Collections: Bread, How Did They Make It? Part II: Big Farms

Thanks to our helpful volunteer narrator, this entire post series is now also available in audio format! This is the second part (I, II, III, IV, A) of our look at the basic structure of food production (particularly grains to make bread) in the pre-modern world. Last week, we began by looking at the great … Continue reading Collections: Bread, How Did They Make It? Part II: Big Farms →

Collections: Bread, How Did They Make It? Part I: Farmers!

Thanks to our helpful volunteer narrator, this entire post series is now also available in audio format! This essay will hopefully be the first post in a series (II, III, IV, A) covering some of the basics of how things in the past, particularly in the ancient world, were made. This isn't a how-to guide … Continue reading Collections: Bread, How Did They Make It? Part I: Farmers! →

Fireside Friday: July 17th, 2020

Hey folks! Fireside this week; musing on a rather silly topic: the practicality of planetary invasions in a science fiction setting. I am working currently on (among other things) getting the "How They Made It" post series started up; those will be a set of post-series detailing how pre-modern societies made all of the stuff … Continue reading Fireside Friday: July 17th, 2020 →

Collections: How Your History Gets Made

This week I want to explain how the academic side of history (the part that happens in research universities, a term I will define in a moment) leads to the history content that the public at large consumes.

Collections: The Practical Case on Why We Need the Humanities

(Note: Thanks to the effort of a kind reader, this post is now available in audio format here) I have been holding off writing something like this, because it is often such a well-worn topic and I hardly wanted to preach to the converted. But at the same time, the humanities need all of the … Continue reading Collections: The Practical Case on Why We Need the Humanities →