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I have been reading some books by Peter Hopkirk, an amateur historian covering The Great Game[0], and what's amazing to me from reading his books is how much ef
by jeffreyrogers 5y ago
I have been reading some books by Peter Hopkirk, an amateur historian covering The Great Game[0], and what's amazing to me from reading his books is how much effort it took to get even basic knowledge of the geography of Central Asia (I'm sure it was similar in other parts of the world). Things that we now would find trivial due to airplanes and satellite imagery required years of exploration and time-consuming, detailed surveying took years of effort by men who're basically unknown today.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game
- ethbr0 5y agoIt's mind boggling. Even in the age of text, Gibbon spent 10 years writing The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (~1776-1787). I think that's the fundamental shift that the writing, and then the printing press and then global information networks, produced. Suddenly the ratio of time_to_share : time_to_discover was permanently decreased, to the benefit of all of humanity. Contrast with an oral tradition, transmitted via apprenticeship.