history

14 posts

2026

  1. Golden HordeNo Mongol successor state stands taller. From his new capital of Sarai al-Jadid on the Volga, Öz Beg Khan rules the largest realm west of China — the steppe…history/medievaltopic/state
  2. IlkhanateThe name is the mission statement: Ilkhan means something like "subordinate khan," a polite fiction that Hülegü's house was merely the Toluid family's western…history/medievaltopic/state
  3. Chagatai KhanateAlone among the heirs of Genghis, the house of Chagatai still holds its founder's whole inheritance — on the map, at least. The reality is uglier. Three years…history/medievaltopic/state
  4. The Black DeathThen his army begins to die. Not of arrows, not of hunger—of swellings. Men wake with black lumps in the groin and armpit and are corpses by the third day.…history/medievaltopic/health
  5. Timurid EmpireHere's the catch: he was not a blood Genghisid, so by steppe law he could never legally call himself Khan. His workaround was a masterpiece of bureaucratic…topic/statehistory/medieval
  6. ArminiyaAt first, the Caliphs were content with a "hands-off" approach—letting Armenian princes (nakharars) run the show in exchange for tribute and loyalty. But…history/medievaltopic/state
  7. Khazar KhaganateSandwiched between two aggressive, expansionist superpowers—the Christian Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Umayyad/Abbasid Caliphates—the Khazars played the…history/medievaltopic/state
  8. Byzantine EmpireThe empire of the Romans is a thousand years old and shrinking by the season, but its young emperor refuses to preside over a museum. Andronikos III, who won…history/medievalhistory/late antiquitytopic/state
  9. Greco-Bactria KingdomWhile the other Hellenistic kings were busy fighting over the Mediterranean, Diodotus I looked at the Seleucid Empire’s chaos and decided he was done with the…history/ancienttopic/state
  10. The Mystery of Fu LinIn Chinese historiography, "Fu Lin" (拂菻) is the name to be given to a great western empire that succeeded "Da Qin" during the Tang and Song dynasties (c.…historiographylinguisticstopic/statehistory/medieval

2025

  1. DaliThe Dali Kingdom was caught completely off guard. The last king, Duan Xingzhi (段兴智), was captured but—in typical Dali fashion—wasn't executed. The Mongols…
  2. Holy Roman Empire'Ce corps qu’on appelle et qui s’appelle encore le Saint-Empire romain n’était en aucune manière ni saint, ni romain, ni empire' -- Voltaire (1756)historiographyhistory/medievalpolitical sciencehistory/early moderntopic/state
  3. Ottoman EmpireThe son of Osman is proving to be something more dangerous than a raider: an administrator. From his new capital at Bursa — taken by patient blockade rather…history/medievalhistory/early moderntopic/state
  4. Saruhan BeylikFrom Manisa, in the shadow of Mount Sipylus, the old ghazi Saruhan Bey rules a small state with a long reach. Denied land to conquer — Ottomans to the north,…history/medievaltopic/state