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Sure we can imagine, but that doesn't make it real. It's not that your argument is without merit if we were actually capable of doing this, but we are not. In another thread you wrote this, which you frame as the "conclusion" to the points raised by an ideology being discussed, but which I...

Digital records are ludicrously vulnerable and poorly-adapted to preservation. Backwards compatibility is a problem for computers across the span of decades (and sometimes mere years). Apply that to a time-scale of centuries, and you may safely assume that anything not jotted down physically...

Alhough I turned it into a bit of a tangential rant (as I often do), my point was that "the middle" is rarely a typical reference point, even if it's a valid one. People compare the start to the end. So Caesar gets compared to Alexander (indeed, even in his life-time), but he doesn't get...

Root causes will almost certainly be sought in the preceding period. When we want to explain the Hellenistic Era (or "Alexander to Actium", as Greene defined it) we look to the circumstances that produced Alexander. It's no surprise that Antiquite had its own "Enlightenment": Sokrates, Plato and...

Obviously, it's going to be noted. It's not a phenomenon typically viewed as particular to the 20th century, though. So when you ask how the 20th century is going to be viewed: well, I don't think anyone is going to say "Ah, yes, the 20th century -- the age of the industrial revolution!" I'd...

Technology developed significantly, and this will no doubt be noted. I certainly wouldn't deny it. However, did leave it out, because that wasn't the question. The history books rarely mention any but the most significant technological developments. In that sense, the combustion engine, the...

The technological context is largely irrelevant; that's purely the pre-occupation of people who fail to look beyond the petty little obsessions of their own age. If you take the long view, that kind of "window dressing" all falls away, and the underlying frame-work is revealed. That's the same...