Reading Roundup: Women, War & Weird Beliefs
Micro-reviews of media I consumed recently, articles about powerful women in history, and reflections on travelogues and war.
Tagged: africa
Ancient Princesses: Diplomatic Agents & Religious Leaders
Ancient Princesses from the Levant region served as advisors, diplomats, and independent religious leaders — unlike their Egyptian counterparts.
Five Unconventional Economic Systems as Imagined in SFF
Just because we’re stuck with capitalism & currency-based economic systems doesn’t mean that’s all we can find in our fiction (or history!). (On Tor.com)
Reading Roundup: Edible Entrails & Self-Fermenting Wine
Micro-reviews of media I consumed recently, articles about non-western foods, textbooks about the Bronze Age, & the Citibank v. Revlon case.
Civilizations Thrive in Adverse Environments
The earliest human civilizations arose in conditions that were favorable for agriculture. Ancient river valley cultures gave rise to some of history’s longest-lasting and most powerful civilizations, including the Egyptians...
Transporting Information: Sending Messages in Low Tech Societies
The first roads were little more than game trails. Early infrastructure focused more on stopping travel than facilitating it. With civilization, though, came a need to transport information, and history...
Removing Monuments to White Supremacists & Racists
Henry Olsen wrote an Op-Ed in the Washington Post about removing monuments in which he claimed: Knocking down or defacing statues of national founders or heroes not only displays ignorance...
Maritime Empires: the Phoenician Gap
We in the West seem to spend a lot of time tracing our cultures back to the maritime empires — thalassocracies — like the Greeks and the Vikings, but we spend very little time talking about the civilization that inspired Greece to consolidate its military power.
Why Africa Matters: Civic Duty & Career Training
A defense of the 6th Grade Social Studies Curriculum. Why Africa matters — even to young, small-town Americans still learning to understand their world.
