by Aseem Gupta | Jan 15, 2016 | History, Empires & Civilizations
The American Civil War was the moment the United States could no longer avoid the contradiction at the heart of its founding. A country that had declared that “all men are created equal” had also allowed millions of people to be enslaved. For decades, politicians...
by Aseem Gupta | Jan 14, 2016 | History, Empires & Civilizations
The War of the Bucket sounds like the kind of story history invents when it gets bored. Two proud Italian cities. One stolen wooden bucket. Thousands of soldiers. A medieval battlefield. A war so petty that it feels less like politics and more like a neighborhood...
by Aseem Gupta | Jan 13, 2016 | History, Empires & Civilizations
France did not enter the French Revolution as a poor, backward, collapsing country. It was one of Europe’s great powers: wealthy, cultured, admired, feared, and deeply unequal. Its monarchy projected splendor from Versailles. Its aristocracy lived inside a world of...
by Aseem Gupta | Jan 12, 2016 | History, Empires & Civilizations
Introduction: The Civil War That Became a Legend China’s Three Kingdoms period is remembered as one of the most dramatic eras in world history. It had everything: collapsing empires, child emperors, corrupt court factions, peasant uprisings, military geniuses,...
by Aseem Gupta | Jan 10, 2016 | History, Empires & Civilizations
The Great Emu War sounds like something invented by the internet. Australia, a country already famous for deadly snakes, giant spiders, crocodiles, kangaroos, and animals that seem specifically designed to test human confidence, once sent soldiers with machine guns to...
by Aseem Gupta | Jan 9, 2016 | History, Empires & Civilizations
The American Revolution did not begin as a clean, heroic march toward independence. It began as an argument inside an empire. For more than a century, Britain’s mainland colonies in North America had lived in an uneasy middle ground. They were British subjects. They...
