History is not a discreet collection of independent events. What happens in one epoch, such as the Victorian Era or the Revolutionary Period, is not divorced from earlier events in the same epoch nor from events in previous epochs. Historical events are not blank slates—rather, there are always …

Colonizing a new land, whether on another planet or even just across an ocean, can be perilous work—obstacles are often insurmountable and constant danger close. We also dream of colonizing other planets in our fiction, but we actually just have to look to our past to witness how difficult this …