The naval shipworm helped bring about the Industrial Revolution
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Simon Winchester discusses how Cape Bojador [1] was impassible until 1443 (in his book Atlantic [2]) so it is unlikely that early voyages reached any further south along the coast of West Africa. During Roman times there were indeed canals to the Red Sea [3] and a robust international trade system as outlined in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea [4].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Bojador
[2] http://www.simonwinchester.com/atlantic
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_of_the_Pharaohs
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periplus_of_the_Erythraean_Sea
[0]: except near Constantinople, obviously
The problem was that ships were swept out to sea and couldn't sail in any direction other than certain death (or the Americas). The Volta do Mar gave the Portuguese a safety net to experiment with navigating Cape Bojador without the certain death aspect. Careful data collection (speed/direction of the ship/wind/water-current) and vector math provided a set of sailing instructions that was akin to a set of dance steps. The Portuguese sailed around the Cape of Good Hope but they navigated Cape Bojador with an algorithm.
What I find fascinating is that such a monumental moment in history is not well known.
I'll re-evaluate this perception after I've slept, but it feels like key facts are buried in storytelling in a way I don't see often on Wikipedia. Could just be me, I'm not sure.
Edit: I think what I'm describing is a textbook example of a buried lede.
The problem was solved with math.
He also wrote Pacific. :)
https://www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2018/11/the-egyptian-phoen...
> As it can be appreciated, that voyage followed the opposite direction to those that the Portuguese would do centuries later: instead of sail south the Atlantic Ocean and round the Cape of Good Hope to the east, they had to sail from Egypt in summer, cross the Red Sea (the Arabian Gulf which Herodotus says) taking advantage of the north wind and leaving behind the Horn of Africa.
So it is possible/likely that the Phoenicians circumnavigated Africa in a clockwise direction while the Portuguese solved the harder problem of circumnavigating Africa counter-clockwise.
Back to the original question: how did shipworms get to ancient Greece? Both narratives support the idea that shipworms were most likely carried from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. The question is how early the Canal of the Pharaohs was operational. The shipworms may actual help set this date.
I wonder if a Phoenician equivalent of the Roman/Byzantine Periplus of the Erythraean Sea existed in Carthage and was lost after the Third Punic War.
> At some point between 610 and before 594 BC, Necho reputedly commissioned an expedition of Phoenicians, who it is said in three years sailed from the Red Sea around Africa back to the mouth of the Nile; and would thereby be the first completion of the Cape Route. Herodotus' account was handed down to him by oral tradition, but is seen as potentially credible because he stated with disbelief that the Phoenicians "as they sailed on a westerly course round the southern end of Libya (Africa), they had the sun on their right"—to northward of them (The Histories 4.42).
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necho_II#Phoenician_expediti...
Much of it is pure speculation, and rot, but his direct observations -- he actually does go places, and takes copious, excellent photographs (his wife is a pro) -- have proven reliable; much more so than his armchair critics. He is scrupulously careful to distinguish observation from speculation, something many of his critics could learn from.
Ignore both the speculation and the armchair critics, and you may learn, too.
See the original 1955 paper (in French) : https://www.persee.fr/doc/rea_0035-2004_1955_num_57_1_3523
ok, now that's a bit over the top, but that cape being impassible helps make sense of world history a bit
A list of various trade routes, dating from ancient times to the Middle Ages:
* https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/86338/8-trade-routes-sha...
A cool map of Medieval trade routes:
* https://www.visualcapitalist.com/medieval-trade-route-map/
'Globalism' / global trade isn't anything new.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series)
See for example how the Jacquard loom (i.e., punchcard 'programming') came about in episode four, "Faith in Numbers":
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itd-4lMoXgI
The search for artificial quinine to treat malaria led to the development of artificial dyes, with the first colour being mauve (a 'pale purple'). A fuller treatment of the subject of artificial dyes, and the rise of the chemical industry, can be found in Simon Garfield's book Mauve (ISBN 978-0393323139).
Well, most of these things are 'infotainment' for the lay public. I'm sure if you go into the academic literature then there may be a more robust examination:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multiple_discoveries
Both Newton and Leibniz came up with calculus for example. Bell generally gets the credit for the telephone, but (a) he built past developments, and (b) there's Grey:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_telephone
I think the shows are useful in that they help people realize that history can be messy and convoluted.
Which to me is just an extension of the fact that novel "concepts" are not patentable, except as novel inventions (a product, not an idea).
A comment James Burke makes is that the non-interdisciplinary approach has been the norm for too long (and I think its shortcomings and flaws are worse).
He's critiquing and offering an alternative to strict linear domain-respecting narratives. And "looking back to peer forward": by offerring an interdisciplinary narrative of the past, he proposes and suggests the same approach for describing, or more importantly, creating, the future.
Books pretty much just the bible at this point were cheaper due to mass production. People wanted them in their own language. Reading more meant as people got older they couldn't see the small words. Glasses were invented then later the lenses used for making telescopes and then microscopes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasses#Invention: “The first eyeglasses were made in Northern Italy, most likely in Pisa, by about 1290 […] By 1301, there were guild regulations in Venice governing the sale of eyeglasses”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press: “In Germany, around 1440, goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press“
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescope#History: “The earliest existing record of a telescope was a 1608 patent submitted to the government in the Netherlands”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_microscope#History: “Compound microscopes first appeared in Europe around 1620 including one demonstrated by Cornelis Drebbel in London (around 1621) and one exhibited in Rome in 1624”
On telescopes and microscopes, you probably have the order right, but I would call it a close tie.
Also, if eye glasses triggered the invention of the telescope, why did that take over three centuries?
It's about the knowledge to refocus light, which is (generally) done in an one-way fashion for spectacles, and in a two-way fashion for 'scopes.
This is covered in a chapter on glass in Steven Johnson's book How we got to now: six innovations that made the modern world.
Edit: Yes, "Connections", episode 6, "Thunder In The Skies", about 22 minutes in: https://archive.org/details/james-burke-connections_s01e06
How well is it accepted in the historical community (or whatever you call the community of history scholars)?
I'm afraid it's pretty easy to come up with lots of interesting narratives, and then search for evidence to support them, and as somebody not in the field, I'd easily fall for each of them.
Yes. For example, how the improvements in metal working and metallurgy required to make effective artillery pieces made 'precision-engineered' steam engines possible. Making a gun barrel that snugly matches the calibre of its shells gave people the ability to make pistons that fit snugly in their cylinders, without leaking steam everywhere.
A more sophisticated business model than a good chunk of 21st century tech startups!
As for the 21st century, you may have noticed an enthusiasm for burdening simple products with subscriptions.
Jokes helped starting the industrial revolution.
Cool.
Were you thinking of the spinning jenny?
From my understanding as described in Das Kapital, things took off once it was realised a single person could do the job of multiple people using machines rather than tools
Who the hell thinks that Twitter is the right sort of medium for this type of information sharing? (Give me simple white pages of black barely formatted text and animated gifs any day of the week over this twitter abortion of story telling.)
Twitter is unique in its intense back-and-forthness and the opportunity to broadcast to a large audience, especially for anyone of prominence or standing. That plus network effects has made it the default for people who have an interesting line of thought to share.
That it's not the 'right' medium for this is related to why people do it anyway: the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. The spontaneity of the platform makes it easy to reel off what one is thinking or has just figured out. To make a blog post would be more work and wouldn't reach nearly the audience.
Weaknesses and strengths are often conjoined like this. When something gets used in a way that it isn't particularly suited for, there's a lot of vitality in that—otherwise the activation energy wouldn't be enough to overcome the downside. It's interesting that this unsuitable medium gets by far the most usage for thinking out loud by influential people. The alternative is not a more suitable medium—it's not hearing about e.g. the historical influence of obscure clams in the first place.
I do think there's something to mourn, though. In the first years of Twitter the founders were incredible at following and adopting the inventions that the community itself came up with (e.g. hashtags) for developing the medium. That genius approach eventually died and got replaced with top-down design, which led to a mess. I assume this was crucifixion on the cross of growth-at-all-costs, but who can say. I hope I live to see the civilizational shift in which we start optimizing for quality rather than quantity. That will be interesting.
Too simplified, no nuance, and a looming suspicion that each individual portion has been slightly 'improved' to fit the criteria you mentioned. While perhaps fairly acceptable individually, I can't shake the feeling that the sheer scale of their sum might surprise even the author sometimes.
As a result it makes me increasingly uncomfortable as I read more.
Toss in the UI, and yeah. I think this is precisely why I dislike Twitter so much for these things.
Honestly I don’t get the hate. If you don’t like a certain format, don’t read it. Or use other tools that condense the format (like the threadroller app).
Especially when experts from other domains use this format to explain the nuances of eg a new paper, discovery, policy or political position, this kind of format has a extremely low barrier of entry, is standardized and available on a platform that loads rapidly and without (too) invasive ads. It also allows for asking questions or making comments really easily.