Comment by chucksmash
Comment by chucksmash 5 days ago
The "Who invented the steam engine?"[0] section of "The Book of General Ignorance" refers to a "brilliant essay" by Arnold Toynbee that imagines a global Greek empire enabled by a rail network derived from combining the aeolopile and the Diolkos. I'd love to read that essay but they don't cite it and I have yet to come across it myself.
[0]: https://books.google.com/books?id=1Mjd2GCRPmAC&newbks=1&newb...
The essay you're looking for is "IF ALEXANDER THE GREAT HAD LIVED ON" in Part IV of Some Problems of Greek History, Arnold Toynbee 1969.