Thursday 4 October 2018

Some Details Of History Or Archimedes And Others

A French Nationalist dismissed the Holocaust as a "detail of history" so I want to reclaim that phrase for a positive use. This blog is dedicated to otherwise overlooked details in the works of Poul Anderson and those works include a short story called "Details." Individuals are the details of history. History is not just the doings of the great but nevertheless sometimes an individual has a long lever and a fulcrum or functions like a cog. An individual leads a party that leads a movement that changes a country, thus affecting the rest of the world and its future.

Poul Anderson's The Shield Of Time shows us a strong Emperor and a strong Pope in conflict and also shows us what happens when either of those two pivotal individuals is removed from history.

"...[Nazism] would not, could not have come to power in the country of Bach and Goethe, except through the unique genius of Adolph Hitler."
-Poul Anderson, "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 333-465 AT p. 424.


"...The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 came near failing. Only the energy and genius of Lenin pulled it through."
-Poul Anderson, "The Year Of The Ransom" IN Time Patrol, pp. 641-735 AT p. 672.

"The train hooted, clicking eastward with Ulyanov aboard.
"His party name was Lenin."
-Poul Anderson, "Details" IN Anderson, Conflicts (New York, 1983), pp. 240-266 AT p. 254.

"'If Guthrie can't outwangle, out-connive, and outroar the combined governments of Earth, we may as well go back there and the North Americans among us embrace the Renewal."
-Poul Anderson, The Stars Are Also Fire (New York, 1995), 8, p. 110.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

What a pity it was that Lenin and Hitler overcame all opposition to come to power in Russia and Germany! History would have been very different if either of them (preferably both) had failed.

Or tremendous events can result from a man being murdered. My favorite example of that being the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo, 1914. History might well have been very different if a bystander had noticed Gavrilo Princip raising his pistol and tackling him!

Sean