Detail from the painting “Abend über Potsdam” [“Evening over Potsdam”] by Lotte Laserstein, 1930

“Weimar Germany, 1918/19–1933,” the final volume of our relaunched “German History in Documents and Images” primary source project, is now published and available! You can find the expanded edition, edited and with a new introduction by Erik Jensen, here: germanhistorydocs.org/en/weimar-ge...

Scientists invented a fake disease. AI told people it was real Bixonimania doesn’t exist except in a clutch of obviously bogus academic papers. So why did AI chatbots warn people about this fictional illness?

This is quite extraordinary- scientists set a kind of trap for AI chat bots by inventing a fake disease. AI told people it was real and… the deliberately bogus preprints started being cited in peer reviewed literature 🫣
🧪 #MedSky

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

#OTD in 1918, Germany sank the entire Liberian navy with a single shot. After Liberia entered WWI on the Allied side, Germany sent a U-boat to Monrovia that used its deck gun to score one hit on the R.L.S President Daniel E. Howard, sinking Liberia's only gunboat.

How "heroes" destroy civilisations Joel P. Christensen shares a provocative reflection linking modern geopolitical rhetoric to ancient Greek myth, exploring how hubris, heroism, and “main character” thinking continue to shape war, leadership, and the fate of civilisations.

"Superficial readings of Homer lead audiences to imagine that heroes are admirable. What each epic shows, however, is that the vast majority of people in heroic communities suffer because of their excesses...

neoskosmos.com/en/2026/04/0...

The war business: British shipping and the First World War | King's College London This paper develops an alternative account of the wartime relationship between ships, shipowners, and the state – and thus of Britain at war.

Looking forward to talking about my current project on seapower & the FWW at @kcllnucsc.bsky.social on 28 May. Link here: www.kcl.ac.uk/events/the-w...

Let me guess: ‘Changed my hairstyle so many times now, don’t know what I look like?’

Isn’t that what ‘people-centred research environment’ is supposed to be all about?

Yes! Like all good academic texts, it is also useful for propping up wobbly tables or keeping doors open.

Just this morning I cited this on Rupprecht’s flight from Belgium!

Orphaned Tactics Oops we did it again

Wrote up some thoughts on the current war with Iran. You can't have a strategy if you don't even have a policy.

open.substack.com/pub/bafriedm...

Great to speak to the World War I podcast about Framing the FWW, check it out here: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/f... @draefox.bsky.social @mpmfinch.bsky.social @univpressofkansas.bsky.social

I tell all my students that writing is about making choices. The act of writing forces you to understand and acknowledge those choices.

Funnily, in American English the term is ‘rappelling,’ borrowed from French.

Learning from history requires sophistication and skill If you reckon you have an understanding of international politics today, you probably haven’t been listening properly. Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump are making histor...

My review of Odd Arne Westad’s The Coming Storm, out in @thespectator1828.bsky.social today:

spectator.com/article/lear...

I’d be tempted to go with Sanborn’s spelling unless you hear from someone with more detailed knowledge.

I’ve always just used ‘Radko Dmitriev’ but I’m a German historian. Having just looked at one of Josh Sanborn’s (a Russian historian) books, he uses R. Radko Dmitriev.

He was the commander of the Russian 3rd Army in 1915 that was destroyed in the Gorlice-Tarnow campaign. I believe he was originally from Bulgaria. I’ve seen his name spelled both ways.

Book#5. Insightful work on the origins and execution of Verdun. A mix of intellectual history and military history, this is probably the best work available on why the Germans fought the Battle of Verdun. Highly recommend for anyone with a deep interest in the campaign. @robertfoley.bsky.social

Thank you! I’m pleased that you enjoyed it.

Of course! At least you didn’t see the elephant! I’m still going to tell everyone that ‘saw a hedgehog at noon’ means a really bad tutorial if you hear it at Oxford.

Is ‘saw the hedgehog at noon’ Oxford slang for some particularly taxing academic task?🤣

Unlike most apps these days, Scrivener (@scrivenerapp.bsky.social) does not use AI in any way.

I've been a happy user of Scrivener for 15+ years. And boy, am I happy about that! Thank you, Scrivener!

tinyurl.com/2mh99w3y

I m advertising a PhD position as part of our ERC project BLOCKADE. The PhD cand. should focus on myth/narratives of the hunger blockade in Germany, Austria in the era of the World Wars. 4 years of funding, wonderful team, amazing city (evidence attached)! Pls share! www.hsozkult.de/opportunity/...

Tim Cook, chief historian at the Canadian War Museum dies The historian was the author of over 19 books focusing on Canada’s military history.

Tim Cook CM
1971 – 2025

A great loss to the military history community worldwide. Thoughts and aroha with his family in Canada. www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs

- Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75%
- Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60%
- Social Sciences by 50–70%
- History by 60%
- Biology by 75%
- The German department will lose all PhD seats
- Sociology from six PhD students to zero

This is the way.

How generative AI could change how we think and speak Over-reliance on chatbots could be eroding our language and critical thinking skills.

"Students, and increasingly all of us, risk becoming editors of what has already been said, where the future is built only from recycled fragments of yesterday’s data."
theconversation.com/how-generati...

“This morning, Germany is one nation again.”

This is how BBC Breakfast News reported on German reunification, 35 years ago today.

We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.

Great news!
JSTOR now have a free account with an Independent Researcher category. You can access 100 documents per month

www.jstor.org/action/showL...