wally @wallystraw - Twitter Profile

wallystraw retweeted

Dudes Posting Their W’s

@DudespostingWs

12 days ago

This is what the older generations should try and do more often

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wallystraw retweeted

GeniusThinking

@GeniusGTX

18 days ago

Italy got Venice, Florence, and Genoa — three republics — while the rest of medieval Europe got kings. The reason wasn't philosophy. It was topsoil… When Rome dissolved in the West, every town in Europe woke up one morning without the empire. No more imperial roads. No more patrols keeping bandits off them. No more grain ships. No more centralized anything. Each town now had to feed itself, defend itself, govern itself — overnight. A town surrounded by rich farmland could pull it off. Its leading families gathered in a hall, declared a council, called it a senate in homage to the Romans, and ran the place. That's how Venice did it. That's how Florence did it. That's how a dozen Italian city-states did it. A town with thin soil couldn't. When the food ran short and the bandits closed in, the people of a weak town did what scared people have always done — they walked toward whoever had walls and bodyguards. Usually that was a noble family in a fortified country house. A villa. "Protect us, and we'll work your land." The town emptied. The villa filled. The word for the settlement that grew around the villa was villaggio — village. A village wasn't a small town. A village was a monarchy in miniature. One lord. His goons. The peasants who fed him. So the map of post-Roman Europe sorted itself by agriculture. Good dirt grew republics. Bad dirt grew villages, which grew lords, which grew kings. Italy had the best agricultural land in Europe. That's why the Renaissance, when it came, came there. Not because Italians were cleverer. Because Italian dirt fed enough merchants, for long enough, that merchants started to matter — and merchants who matter eventually read Cicero, build domes, and reshape the world. You can only love the classics if someone is feeding you. Someone was feeding Florence. Thanks for reading. P.S. I made a playbook breaking down 100+ most powerful decision making mental models used by history's greatest thinkers. 5,000+ downloads. 113 five-star reviews. Grab a free copy here: https://t.co/u2q1uUm9vD If you're new here, @GeniusGTX is a gallery for the greatest minds in economics, psychology, and history. Follow along for more similar content. — Ada Palmer ( @Ada_Palmer ), Renaissance historian at the University of Chicago, on Dwarkesh Patel's ( @dwarkesh_sp ) podcast