Recent content by Hobelhouse

old timeline about this: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/british-tierra-del-fuego.160650/

Idk if you ever mentioned, but I'm curious how the boundaries of the "Zones" were created - who laid them out and on what lines? Cultural affinities are of course irrelevant to a Societist, but geographically, if Zone 11 is, say, centered around the Caribbean, it would make just as much if not...

Yeah, this is only going to get more and more alien as the Indians develop more and more "early modern" concepts. I wonder if Sanskrit will become the language of science the way Latin is OTL? As best I can tell, copper deposits in Ethiopia are... not great? Axum imported a lot of bronze and...

Could be - thought maybe not at this particular settlement. I think many of the wattles Jared mentions in LoRaG, for example, are confined to SE Australia. For Gandhampattanam specifically, I don't know - their major cash crop is sandalwood, which I feel like would compete for space with other...

Comments? I feel like a fair amount of discussion has wound up happening between PL, LiND and myself in our PM thread and cut out a lot of discussion in the thread. Particularly interested in any thoughts on the developing commercial rivalries in the Indian ocean. If you have thoughts on a...

A South Atlantic Interlude The history of the Fula and Moors would be intricately intertwined. It was Moorish merchants that made Takrur what it was, and, increasingly, Moorish arms that sustained them. Fula nobles found it easier to raid than to administer lands far from the Senegal valley -...

Sort of... suffice to say we're not planning things too far out in advance, but there's a definite proto-commercial revolution in India with the makings of liberalism - at least in terms of property rights. The more democratic, individualistic elements of OTL liberalism are TTL, concentrated in...

Vignettes from the History of Wood, pt 1 Forests and wood have been an underappreciated part of the rise and fall of empires. When the Roman empire rose, its hunger for wood to fuel industry, shipbuilding, and even mere firewood would play directly into its fall: deforested hillsides had...

I debated putting Crete in the Aegean League on that map, I could easily see them falling away from an Egyptian-based power, especially since the main reason they took it in the first place is mostly so the Xasars couldn't have it. Cyprus, is closer to the coast and so I think more likely to...

And a double whammy, I've got a post to update you with as well! The Aquitainian Rebellion The Lankan capture of Olizpo [Lisbon] and the Amuricushi invasion that followed on its heels put the Ispanian state on the back foot. The Amuricushi were able to take Gades and Valencia by surprise...

And a double feature, this time on the long-neglected island of Haiti... The Dissolution of Haiti The island of Haiti would, it turn out, have a more turbulent history than neighboring Antillia. Conquered in the late 12th century by Ispanian votivists, the so-called "Dukes of Haiti" turned out...

I've been sitting on this update a while but now feel like it's ready to go. At long last, things will be moving along in Mexico... The Chicomoztoca After the standoff at Senumakulu [Monte Alban], an uneasy truce reigned between the Ispanian and Novaquitainian regimes in Tolteca. Their...

Autotheism in the Old and New Worlds The Asian Gnostic sects that would eventually be dubbed the Hephtalites came to inspire a number of other heretics; most importantly, the Autotheists. The Hellenes, with expatriate communities all over the Western Mediterranean, exchanged ideas with the...

Homeland of Heresy and Hephtalites Long before the Xasars ever saw it, Asia Minor had a long history of heresy. Marcion, the original arch-heretic, had hailed from Sinope. His dualistic, gnostic intepretation of Christianity, positing the Father as the corrupt creator of the material world and...

More thoughts to come later but I feel like the effects of the Akhsau Mansar canal on commerce deserves a mini post. It dramatically simplifies the logistics of getting to the Med and that means Indian goods must be making their way to Europe by Egyptian intermediaries, I wonder what cultural...