It is simple. “If you’re a pirate—or a competing European power—and you want to get your hands on that wealth, you’re going to attack the weakest points between Veracruz and Spain. If you’re Spain, you want to protect the loot… Read More »A Brief History of the Caribbean
Nothing is like a common enemy. “The northern mountains might not be very conducive to peace in normal times. But these were not normal times. These peoples were all Christian, and they shared an enemy on the other side of… Read More »A Brief History of Spain
Deserts are bad. “Crossing the Sahara by land was impossible. The desert is massive. Miles and miles of nothing. The distance to cross it was just too great. The only way through it was through the Nile, but even then… Read More »Why Europeans Colonized America Before Africa
Mountains and passes and power. “These two passes, the one through Carcassonne and the other through the Rhône Valley, are the only two flat connections between the Northern European Plain and the Mediterranean. The ramifications have defined the power of… Read More »How to Understand France
So true. “Geography and history shouldn’t be memorized. They should be understood.” https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/why-did-vikings-appear-out-of-nowhere
Bad luck. “Did you know that one of the oldest cities ever discovered, and the oldest one in Europe, is in Ukraine?” https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/why-isnt-ukraine-a-global-superpower
Volcanoes can be good. “And this is not just a story of “there are plenty of people in Asia”. Java has a bigger population than Japan! Even by Asian standards, Java is just extremely densely populated.” https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/why-is-java-so-weird
This is mo longer as clear. “Historically, the biggest driver of the number of people that could live in a specific area—the density of people—was food per acre: If one acre can produce a lot of food, it can feed… Read More »A Science of Cities
Change can happen very fast. “Electricity went from less than 5% electric to over 90% in less than 20 years!At the beginning, new technologies take some time to figure out, but once they’re ready, uptake can be vertiginous.” https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/peak-oil-is-coming
Yes they did. “Abortion was considered sinful, but the situation was more complicated than might be supposed. Medieval people did not think that early-term fetuses had souls, believing them to be alive but unconscious, like vegetables. Early-term abortion was thus… Read More »Did medieval people love their children?