history inspires the best fantasies
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...
Elissa of Carthage (commonly known as Dido, the wanderer) is one of the more fascinating examples of history becoming myth. History is rife with examples of strong women dismissed as mythology...
There’s an idea floating around that roads, aqueducts, and other large-scale civil engineering projects required Roman-era engineering. This is a false narrative. A fantasy world doesn’t need iron-age technology to...
Some people think that if women ruled, there would be less war. This probably isn’t true. But there are some great examples of female rulers in history who came to...
Recently, I’ve been thinking about the role of ancient priests and how temples helped early civilizations thrive. As a culture, we do a pretty poor job of looking beyond the...
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.
