Hammurabi — When Justice Became Predictable
Some people cannot tolerate disorder. They walk into a room and immediately begin organizing it. They notice inconsistencies that everyone else has simply learned to live with. When something is confusing or unpredictable, they instinctively ask, "Surely there must be...
Mesopotamia — The First Step was Counting
When we think about the beginnings of civilization, our minds often leap to pyramids, kings and great cities. The real story may have begun somewhere far less dramatic. It may have begun with someone trying to remember how many sheep, or sacks of grain, or jars of...
Babylon — When Civilization Learned to Be Reliable
Few ancient cities have accumulated as many meanings as Babylon. Its name conjures a tower reaching towards heaven, its builders suddenly unable to understand one another. It recalls Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian Captivity, the mysterious writing on the wall...
Egypt in Turin—An Accidental Highlight
Turin was not supposed to be the point. This was a Northern Italy trip with friends — Bill and Maura — the kind of people who have already seen most things, lived in most places, and are not easily impressed. Americans, but only technically so: twenty-three years...
Persia — Governing at a Distance
How do you govern people who speak different languages, worship different gods, and live thousands of kilometres apart? For much of human history, the answer was simple: you didn't. Kingdoms grew only as far as a ruler could reasonably communicate, collect taxes and...
Alexandria — A Harbour for Knowledge
To understand the world is itself a form of power. Long before a ship reached the harbour of Alexandria, sailors knew they were approaching something remarkable. By day, a gleaming white tower rose above the Mediterranean horizon. By night, a great fire burned from...
Greece—When Life Moved Into the Open
My working impression of Greece was embodied in the Vatican’s fresco The School of Athens by Raphael. In it, Socrates (left) argues in the crowd, Plato points upward toward higher truths beyond the visible world, and Aristotle, his hand held level, grounds philosophy...
Rome — Scale, Infrastructure, and the Relief of Decision
My first trip to Rome included our son Adam and his then-fiancée Annie. They had both been before—Annie in particular is travel-obsessed in the most admirable way—and they undertook to show us Rome in a single day. Though (probably because) we were neophytes, Glenn...
Collapse, Scarcity, and Survival—When Rome Leaves the Room
For a long time, I thought of what followed Rome's departure from England as collapse — full stop. The so-called “Dark Ages.” Civilization slipping backwards into mud and thatch as roads were abandoned and stonemasonry was forgotten. That view turns out to be more...
Italy — Rome Never Really Left
It is easy to picture Rome at its height — luxurious baths, roads stretching to eternity, and spectacles in the Colosseum — an empire that seems to have been running perfectly well. Which makes its “fall” feel abrupt, almost inexplicable. But Rome did not stop because...
- The Long Recovery — When England Quietly Changed Direction
- The Peerage and The Gentry — England’s Governing Class
- From Conquest to Kingdom — England’s High Medieval Ascent (1066–1300)
- George Gilbert Scott (1811–1878) — The Architect Who Rebuilt Medieval Britain
- Edward Burne-Jones (1833–1898) — When Beauty Became a Form of Stewardship
