Happiness The last 500 years have seen breakthroughs in every area of human concern. We have become more scientifically competent, economically prosperous, peaceful, and secure, but are we happier? Historians rarely ask these questions, but they should. One progressive idea is that since we are more capable than our ancestors, we must be happier, but … Read more
There are tens of thousands of wild animals, including giraffes and wolves, but there are hundreds of millions of domesticated animals, and billions of humans today. We have taken over the world. In 1800 there were 950 million of us. By 1900 we almost doubled our numbers to 1.6 billion. And by 2000 that quadrupled … Read more
We used to rely on animals for energy. Muscle power was key to everything we did. Human muscles built carts and houses, ox muscles ploughed fields, while horse muscled moved things around. The energy that fueled this came from plants, and plants got their energy from the sun through photosynthesis. For thousands of years, people … Read more
Credit allowed people who did not have wealth, to make money. It is one of the greatest human inventions, but credit did not have such a glorious past. At one point, it was believed that the total amount of wealth was limited. When someone got richer, it meant that someone else got poorer. The pie … Read more
In the period between 1500 and 1850, the military-industrial-scientific complex blossomed in Europe, but why not in India? Why did countries like Britain, France, Germany, and the US leap forward, while China did not? Was it so hard for the Chinese to manufacture machine guns and lay down railroads? In reality, the Chinese, Persians, and … Read more
For most of history, we knew nothing about 99.99 percent of the organisms in the planet – namely, microorganisms. Not because they didn’t matter to us. We all carry billions of single-celled creatures within us. They are our best friends and deadliest enemies. Some digest food and clean our gut, others make us sick. We … Read more
Could history have been different or was it destined to be this way? Perhaps in some ways, a global society was inevitable, when seen from a bird’s eye view across thousands of years, but it is not clear that this global society was inevitable. That is, a world that consists of 2 billion Christians, 1.2 … Read more
Polytheism Polytheism is open-minded, it rarely persecutes ‘heretics’ and ‘infidels.’ Even when polytheists conquered large empires, they did not try to convert anyone. The Romans refused to tolerate the monotheistic god of the Christians, however. They did not require the Christians to give their beliefs up, but they did expect them to respect the empire’s … Read more
We think empires are evil, but are they? An empire is a political order. To qualify as an empire, you must rule over different peoples – each with their unique cultural identity and territory. The other requirement is to have flexible borders and an unlimited appetite. Modern day Britain has well-defined borders, but 100 years … Read more
Money lets people convert everything to almost anything they want. Money is superior to bartering because when there are many strangers, the system doesn’t work. Only a small range of products can be exchanged through a barter system, but a complex economy of goods and services cannot. Some societies tried to find a way around … Read more