I am of Chinese descent. My parents lived under Mao for their entire childhoods. My grandparents fought in the Chinese Civil War. My great grandparents were peasants who lived their childhoods in the 1800s. The 1800s! To think that the Second Industrial Revolution took place while my great grandparents were growing up.
I’ve been thinking about this since reading the recent post by Sungmanitu. Leland Stanford was alive while my great grandparents were alive. When I was very young, I even got to talk to my great grandmother (as much as any 4 or 5 year old can that is). History is still so tangible, stories so recent that we have those that have seen it or at least heard of it from firsthand accounts. I think, too, about some of my Alaskan native friends. How fresh a wound is colonialism to them? Their grandparents and parents in some cases were still alive before Alaska was even a US state. This American nation is inconceivably young and its crimes of genocide are still fresh memory. The 1800s were but 2 life times ago. How much will happen in our 1?
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It’s really incredible. One of the things I really appreciate about moving left is it positions us within history in a way I think a lot of people don’t experience.
There’s a good, short book called “A Dangerous Idea: The Alaska Native Brotherhood and the Struggle for Indigenous Rights” that covers an important struggle for civil, political, and economic rights by Alaska natives in the 20th century, culminating in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. It’s a good read, I recommend it.
Pre-literary history is the ultimate piece of lost media. We know it exists, but because it predates the invention of record keeping/writing, we know very little about it. I think that only a really tiny percent of human history is recorded, which is wild.
A thousand years is the blink of an EYE.
It’s actually an eternity.
