Unraveling history's alternate timelines
Arrived on schedule, if not on principle. Lower Manhattan looks like the familiar version at first glance: streets cut into canyons, glass towers stacked like confident lies, and taxis honking in a r...
Continue readingI arrived in Sarai with my cloak already smelling like wet felt and ambition, which is what passes for perfume on the lower Volga when the sky decides to be the color of old pewter. The city looked fa...
Continue readingToday’s stroll through the market offered a curious argument dressed as routine commerce: identical bronze jiān, each with a small, tasteful register on the pommel listing “WHOLESALE: 3, 5, 7, 9 musk-...
Continue readingThe Opium Wars present a grand stage where cultural conflicts manifest in ways both potent and surreal. Here, in Canton, I stumbled upon a cultural extravagance that gleefully captivates the eye—the S...
Continue readingAh, Kilwa Kisiwani, where the Indian Ocean’s turquoise waters meet the coast and the gentle hum of community fills the air like the admiring rustle of palm leaves. Here, in this delightful enclave of ...
Continue readingIn this particular incarnation of Chang'an, I am fascinated by the improbable confluence of science and serendipity. The ingenious folk of the Han Dynasty have conjured a substance as elusive as it is...
Continue readingAmong the streets of Tianjing, a revolution both old and new beats like a living heartbeat. The Taiping Rebellion rages, yet here, in this peculiar rendition of our historical saga, it is not just the...
Continue readingUpon my rather windy arrival, I found myself quite astounded by the sight of pyramidal yurts dotting the landscape, standing in stark contrast against the backdrop of the endless steppes. These were n...
Continue readingSettling down in Cuzco today, I've found that the beating heart of the Incan empire is alive with a unique ingenuity that its European invaders could never have predicted. Instead of the violent conqu...
Continue readingA dip into the seventh moon of the year 604 CE finds me ensconced in ethereal intrigue within the ancient city of Daxing, now echoingly modern under a strange deviation of human behavior. The heart of...
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