Rhine
Article
Rhine is a recurring place in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 3 times across 3 issues between May 06, 2021 and August 01, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as “armies of the Rhine”; “Denmark and the Netherlands control access to the Rhine and Baltic Sea”; “arms and armor manufacturers of the Rhine”. It most often appears alongside Africa, France, Greece.
Metadata
- Category: Places
- Mention count: 3
- Issue count: 3
- First seen: May 06, 2021
- Last seen: August 01, 2025
Appears In
- Your Book Review: Through The Eye Of A Needle
- Your Book Review: The Accidental Superpower
- Your Review: Joan of Arc
Related Pages
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- Africa (3 shared issues)
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- France (3 shared issues)
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- Greece (3 shared issues)
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- Spain (3 shared issues)
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- Britain (2 shared issues)
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- Egypt (2 shared issues)
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- England (2 shared issues)
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- English (2 shared issues)
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- Europe (2 shared issues)
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- French (2 shared issues)
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- Germany (2 shared issues)
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- Goths (2 shared issues)
External Links
Source Context
Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.
The gold solidus was in circulation among the wealthy in the urbanized areas around Rome and Carthage. It was also found along what Brown calls “corridors of empire.” For instance, the city of Trier (modern Germany, near Luxembourg) was an important imperial center near the Rhine frontier. A great deal of taxes and supplies flowed to Trier and to the armies of the Rhine. The wealthiest landowners and most splendid villas crowded along these corridors “tied to an imperial gravy train.”
These predictions include some persuasive analysis of many countries and plenty of speculation to go with it. Zeihan spends a chapter highlighting America’s partners in the chaos to come. At the top of the list are its North American neighbors, and a prediction that Cuba will be pulled back into the American orbit (because a larger power that supported it could cut off trade with the greater Mississippi system – Zeihan’s summary of exactly why America was willing to risk nuclear war in the Cuban Missile Crisis). He also gives some analysis of the geography of South America and how it affects their trading patterns, and of the best European allies for various purposes (Denmark and the Netherlands control access to the Rhine and Baltic Sea, making them valuable allies). He runs through the trade of Southeast Asia and suggests that American cooperation in the area could have a strategic benefit of helping to “keep China and India apart.”
* Sub-footnote: Older than medieval plate armor, technically. Bronze plate armor dates back to Agamemnon, it just kind of sucked compared to iron chain or lamellar. The high and late Middle Ages saw an improving economy giving knights the ability to spend more and more on heavy armor to keep enemy spears and arrows and bullets and crossbow bolts out, and this demand was served by the arms and armor manufacturers of Milan and the Rhine competing in an arms race to develop better armor, with the first ambiguous plate appearing in the 12th or 13th century. The peak of personal protection is probably the beautiful suits of Gothic plate from around 1525, worn by the French cavalry at the Battle of Pavia, who in spite of the toughest armor in the world still can’t ride their horses over Spanish pikemen or deflect bullets from German handguns, and from this point on the level of armor used by soldiers steadily decreases right up until steel helmets to deflect shrapnel return in the first World War and the pendulum's arc reverses again.