The Spiral Staircase Myth (2020)
Hopefully the book they're working on makes more compelling arguments, as the bullet points listed in this blogpost are pretty weak:<p>1. "Castles were built for prestige not fortification".<p>Regardless of actual use as fortification (frequency of battles), it's pretty self-evident that the intent of much of a castles design is fortification. Even if moats, arrow slits and parapets are just for show, they would still be to <i>show off your defensive capabilities</i>, in which case (at least apparent) defense would still be the primary concern of the architect.<p>2. "Some turn anti-clockwise"<p>Wherein the author assumes that all wisdom is automatically universally shared and all architects/planners/builders are universally competent. A fact as true today as it ever was.<p>3. is pretty much the same argument as (2) repeated.<p>4. An argument against how practical they would be in reality (already superceded by their first point that they were probably just for show).<p>There's very little of substance in this article. Hopefully the book does a better job.