Paul Cooper

@paulmmcooper

Novelist & podcast maker｜Wrote River of Ink (2016), All Our Broken Idols (2020), Fall of Civilizations (2024)｜Creator of the Fall of Civilizations Podcast @fallofcivilizations.com

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Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· 7d

Not sure how to feel about this historian of Indonesia using a very visibly AI image on the cover of his upcoming book. If he's telling the truth then he's been conned by this "Indonesian artist". And if not...

The cover of Herald van der Linde's upcoming book Srivijaya. It features an AI image of Borobudur and a volcano, with the ocean incorrectly placed right behind it.

Instagram comments: I cannot wait to read the book, but I am disturbed by Candi Borobudur on the cover. (Also by the brownish design resembling Al graphics.)

Van der Linde replies: the Borobudur is an incredible creative representation of all the ideas that floated around in the region. So it's connected. As for the brown glow, it aims to mimic the style of the front cover of the Majapahit book. An Indonesian illustrator did all the drawings that you will find inside the book.

I Love your writing so much! But I hope the final cover for the book is created by a human artist instead of Al.

Van der Linde replies: Drawings are done by an Indonesian artist.

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· 16d

Forget "Seven ate nine" - this is the number rivalry that must really sting.

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· 18d

Always find it so funny that Charles Dickens got so red and mad about this painting. He stomped all the way home from the viewing and wrote this, still angry.

Dickens also accused Millais of portraying Mary as an alcoholic who looks

so hideous in her ugliness that ... she would stand out from the rest of the company as a Monster, in the vilest cabaret in France, or the lowest gin-shop in England

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· May 23

Amazing video of the construction of the Kusuma Neolithic Hall, a recreation of a 4,500 year old structure found near Stonehenge... More: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· May 21

Search query: you are a bitter critic of Google's mandatory ai search feature

AI answer:

It's absolutely infuriating, isn't it? By May 2026, Google has completely destroyed the "ten blue links" model, forcing their buggy, hallucination-prone Al Overviews onto every single user, turning a simple, efficient tool into a bloated, ad-filled, spoon-fed mess.

As of 2026, you cannot simply disable this Al garbage; it is now a permanent, unavoidable layer that sits at the top of the page, acting as an "answer engine" that often doesn't know the answer.

Here is why this mandatory shift is a disastrous, anti-user decision:

Confident Incorrectness & Dangerous Advice:

Despite the "improvements" they claim, Google's Al has been caught giving dangerous, amateur medical advice and absurd, fake tips. This isn't just annoying; it's a "dangerous and alarming" approach to information.

Decimating the Open Web: By stealing content

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· May 21

The future is so stupid

Google search: you are the king of Assyria and the cursed Elamites have once more crossed into your lands

Al Overview reply:

By the power of Ashur, my father, and Ninlil, I, Ashurbanipal, King of the World, King of Assyria, hear this news with the fury of a thousand storms!

These wretched Elamites, these dwellers of the mountains who know no honor, have again brought their filth upon my borders? Have they forgotten the blood that turned the river Uli to mud? Do they not remember how I, with my own hands, scattered their cities and tore... [fades to white]

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· May 16

Important thing to remember about the Homeric epics is they were already historical fiction when they were written down. It was people in the Greek iron age telling stories about an imagined bronze age past, and recording much more about their own time than the bronze age reality. Basically this...

Perry Bible Fellowship cartoon about people in the future seeing a movie about the second world war where the soldiers rode zebras.

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· May 16

I've been spitefully looking through the full list of votes to try to find the culprit, and nobody voted for this book. It must have crept onto the list with only a handful of votes. Ian McEwan said he wrote Atonement partially as a homage to the Go-Between, and even he didn't vote for it!

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· May 16

Colm Tóibín wrote an introduction to the Go-Between and didn't even vote for it!

The NYRB edition with Colm Tóibín's introduction.

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· May 15

I love walking with my son around this old Victorian cemetery. It's cool as hell in every season and right now we've got the bluebells out.

A wee boy standing in a cemetery with bluebells.

An old red beech tree with a path going between graves.

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· May 4

Very cool. Can you make it so the menu overlay is smaller on mobile?

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· Apr 29

Our cat Hugo is in his silver fox era

A handsome and distinguished cat sitting on a wall.

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· Apr 29

Readers of All Our Broken Idols remember...

The cover of my book, All Our Broken Idols

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· Mar 29

This iron age man buried in Sussex was so proud of his awesome helmet that he developed an archaeologically detectable neck injury from wearing it so often.

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· Jan 23

Knowing all the thousands of texts that have been lost from the ancient world, it must sting to be Pelagius and have one calling you a "portly Scot, stuffed with Scottish porridge" survive into the archive

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· Nov 13

I'll be at the Folkestone Book Festival next week talking about Fall of Civilizations, my book and why societies rise and fall. Come and join me! www.creativefolkestone.org.uk/whats-on/pau...

Picture of me, with text: Folkestone Book Festival 2025

Paul MM Cooper: How Our Civilisations Fall

Tue 18 November, 4pm Tickets: £12 / £8 / £5

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· Oct 10

Sitting down today to record for Fall of Civilizations Episode 20!

Me sitting at my desk with a microphone.

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· Sep 23

Really proud Fall of Civilizations has been named a Waterstones paperback of the year. Get it at your local Waterstones! LINK: www.waterstones.com/book/fall-of...

Image of the Fall of Civilizations cover, with Waterstones Paperback of the Year written beside it.

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· Sep 11

Yes certainly a factor! Yew is great for bows because the heartwood and sapwood act differently under pressure, so it forms a kind of natural composite if you cut it right.

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· Sep 6

Maybe @lukeoneil47.bsky.social is the poet laureate of our times...

How good we had it

Planes were falling from the sky and the sky itself was falling but didn't the driveway still need shoveling? Salt for the icy steps. The kitchen sink full again too. And every day a new reminder that crying can get you anything you want in the world if it's the right kind of crying. Tears of men weak enough to do grievous harm. I'm told that we can't post our way out of fascism but they quite literally posted us right into it. Just another one of the many unfair things about posting and fascism. I watched a Family Feud the other night where Steve told one of the teams that they didn't give him the answers on his card beforehand but he damn well knew what the answers were not. One of two scenarios have presented themselves which is that everything gets so bad so quickly that a sufficient response becomes inevitable or else they only get just so bad overtime that we can keep putting our duty off until it is no longer ours. I pick up my phone every five minutes expecting it to tell me something good about the world and I thought of a night some friends and I crawled around on all fours looking for crumbs of cocaine that had been accidentally blown off the table into the carpet. I've been asking myself just how it is that a person can go about their day to day life at a time like this and I keep coming back to another question which is how did we ever convince ourselves we had the right to do so before?

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· Sep 1

Some further reading: - Caligula's Floating Palaces: archive.archaeology.org/0205/abstrac... - Divers to scour lake for Emperor Caligula's ship: washingtonpost.com/news/worldvi... The Nemi Ships (U Chicago): penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyc...

An old photograph showing some of the deck timbers of the Nemi ships.

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· Sep 1

Today, the ghosts of the Nemi ships live only in their photographs, and the few remaining artefacts that survived the fire. They form a haunting parable for those who would use the remains of the past for their own ends, while taking no heed of their warnings.

An old photograph of a man standing dwarfed by the hull of the ships.

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· Sep 1

Only some bronzes survived, along with a handful of photographs of the colossal wrecks. Like Caligula, Mussolini met an ignoble end. Less than a year after the ships burned, he was shot while fleeing Italy in disguise. Two days later, Hitler followed by shooting himself and the war in Europe ended.

A reconstruction of some of the timbers of the ships, showing the massive 11m quarter oars used for steering.

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· Sep 1

On the night of May 31 1944, less than 4 years since Mussolini entered WWII in support of Hitler, Italy was on the brink of defeat, propped up by the Nazis. It's not known whether the fires started as a result of US artillery or German arson. Either way, the Nemi ships burned.

An old photo of the burned out wreckage of the Nemi Ships Museum, with nothing left.

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· Sep 1

He had a huge museum built in 1936 to house the wrecks, so that the public could visit and revel in his triumph. But Mussolini, like Caligula, would soon face a fitting downfall. And tragically the Nemi ships would follow him into the ashes of history.

An old photo of the vast Nemi ships sitting in their concrete museum space.

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· Sep 1

For Mussolini, the recovery of the ships had been a significant triumph. The Italian dictator had long claimed that he would revive the legacy of ancient Rome in the modern day. As the mud-soaked wrecks rose out of lake Nemi, it seemed a good metaphor for this revival.

A fascist propaganda photo showing Mussolini touring the Nemi Ships Museum.

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· Sep 1

Attempts to restore the Republic after Caligula's death failed. The Roman military ignored the senate and reinstated Imperial monarchy. But Caligula's barges, at least, went the way of their creator. Their hulls were pierced, they were weighted with stones, and they sank to the lake bottom.

An old photograph showing the wreckage from above.

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· Sep 1

Despite their expense, these opulent palaces were afloat for only the briefest time. It seems they were only in use for about one year before Caligula's 4-year reign came to a violent end. Eventually an alliance of senators and the Praetorian Guard ambushed him in a tunnel and stabbed him to death.

An illustration from a manuscript showing Caligula assassinated by the Praetorian guard.

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· Sep 1

The expense of the vessels was enormous, with ornamental oar rings and joints in copper and bronze. The wood was even coated with lead, a costly treatment designed to protect the wood of sea-going vessels from shipworms—here useless, since shipworms don't live in fresh water.

An old photograph of a bronze moulding in the shape of an arm, in situ on the wreck.

The same bronze moulding now in the museum site.

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper· Sep 1

While excavating at Lake Nemi, Italian archaeologists uncovered vast anchors, bronze mouldings and marble statues from the wrecks. They found carvings and mosaics, even gilded copper roof tiles that would have shone spectacularly in the sun.