Sunday, July 17, 2005

A Street Through Time

Another in the series of recommended books for studying "home" over time. Not as kid friendly as the Buckley/Leacock books. From Amazon (I like the things change vs. things stay the same dialectic):This is not a history text; it will not give you factoids or dates. But it will enliven your appreciation of the passage of time and the continuity of human existence. This is a large but lightweight book. Each page is approximately 13 by 10 inches, and each of the fourteen depictions are shown in a two-page spread of about 26 inches by 10. The site depicted is an area near a waterway, presumably in the English midlands, and the eras shown are 10,000 BCE, showing a winter settlement of Stone Age hunters; 2000 BCE, an early farming settlement; 600 BCE, the Iron Age; AD 100, during Roman occupation; 600, after the collapse of Roman civilization to barbarian invaders; 900, after the Viking raids; 1200s, a medieval village; 1400s, a medieval town; 1500s, during the Bubonic Plague; 1600s, during a time of religious wars; 1700s, the Regency period; early 1800s, the beginning of industrialization; late 1800s, a thriving city; and finally, a modern city. In successive time periods we see objects and buildings from the last era in ruins or having been adapted for other uses. We see that some things never change (boating or imbibing, for example) while others change markedly (technology, cleanliness, etc.), and that to "progress" is not always to move forward.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you stick in the word dialectic because you're a pseudo intellectual or because you're a red?

William F. Buckley

David Ballela said...

I thought you were dead

Anonymous said...

This book sounds very fascinating, with the decaying ancient architecture sounding particularly engaging.

I would ask you a question, but you are now approximately 3 meters away from me, so that would be a bit superfluous. ^_^;;

Anonymous said...

That was D.V., btw.


-Still D.V.

David Ballela said...

decaying, fascinating, superfluous?
looks like you are in the right place-pseudo intellectualism