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Alexander Rose

@alexrose.com
88 followers 40 following 71 posts

Author of "Washington's Spies" (made into the TV series TURN), "The Lion & The Fox," and "Empires of the Sky." America's 78th Most Famous Historian. Writes the freebie Substack, "Spionage" (Ye Olde Worlde spy stories).

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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 09/05/2025
You really need to read Quest for Corvo. One of the great biographies, as important as Strachey’s Eminent Victorians.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 01/04/2025
Advice to Authors: Whenever I’m down I like to head over to Amazon to read all my one-star reviews. The exemplary cavalcade of stupidity never fails to entertain.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 29/03/2025
Or/and they had very limited print runs in the first place.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 28/03/2025
None, so far as I’m aware. It’s basically my fantasy/nightmare General Editors list.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 28/03/2025
Easy Solution: Change into beltless trousers for fast pull-up; keep lavatory door open to hear bell; pre-wash hands; reuse yesterday’s underwear to reduce expensive laundry-detergent costs in case of poo-leakage; pack underwear with internal toilet-paper padding for on-the-go absorbency.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 28/03/2025
Another fun round could be had with: “Editors: H.R. Trevor-Roper, L. Namier, A.J.P. Taylor, H. Butterfield, and M. Bowra.”
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 24/03/2025
You just know that if it had been the other way round Disraeli would have gone full lay-it-on-with-a-trowel in maximum ironic mode. That is *style*.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 21/03/2025
Been busy for a bit finishing the new book ("Phantom Fleet"--out May 20), but here's a new post about historical intelligence from my Spionage Substack-- open.substack.com/pub/alexande...
open.substack.com
A New Golden Age: The Secret Letters of Mary Queen of Scots
AI is aiding codebreaking, but humans still matter more
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 17/03/2025
Yeah, but too much backstory, deus ex machina, exposition, and not enough arc for our characters on their Heroes’ Journey. Unlike the New Testament IP, Homer omits the third-act reveal (Trojan Horse). Could’ve used an editor or some dev notes from the studio to really make it sing.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 01/03/2025
It banned me once for “Chakakhan.”
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 22/02/2025
I too am a big Roger Moore fan.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 19/02/2025
Don’t know about the UK situation but in US naval intelligence WAVES were paid at the same scale as men doing the same job. They got nicer uniforms, tho, designed by Mainbocher. See my forthcoming “Phantom Fleet” for details (note exceedingly subtle plug).
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 15/02/2025
One of life's sweetest revelations was the discovery that in the late 70s Telly Savalas narrated a series of three touristy documentaries on Britain's most splendid cities (Birmingham, Portsmouth, and Aberdeen), despite never visiting them. www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoHV...
youtube.com
Telly Savalas Looks at Birmingham
YouTube video by seacaptainjoe
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 14/02/2025
You know what I love about @scrivenerapp.bsky.social? It's that in the Release Notes they use words like "erstwhile." (They missed a trick, though, by omitting, "we daresay.")
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 09/02/2025
Fun being on the panel with you.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 09/02/2025
Just returned from a most enjoyable @socintelhist.bsky.social conference at the Spy Museum. Here I am, in mid-sentence, lecturing a rapt audience eagerly awaiting the next speaker.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 04/02/2025
I think I would definitely watch a spin-off to “Parks and Recreation” centred on the crazy adventures of Jean-Ralphio and his sister (with frequent Henry Winkler cameos as Dad). Also bingeable: “The Life and Loves of Ron Swanson.”
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 02/02/2025
Hate to be *that* guy, but, technically speaking, Federation vessels have an Inertial Dampening System to mitigate momentum and shocks. It works 99.9% of the time but there’s a brief interval between something unexpected like a torpedo hit and the computer’s ability to compensate. I’ll leave now.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 31/01/2025
Oops, sorry, didn’t this see this until now. Apologies for my incompetence. I actually just sent you a DM about it.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 31/01/2025
Recently learnt that the fellow who named Everest pronounced his name as “Eve-Rest,” not “Ever-Est.” Handy bit of pedantry to one-up opponents whenever this particular subject pops up in conversation.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 31/01/2025
For fun, I ran this through Google Translate (using the Translate button here) and it comes out exactly the same. Hoccleve would be very jealous that the master’s words liveth then as now.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 29/01/2025
Don’t care what you urban elites say; Brut aftershave rocks. It’s the kind of thing Buzz Aldrin would splash on when he’s heading out for a walk on the Moon, or Cortes before he burns his ships and conquers the Aztec Empire. Just gets the job *done* and makes you smell like Evel Knieval.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 27/01/2025
As a Trojan, I find “Achilles” offensive.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 27/01/2025
Every time you do the laundry, release several mice around the house to distract and divert her. (I haven’t tried this myself, but theoretically it should work.)
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 26/01/2025
To quote our greatest modern philosopher, Alan Partridge, “Wings is the band the Beatles could have been.”
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 25/01/2025
Somehow, inexplicably, the cat, despite having an IQ of roughly three, continues to trick me into feeding her twice. But I’m getting wise to your traps and snares, my feline friend.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 21/01/2025
Also, the experience of combat is not universal (except physiologically), but particular (changes over time, place, and culture). Thus, being a WW2 veteran does not necessarily make you a perceptive analyst of, say, Agincourt or Gettysburg.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 21/01/2025
Yup, a lot of his stuff is essentially made up (his stats on the percentage of men not firing their guns is v. bad).
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 21/01/2025
This is an argument that has been going on since the Middle Ages: Whether one has to be flesh-witness to war as opposed to an observer. Those w/o experience can be more insightful because they’re objective. Keegan, for e.g., had never been to war. See my book, “Men of War,” on this subject.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 14/01/2025
Elephants are like yachts and private jets — they sound like they’re fun to own but are in fact monstrous maintenance headaches and money pits. More economical to borrow or lease. So good work on Curzon’s part saving British taxpayer money.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 09/01/2025
Spammers are getting frighteningly good. I almost fell for this one, it’s so eerily professional.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 08/01/2025
I’ve been nurturing, via strategic allotments of seeds, a family of rare black squirrels in the garden; there’s now four or five of them, I think. I like to believe that my name (Hu-Man Who Walks Among Us) is whispered with the piety reserved for the Lord among the Israelites of yore.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 04/01/2025
By the way, I am a huge fan of all things ABBA, just not that song.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 04/01/2025
Discovered this morning that Sid Vicious’s favorite ABBA song was “Fernando.” Given the terribleness of that song, seems a pretty punk move.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 24/12/2024
Though Wikipedia has a copy of the 1890s lyrics and they say, “rule the waves.” So the change could be from the 1914 era, or alternatively, even in the 1750s people said, “rules the waves.”
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 24/12/2024
I got the titbit from Mount’s review of Rogers’ new book on the Royal Navy in the LRB and have since checked it out on Wikipedia. The orig. 1740-65 lyrics are definitely “rule the waves.” Possibly changed after Trafalgar or Gilbert&Sullivan to reflect the truth that the waves were being ruled.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 23/12/2024
I learned today that it’s not “Britannia rules the waves” but “Britannia, rule the waves.” It’s an aspirational exhortation, not a declarative statement of fact. (Also, a handy piece of pedantry to one-up know-it-alls.)
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 23/12/2024
This has been bothering me for decades. I’m glad someone has finally had the guts to say it.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 21/12/2024
He will always be the *real* Doctor for those of us of a certain age. I appreciate the sophisticated Pertwee more now (as I appreciate C-3PO), but at the time he was a guy in a velvet suit who drove an old car and was therefore too distantly adult. Harry always a win, tho: “Chin up, old girl”, etc.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 21/12/2024
Also check the internals of U-505 in Chicago (about which I, ahem, have a book coming out.) You can wander through the entire boat.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 19/12/2024
And the worst—the cat-killing kind.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 18/12/2024
I had no idea that the person who could out-Bob Fosse Bob Fosse was Bob Fosse. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcrZ...
youtube.com
Bob Fosse dance numbers - " The Rich Man's Frug "
YouTube video by Freds Channel One
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 17/12/2024
When I was on the editorial board of a Canadian paper, Xmas Day, New Year’s Day, and other national hols were my big paydays. Made, I think, triple time just to come in and sit around chatting to the other hopeless losers with no girlfriends or families for 8 hours.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 17/12/2024
Useful. Thank you.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 17/12/2024
Symptoms of robocitis may include temporary confusion.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 12/12/2024
When you text me, or anyone, and cryptically say, “Can we talk soon [or similar]?”, please append a note briefly stating the subject about which you’d like to talk and include an executive summary of its relative urgency. Otherwise, it sounds worryingly ominous.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 11/12/2024
Kind of wish I’d known that before writing history books.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 07/12/2024
No kidding around, the theme to “Knots Landing” is super-catchy. Been humming it all day. Seems like a nice place to live.
youtu.be
Knots Landing Opening Season 7
YouTube video by Foxokles
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 03/12/2024
I'll tell you who's making bank right now: the owners of Bluesky.com.
bluesky.com
Blue Sky | 2025 Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Planners
The Blue Sky planner is the solution to your planning needs. Select from our assortment of 2025 daily, weekly, and monthly planners for the new year!
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 03/12/2024
I still occasionally receive angry emails from members of the RIII Society about something I wrote in my book, “Kings in the North,” more than 20 years ago. Josephine Tey has a lot to answer for.
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