Reading the envelope
Reading the Substrate argued that analysis of conflict tends to read a story first and the ground beneath it late, and that the ordering is often backwards in its emphasis: ideas set a conflict’s direction, conditions set its reach. That was a claim using looking backwards, about explaining wars that have already happened. A fair question is whether the same method survives being turned around to face forward. If conditions set reach, can a reading of conditions say anything useful about what comes next? ...