that military power is valuable primarily because of what it signals and threatens, not because of what it physically destroys. Force is most effective when it is held in reserve, shaping the opponent’s expectations and decision-making. Victory is often achieved before—or without—actual violence.
2. Coercion works through credible threats and promises, not brute force
What matters is not how much force you possess, but whether your adversary believes:
- you can carry out a threat, and
- you will carry it out if pushed.
This shifts the focus from weapons to credibility, commitment, and communication—a lesson that remains painfully relevant in nuclear deterrence, sanctions regimes, and modern hybrid warfare.
3. Uncertainty is not a bug—it is a strategic resource
Schelling repeatedly shows that limited control, ambiguity, and even risk of catastrophe can be useful. Leaving outcomes partly to chance (“the threat that leaves something to chance”) can strengthen deterrence by making backing down harder and escalation more frightening for both sides. Rational actors sometimes benefit from not having full control.
4. Deterrence and compellence are fundamentally different problems
Preventing an action (deterrence) is much easier than forcing an opponent to undo or actively change behavior (compellence). Many policy failures stem from treating compellence as if it were deterrence. Schelling’s distinction explains why:
- wars are easy to start but hard to stop,
- sanctions often fail to change behavior,
- and coercive diplomacy requires escalation over time.
5. Commitments matter more than intentions
Intentions are cheap; commitments are costly and therefore believable. By tying one’s own hands—through alliances, public declarations, tripwires, or domestic political constraints—states can make threats credible even when war would be irrational. This insight underpins NATO deterrence, nuclear sharing, and forward troop deployments.
6. Violence is often used as communication
Military action is not just destruction; it is messaging. Limited strikes, demonstrations of force, and proportional responses are designed to convey resolve, red lines, and willingness to escalate. Schelling anticipates modern doctrines of escalation management and signaling long before they became standard vocabulary.
7. The enemy is rational—but not necessarily reasonable
Schelling assumes rational actors, but not benevolent ones. Rationality means consistent preferences, not moral restraint. This allows the model to remain realistic without becoming cynical: conflict persists not because actors are irrational, but because their incentives are misaligned and their fears mutual.
8. Repetition is part of the method, not just a flaw
The book is repetitive—but deliberately so. Schelling approaches the same core mechanisms (credibility, commitment, uncertainty) from multiple angles to demonstrate their universality across contexts: nuclear standoffs, conventional war, diplomacy, and bargaining. On re-read, the repetition reinforces rather than dilutes the argument.
9. Theory that survived reality is rare—and this one did
Many strategic theories collapse under historical pressure. Schelling’s models, by contrast, have been repeatedly validated by Cold War deterrence, crisis management, arms control, and post-Cold War coercive diplomacy. That durability is what elevates Arms and Influence from clever theory to foundational work.
10. A handbook for policymakers who want to avoid war—not win it
Despite its martial framing, the book is deeply conservative in the best sense: it is about preventing catastrophe, managing risk, and understanding how easily coercion can spiral out of control. Its value lies not in teaching how to fight, but how to avoid being forced to.
While Arms and Influence can feel repetitive, that repetition reflects the robustness of its core insights rather than a lack of depth. Schelling returns again and again to the same strategic levers because, in practice, they are the ones that matter. Even on re-read, the book rewards attention—not with novelty, but with clarity. Few works in security studies can claim to have aged this well.
Southern Gods
John Hornor Jacobs
One of the more common problems with horror is that it loses it´s terror progressively as things are revealed: and Southern Gods are good example of this. The _need_ to put in the Cthulhu mythos for no good reason, to do that „OH GUYS WHATS UP ITS YOUR GUY CTHULHU WITH THE FISH PEOPLE“ (or its variants) is over used and boring as it is.
But here its also the plot that is going against the book. The coincidences, the relationships of characters and plot twists moved from „I want to know more“ to straight up comical, including RPG-like „company of characters going off to solve a PLOT“. The writing and some ideas are promising, the setting worked well – will look into short stories by the author. But this was a letdown: probably even more _because_ of the promise.
Murder Ballads and Other Horrific Tales
John Hornor Jacobs
Picked this one up after Southern Gods and got a mixed bag.
Both Murder Ballads were just uninteresting and with little development of anything.
Loved Luminaria, enjoyed the nowhere-going atmosphere of El Dorado and had fun with some of the ideas in Single, Singularity or Old Dogs, New Tricks. Patchwork Things, Children of Yig or the Tale of the Fisherman’s Wife (which is a bit too obvious pun) did not really work for me, but still it is imho good stuff that can bring a lot of pleasure to people.
All in all, an enjoyable collection where you might want to skip the main course and enjoy the sides.
The Conspiracy Against the Human Race
Thomas Ligotti
Longer reflection available here https://www.dfw.cz/2025/08/14/conspiracy-against-human-race/.
What Is History?
Edward Hallett Carr
One of the key books that formed my opinions on the _meta_ part of doing history: what do we do, how to approach it and so on. The metaphor of the historian as a cook choosing facts as ingredients (with the risk of spoiling the meal by choosing rotten facts, but still choosing what is needed) was particularly strong.