updated 9mo ago
The Misunderstood Byzantine Princess and Her Magnum Opus
For the most part, they are portrayed as abusers rather than users of power. They take it illegitimately, in a way that leads to chaos, to the fracture of the state, to death and destruction. They are monstrous hybrids, who are not, in the Greek sense, women at all. And the unflinching logic of their stories is that they must be disempowered and pu
... See morefrom Women & Power: A Manifesto by Mary Beard
Like it or not, the grand dukes of Muscovy could survive only by entering the European diplomatic system (to seek allies against Poland) and (no less important) by competing on cultural and ideological terms with the new-style monarchies of fifteenth-century Europe. Much of later Russian history would turn on the delicate balance between the distin
... See morefrom After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000 by John Darwin