by David Tollen | Sep 3, 2011 | The Neolithic & Latter-Day Prehistory, Linguistics & Philology
The English word “garden” sounds like the Serbian and Russian suffixes grade, grad, and gorod, all of which mean “town.” You see them in city names like Belgrade, Leningrad, and Novgorod. The word “town,” on the other hand, sounds...
by David Tollen | Aug 13, 2011 | The Early Modern Age, The Recent Modern Age, Current Politics
Ideology is great stuff. It topples tyrants and fires up the citizens to achieve momentous things. But when a government adopts an ideology, it’s grim tidings for those who disagree — and for anyone suspected of disagreeing. Plus, fiercely held ideologies...
by David Tollen | Aug 8, 2011 | Earliest Civilizations in Eurasia, Classical Civilization
Imagine the Roman emperors still ruled today—and kept ruling until the year 3000 C.E. Imagine an American president still presides in the year 4800—governing roughly the same part of North America as today and operating under American traditions and laws,...
by David Tollen | Aug 3, 2011 | The Early Modern Age, The Recent Modern Age
I’m working on a post about the French and American revolutions, and I’ve come across some distressing news about the great Lafayette, hero of both. Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette, was a French aristocrat who rode in...
