Sender: Rare book and manuscripts <EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU>
----- Original Message -----
From: "Philip Smith" <philip@PHILIPSMITHBOOKS.COM>
To: <EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2006 12:57 PM
Subject: Re: [EXLIBRIS-L] The long 18c (was RE: [EXLIBRIS-L] Selected
Readings, No. 96)
Thanks to all who contributed clarification of this point; it's
interesting
to me to see the ways in which these ideas of 'centuries' seem to mirror
an
almost Spenglerian notion of the succession of quasi-organic,
self-defining
cultures, with attendant overlap and clash--the 19th century reaches back
into the 18th (which itself extends to Waterloo) and stretches forward to
1914, etc.
I think we are still witnessing the last gasping crackles of the 19th in
some realms, while the 21st may have had decades of gestation already,
though it hardly seems real yet, to me at any rate--though perhaps
unreality
is its central and controlling ideal (or else its mistaken appearanceto
those schooled in the earlier realm).
Through my lens, the 20th century ended 9-1-1.
Now it's "pre-emptive" war, and back to the Middle Ages.