This blog is a personal work and I don’t know if it will appeal to anyone apart from myself, but I hope that the discipline of writing and publishing my thoughts will if nothing else help me get those thoughts in order.

I have always read widely, and fairly aimlessly, across many disciplines. Particular interests have included all history, and specifically ancient history, archaeology, literature, evolution, astronomy, physics, economics, investment etc.

As I’ve gotten older, I recently turned 42 (and once I’ve written a review of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy I may link it here!), I’ve begun to find more connections and relationships across these varied disciplines. Of course, I don’t claim that this is an original idea of mine. There was a time when many if not most thinkers took a multi-disciplinary approach, and a number of prominent authors today who specifically focus on this (eg Edward O. Wilson, Nassim Nicholas Taleb etc). However the majority of “expert” content produced and quoted online or in public debates seems to still focus narrowly on single-discipline experts.

As I reflected on the topics that interested me, and what theme I could find that could draw them all together, the most salient feature was trying to learn from the collective wisdom of the ages. Taking a longer term perspective than is normally taken when most issues and debates are considered. Hence the blog’s title, drawn of course from Isaac Newton’s quote  “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” which like everything else has a longer history. 

And so this blog will hopefully provide the pressure on me when I finish reading a book to reflect more fully on what I’ve learned, and where those lessons can be applied. Part blog, part book review, part travelogue I hope first and foremost that this blog will help me to organise my own thoughts, and if it should benefit anyone else in the world in any small way, that is a bonus.

“Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.” – Alfonso X of Castile