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Dave, and Germaine,
New Zealand relatives taught me, long ago, about time being
relative: I remember living in 1970s "swinging" London, visiting
Kiwis there who described Christchurch as being, still, something
out of a Jane Austen novel -- all of which was very confusing, to
this transplanted Californian, who had landed at Heathrow with
strong preconceived notions about the Englishness of both places.
And then the Lord of the Rings bunch went looking for "English"
countryside, and were able to find that only in New Zealand...
The Long 18thC and other historians' notions of time make little
sense to me, too often. There is a Long 19thC, too, and a Short
20th, plus a Long 16th and a Long 15th, not even going to the old
debates about "Renaissance" dates, or those of the "Middle Ages".
Just now I am trying to explain, to a very sceptical son, why my
own notions of a separate-and-distinct "World War I" and a "World
War II" ought not to be conflated, simply, into a single 50-year
"European time of troubles": per a range of writers now from
Nolte to Ferguson to Hobsbawm & then some. When I think of all
the fascinating and significant questions that simply will erase...
Sigh -- and "oh well", as my son's generation maddeningly says
too often -- mundus senescit, and time does conflate things.
Jack, kessler@well.com