Alumni Spotlight

Bret Devereaux, 2018, engages with history through a new book and a booming social media platform

Dr. Bret Devereaux graduated from the UNC History Department in 2018 with a specialty in ancient and military history. Since graduation, he has developed a career in history that blends traditional teaching and research, social media, popular culture, and current events. Bret, who wrote his dissertation on Ancient Roman warfare, is gaining recognition not only within his field but also through a growing social media following. This social media platform has given him the opportunity to talk about his work and engage an audience in an innovative way. Bret’s engagement is one example how historians have adapted to changing digital times in order to reach a wider audience beyond the traditional journal article or monograph.

Bret has built this audience through two channels – his twitter (@BretDevereaux) and his blog A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry (http://acoup.blog), both of which reach tens of thousands of eyes a month. The most popular content he produces makes connections between military history and popular content such as Lord of the Rings and Dune. Bret also writes about current events, especially as they relate to military history: “The focus of the blog shifts over time because it responds to the zeitgeist to a degree,” he told me, “For example, a few years ago it was Game of Thrones. I thought – how can I use that to get people thinking about the premodern world? Current events are similar. Last year I wrote a lot about military theory because of the European land war. A lot of readers wanted to know about Military History 101.” This approach has been successful – his blog has garnered over three million pageviews since its inception.

According to Bret, there are two key factors in the popularity of his online presence – writing about the current pop culture or news moment, as well as his credentials as an academic. The latter gives him a boost in a crowded online world where anyone can build a following: “The big challenge is the attention economy,” he explained, “There are a lot of people competing for eyeballs online. The advantage with academic credentials is legitimacy and formal training. Most of the history content on the internet is not even made by historians.” Bret cites his training as an academic as one of the reasons his readers trust him – it allows him to write with a critical eye and use his skills to research information in an accurate and effective way.

This year, Bret signed a book contract with Oxford University Press. His thorough dissertation and previous research were not the only things that caught the attention of the press – it was also his knack for being able to communicate his ideas with a larger audience, most of whom are not professional historians. The book is a reworking of his dissertation, The Material and Social Costs of Roman Warfare in the Third and Second Centuries B.C.E, which was an investigation of the mobilization and cost of warfare during the initial Roman expansion overseas. Bret used digital technologies in order to utilize existing material evidence in new ways, crafting the argument that Rome’s success wasn’t just about manpower. Instead, they also had a much broader range of resources to invest into warfare, social systems, and upkeeping its alliance system in Italy. Ancient Rome is a topic that Bret has written about many times on the blog, citing readers’ sustained interest in the subject as something that has continued over time – “People are always thinking about the Roman Empire,” he said, “In the United States, we borrow a lot from Rome and invite those comparisons. That influences people to be thinking in those [comparative] terms, as Rome is a poignant stand in for our society.” Bret regularly addresses these comparisons on the blog, correcting myths and providing insight from his own academic research.

As historians seek to navigate changing technology and the digital age, Bret’s engagement with social media offers an example of how an online platform can be one of the best ways to reach the general public. He encourages the discipline to embrace social media more as the world becomes more and more online – “It can be a really valuable tool. If you’re looking to reach the public, you have to go where the public is.” He comments that while social media can have its downsides, it is the place that individuals go to search for and understand information. “As historians, we have to engage because our field is changing. If we want to bring the importance of history to the fore, robust public outreach for the field is no longer optional.” Bret is a staunch advocate for bringing history directly to the public and demonstrating that the important work of historians is more relevant than ever. He regularly blogs about his own writing, research, and teaching methods as a professional historian in order to highlight how important history is to understanding not only the past, but the present and future. However, he notes that historians have to be prepared to adapt their work – posting the equivalent of a conference paper or a journal article can fall flat to an online audience.

When I asked what was next for him, Bret told me that he plans to continue teaching and writing for traditional press outlets such as The New York Times and Foreign Policy. He has written about the need to preserve the discipline of history both in the academy and in the eyes of the public. In Foreign Policy, he has written a number of pieces on Rome, Sparta, and Ancient Greece. He also continues to write for A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, which releases a new post every Friday. Bret is also in the process of writing his book, which is due to be released in 2025.

 

-Dani McIvor

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