As readers of this blog may have sussed out, I have become fascinated by history. It feels like a natural state for a nerdy Western man who just turned 60. Fot the past few weeks, I have been thinking a lot about the nomadic conquerors of medieval Asia. Peoples such as the Mongols, the Gokturks, etc. Eventually all those civilisations fell, mostly because the settled civilizations like China, various Persian states, and the Ottomans (who descended from earlier steppe nomads) got guns, against which mounted horsemen were no match.