Astral Codex Ten

Devereaux

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Devereaux

Article

Devereaux is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between June 06, 2023 and January 10, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as “Several people pointed out that I described Devereaux’s graph wrong”; “Devereaux admits that the Mongols were an exception to his theory”; “In one of his few concessions to the Fremen, Devereaux has a soft spot for Ibn Khaldun’s theory”. It most often appears alongside Bret Devereaux, Wikipedia, Alexander the Great.

Metadata

  • Category: People
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: June 06, 2023
  • Last seen: January 10, 2024

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Highlights From The Comments On The Academic Job Market
June 06, 2023 · Original source
Several people pointed out that I described Devereaux’s graph wrong - for example, hammerspacetime:
Inline links: hammerspacetime
This sort of makes sense, but I’m confused by the “superstar” claim. Bret Devereaux is, in his own way, a superstar and a household name. He’s probably one of a tiny handful of academic historians I (and many other people) have heard of. This obviously is not the kind of superstardom colleges want; they seem to be going for papers in top journals only.
This is the same question I ask about George Mason. Many people have remarked on how impressive it is that they have Tyler Cowen, Bryan Caplan, Robin Hanson, Garett Jones, etc, despite not being the sort of Ivy League school where you would expect famous people to congregate. The answer has to be that the department is selecting for Devereaux-like people with popular fame rather than academic fame. What tradeoffs are they making here, and have they paid off?
Book Review: Cyropaedia
January 10, 2024 · Original source
Xenophon’s view of Persia - they were great because they were hard men who resisted decadence - is what historian-blogger Bret Devereaux calls “The Fremen Mirage”. Devereaux is against this. He has a long, very interesting series on how this trope gets called up to serve various unsavory agendas, but in real life settled “decadent” states usually beat hard “manly” barbarians. Sure, some barbarians eventually conquered the Western Roman Empire. But before that happened, the Romans conquered hundreds of barbarian tribes in the process of taking the entire Mediterranean region and holding it for hundreds of years. The score is still settled states 100, barbarians 1. And this is a typical record - look at China, the Middle East, etc, and you will find a similar pattern.
Inline links: historian-blogger Bret Devereaux calls “The Fremen Mirage”
Grant that settled states beat barbarians most of the time (for example, by Devereaux’s numbers, China was only ruled by barbarians for 13 - 24% of its history). Is this more or less than we would expect?
Devereaux admits that the Mongols were an exception to his theory. But the more you look, the more exceptions you find. Devereaux has a convenient explanation for each: