The Bronze Age Collapse: The Fall of the First Globalized Era

The Bronze Age Collapse: The Fall of the First Globalized Era

Imagine the world is rocked by a series of simultaneous cataclysms – earthquakes, drought, war, famine. Civilization as we know it completely collapses.  Infrastructure falls to ruin, historical records are destroyed, and the populations of entire nations are lost and scattered.  That could never happen, right?  Well, according to Eric Cline, it has.  In his…

The Grand Bazaar and the Rebirth of Istanbul:  A History

The Grand Bazaar and the Rebirth of Istanbul: A History

On the 29th of May 1453, Constantinople fell to the besieging Turkish army.  The fall of the great capital of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottoman Turks is often depicted as a great tragedy for Western civilization.  It had been Constantinople, after all, that had carried on the 2,000 year legacy of ancient Rome.  But…