My attention was drawn today to an
excellent guest blog on Dan Koboldt's site, written by sociologist Hannah Emery,
explaining why cultures don't just sit still so that fantasy writers can
present each culture as a single, unchanging entity.
This is a message I've been trying to
get over to fantasy writers for many years in blogs like Messy
Worlds Rule OK, only expressed with eloquence and a great deal of
expertise. I'd encourage everyone interested in fantasy cultures (or real-world
ones, for that matter) to read the article, and then to explore this excellent
blog further.
The only point I'd add to it, as I've
pointed out in a comment, is that another crucial driving-force of cultural
development is always going to be trade, which seems to be a fundamental human
instinct.
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