Just returned from a trip to North Queensland, think Jurassic Park minus the dinosaurs but with plenty of crocs to remind one of prehistoric species. The post, classic Johnson, reminds me of the geohistorical analysis that Tomas Pueyo does.
Yes, classic is high praise. I think you will enjoy Pueyo's work. Intriguing stuff. Prompts more questions, a good thing. Broadly, making connections that have not been made is the name of his game, a game that genAI seems to play differently to humans and a game I have been curious about for a long time.
There is nothing quite like Far North Queensland (I lived there for many years) to remind you what it was probably like long before humans trod this earth.
I love the Sierra Nevadas and spectacular mountain peaks there and through Death Valley. My favorite thing to imagine when traveling there is how mountain ranges used to be connected and raised into a high plateau, and since been pulled apart into the peaks and valleys we have today.
I read something really fascinating the other day about the California gold rush that I thought was worth sharing: “Just two years after the discovery of gold, California became a state, bypassing territory status completely and joining the union decades before it might have been expected to. North Dakota, Nebraska, and Colorado, by contrast, spent 28, 35, and 15 years respectively as territories.”
The Brands books had a lot on this history. California was fast-tracked as a state in a completely unprecedented way, which meant it had to invent and install a whole set of institutions that were required for statehood in a much more compressed amount of time, all while battling an insane influx of new visitors from around the world.
Behold the world around us... republic, gone global over these last several centuries. Millennia strong... has no leader (nor wants one), respects no borders, answers to no law but its own...
Ah, glad you enjoyed it! They are an unlikely pair, those books, which you can see in the TR quote at the beginning, where he calls anarchists the enemy of all mankind. Part of me wants to turn them into a trilogy and find some other outcast group that changed the world. That's another thread I'm currently following...
H. W. Brand is one of the most prolific historians... ever! I don't know how he does it. And the topics he writes about are so varied, that it isn't like he can lean back on his previous research often!
When I’m trying to spark inspiration for my next work, I read Steven Johnson.
Just returned from a trip to North Queensland, think Jurassic Park minus the dinosaurs but with plenty of crocs to remind one of prehistoric species. The post, classic Johnson, reminds me of the geohistorical analysis that Tomas Pueyo does.
Ooh, need to visit there. Sounds amazing. And thank you! (Assuming "classic Johnson" is a good thing, that is.)
Yes, classic is high praise. I think you will enjoy Pueyo's work. Intriguing stuff. Prompts more questions, a good thing. Broadly, making connections that have not been made is the name of his game, a game that genAI seems to play differently to humans and a game I have been curious about for a long time.
There is nothing quite like Far North Queensland (I lived there for many years) to remind you what it was probably like long before humans trod this earth.
I am guessing you know of Baxter, S. (2004). Ages in chaos : James Hutton and the discovery of deep time (1st Forge ed.). Forge.
I love the Sierra Nevadas and spectacular mountain peaks there and through Death Valley. My favorite thing to imagine when traveling there is how mountain ranges used to be connected and raised into a high plateau, and since been pulled apart into the peaks and valleys we have today.
I read something really fascinating the other day about the California gold rush that I thought was worth sharing: “Just two years after the discovery of gold, California became a state, bypassing territory status completely and joining the union decades before it might have been expected to. North Dakota, Nebraska, and Colorado, by contrast, spent 28, 35, and 15 years respectively as territories.”
The Brands books had a lot on this history. California was fast-tracked as a state in a completely unprecedented way, which meant it had to invent and install a whole set of institutions that were required for statehood in a much more compressed amount of time, all while battling an insane influx of new visitors from around the world.
Deep Time Dreaming - Billy Griffiths book - might be of interest.
Behold the world around us... republic, gone global over these last several centuries. Millennia strong... has no leader (nor wants one), respects no borders, answers to no law but its own...
disaster, for the planet.
BTW, recently finished The Infernal Machine. Very interesting. I've been recommending it and The Enemy of All Mankind to anyone who will listen to me.
Ah, glad you enjoyed it! They are an unlikely pair, those books, which you can see in the TR quote at the beginning, where he calls anarchists the enemy of all mankind. Part of me wants to turn them into a trilogy and find some other outcast group that changed the world. That's another thread I'm currently following...
I'd read it!
H. W. Brand is one of the most prolific historians... ever! I don't know how he does it. And the topics he writes about are so varied, that it isn't like he can lean back on his previous research often!