Bret Devereaux

Bio

Bret Devereaux studies the intersection of ancient Mediterranean economies and militaries.  He has his MA in Classical Civilizations from Florida State University and a PhD in Ancient History from UNC Chapel Hill.  His primary research interests concern the ways that the lives of ordinary people in the ancient world were shaped by the structures of power, violence and wealth under which they lived, as well as the ways in which those people in turn shaped the military capacity of the states that ruled them.  More broadly he is interested in many of the nuts-and-bolts of everyday life in the ancient world, things like the production of textiles, the economics of small farming households, and the burden of military service.  He is currently working on a monograph presenting a comparative study of the burden of fielding armies in the third and second century Mediterranean, considering the logistics, equipment and mobilization systems of Rome, Carthage, the Seleucid, Antigonid and Ptolemaic kingdoms and the non-state peoples of Spain and Gaul.

Bret is also active in public-facing publication aimed at improving the historical literacy of the general public as well as advocating for the humanities in general and history in particular.  His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Bulwark, The National Interest and most frequently in Foreign Policy.  He also writes a popular weekly history blog, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry.