Why It Stopped Mattering

Venice was one of the richest cities on earth and then it was not. The route to Asia moved, and the new route was more than twice as long and won anyway. Bruges and Ephesus were great ports and their harbours silted up. A place is important because it solves somebody else’s problem — and when the problem changes, the place does not. Nobody in any of these stories did anything wrong, which is the part that is almost never taught.