Edge of Empires |
|
16 September 2025 - Erlenbach
I picked up Donald Rayfield's Edge of Empires a few weeks before traveling to Georgia to wrap my head around the history of that country. Rayfield's History is exhaustively detailed, introducing more names than anyone could hope to keep track of and a panopoly of kingdoms and places known by different names over history, but that are anyways fairly unfamiliar to me. Confusingly, two parts of the country are even called Iberia and Albania. That Georgia has spent its existance nearly entirely on the edge of empires is born out through Rayfield's history. Persia, the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Khans, Ottomans, and finally Russians all put their mark on the country and yet Georgia has endured.
