[tacoluv]

These are great links. I am not sure we are necessarily glossing over these details. The logistics of war/major construction/other big projects are actually heavily studied, and I'd dare say are interesting to the general public - see this book for example: The Virtues of War: A Novel of Alexander the Great. I'd call it history inspired fiction, but the author goes into a lot of detail about what it could have taken to motivate various peoples to join you for war, what goes into feeding said people etc.

I do agree that for some reason this information is more difficult to obtain - I want to blame popular movie directors who are obsessed with the lone genius trope, that however doesn't reflect reality well.

Interesting discussion/poem though - perhaps if we did a better job at reflecting the importance of all the moving pieces of the machine we'd have a better a priori idea of what it takes to create something big.

Edit: Here is something I watched recently about what it takes to feed 6000 miners somewhere in Mongolia - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-Vvw3Cy_Rw