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:1. "Castles were built for prestige not fortification".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 show off your defensive capabilities, in which case (at least apparent) defense would still be the primary concern of the architect.2. "Some turn anti-clockwise"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.3. is pretty much the same argument as (2) repeated.4. An argument against how practical they would be in reality (already superceded by their first point that they were probably just for show).There's very little of substance in this article. Hopefully the book does a better job.