From Shrek to Feudalism

I started with “Shrek is quietly a story about class” and followed it into history and technology.

1. Pop Culture
   Shrek is quietly a story about class
   This is the door they chose.
2. History
   Fairy tales used to be much darker
   Shrek parodies sanitized fairy tales - but the pre-sanitized versions were far stranger and darker.
3. History
   Feudalism: the world as one big landlord
   The fears inside old tales - hunger, forests, cruel lords - are the everyday fears of feudal peasant life.
4. History
   Byzantine politics earned its adjective
   While Western Europe ran on mud and oaths, the Eastern Roman court ran on silk, ceremony, and scheming.
5. Technology
   The printing press: chaos engine of 1450
   The brain jumped; the bridge went unrecorded.