What Bret Devereaux thinks about ambition

@bret-devereaux · 25 positions · On ppll ↗

Ancient and military historian specialising in the economy of the ancient Mediterranean, who writes the long-form blog A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry on pre-modern economies, logistics and warfare, and on what popular history, film and games get wrong about them.

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1 dated position, 2020, in their own words. Our reading of what Bret Devereaux has said — not written or endorsed by them.

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1. 24 Jul 2020

   Our readingThe "lazy peasant" is a slander of the leisured classes: pre-modern farmers stopped short of maximum effort because their priorities were not served by more of it.

   Their wordsThis isn’t because they are ‘lazy’ – the ‘lazy peasant’ (or poor worker generally) is a standard hypocrisy of the literature of the leisured aristocratic class towards poor farmers, today and in the past – but because they have priorities which are simply not served by labor maximization.

   ↗Collections: Bread, How Did They Make It? Part I: Farmers!acoup.blog 4th of 4 in this piece