Hacker News Reader

If you're interested in old Venice: Ioanna Iordanou has a book "Venice's secret service: Organising intelligence in the renaissance".

Also a paper "The Professionalization of Cryptology in Sixteenth Century Venice".

View on HN

It is really fascinating how sophosticated and advaced Venice was, from mass manufacturing of ships, policy and government and secret police. There are reason why, despite being geographically small, Venice dominated trade and a significant chunk of the mediteranean at the time.

and it lasts more than 1000 years!

much like the US today, venice did not need to expand much, and it only conquered islands/lands that were useful to them

This seems to be a pattern with naval powers (ancient Athens too), but not with colonial empires

Reply on news.ycombinator.com