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  1. An Alexander goes East

    I was writing at one point a book about this... and this is what I had come up with: A Greek-Baktrian expedition in the Tarim Basin and then China in the 206-201 period where it becomes embroiled in the Chu-Han contention (basically it becomes a mercenary ally of Liu Bang against Xiang Yu)...

  2. Dbwi Alexander of Macedonia survived

    Meh. A random dude with a one-year reign. Ok, I enjoy obscure history like everybody else but let's not pretend to enjoy exercises in futility.

  3. Dbwi Alexander of Macedonia survived

    Who?

  4. WI: Lysander is far more successful than he is (and this is a TL idea for writers)

    This is more ASB than aliens invading Earth and allying themselves with the Eastern Jin Empire.

  5. Of Gods and Kings. A Greek Bactria TL

    He gave destiny its own. It was fated that in the primeval grove someone of the great Kings must lay for the rest of time besides the God’s walled house and with heroic processionals dwell there, mantic, amid much sacrifice. We are bold to speak from within, by the high road of speech, over...

  6. DBWI: What if the Persians and Byzantines hadn't defeated the Mohammedans?

    I had to look on-line what Mahommedans are. I thought they were some kind of Turks. So, you think that a limited raid on one of the most important empires in history could have brought the end to both the Sassanids and the Byzantines? A raid led by some random arab dudes, united under a...

  7. Greatest monarch of the early 18th century

    Peter the Great. Easily. A monarch so modern that he was years ahead of his contemporaries: modernized Russia, created its first fleet, built a sea capital, defeated Sweden. And all this while being the most curious man of his times, capable of working as a simple carpenter in a Dutch harbour or...

  8. DBWI: China didn't industrialize

    You came, we saw, we got influenced. I don't believe that we could have done it without all the characteristics that helped you achieve it. We were fighting among themselves, we had virtually no useable trade good, the technological advances were pitiful, to say the least. When you discovered...

  9. DBWI: China didn't industrialize

    It's not that ASB. Remember that the Song regime had little love for the military and their previous war affairs had ended quite badly. The only problem is that I don't see mongolians or turkmens as their main foes; the Jurchens would have still been able to cause them problems without the...

  10. Epilogue of Mongol Invasion of Europe?

    I'd say the italians would make the offer, seeing how the city-states hated each other.

  11. Which Chinese Dynasty Could Survive In Modern Times?

    The Han is the most probable. Not only did the dinasty last for over 400 years, but many following rulers tried to play the Han card in getting a legitimacy over the throne of China (I'm thinking Liu Bei of Shu and the 316 founding of the Xiongnu Han Dinasty). It had a very potent power base, it...

  12. WI No Sacking of Baghdad?

    I'm not a specialist but I have a few thoughts... It's weird, for example, how the Fatimids, a fundamental theocracy at its beginnings, managed to maintain and even enrich the intellectual life of Egypt. Many say it was because the early rulers wanted to show that their version of Islam is...

  13. A World Without Socrates

    Besides, I find it strange to associate Plato with retarded scientific development when he was a guy truly interested in science. I cannot but associate Aristotle's later career with the teachings he gained at the Academy, one cannot forget the Plato obsession regarding mathematics, numbers...

  14. WI No Sacking of Baghdad?

    I might seem a bit harsh but secular Golden Age Islam was indeed dead by 1258. It was a process that started with the Almohads, crusades and the Sufism movement. Yeah, we have plenty of interesting intellectuals after this but the few reasonable thoughts that popped in their heads were...

  15. WI No Sacking of Baghdad?

    All persian, and they did not owe to Baghdad nothing. Now, this raises an interesting point. What is Islamic Culture? Let's look at it from our own Christian perspective. A Christian writer is Abelard; yet Chretien de Troyes is not a Christian writer, but a writer that believes in Christianity...

  16. WI No Sacking of Baghdad?

    This is what I'm actually saying. If you're gonna invent a point in time when the Islamic Civilization has its biggest hiccup, it's not the Baghdad sacking (which was a great city but no longer an important cultural hub), but the conquest of Persia, and, in particular, the sacking of the...

  17. WI No Sacking of Baghdad?

    The trouble with the so-called Islamic "Golden Age" is that it follows a reverse path if you compare it to the Christian Civilization. It begins under very tolerant rulers and acceptance and ends in religious mysticism and stagnation. After the year 1000, the real live and interesting centers of...

  18. A World Without Socrates

    Plato did invent his Socrates, but he should be excused for that: Plato is really the greatest thinker of the Ancient Era. Neoplatonism, Christian and Islamic mysticism, modern philosophy, all are connected, one way or another, to him. And I think that Socrates wouldn't have gained this kind of...

  19. WI No Sacking of Baghdad?

    That is only if you assume Baghdad was the only center of Muslim scholarship... which it wasn't. And the signs of the decline had appeared much earlier, in Spain, for example, after the conquest of the Almohad Dinasty in 1147. This artificial divide of "pre-1258" and "post-1258" makes little...

  20. WI The Romanovs were granted a new land to rule over

    In 1613 Moscow was occupied by Poland and Russia was in ruins. In 1913, Imperial Russia was the greatest land empire in the world, a great cultural and ideological power and about to enter in full motion into the industrial age (and by all calculations without the First World War Russia would...
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