Extra content for AHM issue 1
Things have been a bit quiet here as I recover from writing a slew of posts as part of the ‘Autumn of Perseus’ (which will have been hard to miss, I think!).
The launch party for Ancient History Magazine was a big success and we are all pretty chuffed with the response that the first issue of the magazine has yet so far. If all has gone well, you should have received your copy of the magazine if you are a subscriber. If you were a Kickstarter backer and are supposed to receive a signed copy of the first issue, it might still be underway, depending on where you live.
In the meantime, Jona is hard at work at polishing off the second issue, which will deal with Caracalla, and has also been plugging away at the issue after that, which focuses on Pergamon. Those two topics are interesting as Ancient History Magazine focuses on the non-military aspects, whereas the aspects perhaps most familiar to reglar readers will be the more belligerent ones: Caracalla as the severe, would-be conqueror, and Pergamon’s struggles with the Galatians, respectively. But have a look at the editorial plan to get an idea of what to expect for those two issues: I think you’ll like them.
But we’re not completely done yet with the first issue. Some Kickstarter backers were promised ‘extra content’, and I have this week finished putting my editorial polish on the articles that were written for this purpose. Unlike reported earlier in this blog post, the new content will be made into a separate PDF consisting of ten pages.
The new content consists of four new articles written by regular contributors to Ancient Warfare. Seán Hußmann has written an article on Herodotus as, briefly put, the ‘Father of Investigative Journalism’. The article emphasizes that some who critique Herodotus for being a poor historian are being rather unfair. A short article by Sidney Dean deals with an ancient papyrus that contains instructions on how to create forgeries. Marc DeSantis’ contribution is on the Phoenician circumnavigation of Africa (an article that was difficult to find pictures for, I can tell you!). Finally, Gareth Williams has written a piece on how the ancient Greeks said ‘Goodbye’; it deals with death and funerals, but without becoming dour.
Only Kickstarters will be able to read the new content for the time being, but we’ll make it available to everyone at some point down the line, probably for a modest fee. We’ll be importing the texts and pictures into InDesign soon and the PDF should make its way to backers before the month is out.