The blogging agenda, when I can get back to it, is:
How many and how plausible are the technological advances in the early part of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History?
What are the motivations of the enemies of the UN world government in that period?
The Psychotechnic History is worthy of appreciation as a future history series. We, or at least I, appreciate the early period of the UN world government and the much later period of the Nomads even though these two periods are entirely dissimilar and could even have comprised two unrelated series. A good future history series is precisely one that links together different generations, centuries and epochs. We appreciate time passed and distance travelled.
Onward, Earthlings!
6 comments:
Even in retrospect, historical developments are often surprising, so distant periods of the same 'future history' should be quite different too.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Have fun proofreading TO TURN THE TIDE. I came across a few oddities or possible errors, but nothing I thought serious. I did wonder if it was correct to refer to Marcus Aurelius' adoptive father Antoninus Pius as "Antonius."
Will be soon rereading Anderson's Christmas story "The Season of Forgiveness."
Still doing therapy and exercises, to help recover from cervical myelopathy surgery.
Mr. Stirling: I agree, and these historical developments don't have to be distant in time. The Americans of 1952 might well be horrified in many ways by the US of 2022.
Merry Christmas! Sean
Sean: Roman names were weird. For example, there were only about 20 praenomen (first names)) in common use -- you'd meet 10 people named "Sextus" in the course of a day!
It was fairly common to refer to people by the third of their names -- note that Caesar said "Et tu, Brute?" not "Et tu, Marcus?"
Sometimes by the nomen, the middle name, too.
And it was fairly common, in any but the most casual settings, to use -all three- names.
Incidentally, a lot of Roman names had meanings; they weren't just arbitrary sound-parcels.
For example, "Brutus" meant, roughly, "animalistic stupidity". No, really, it did.
(Hence our "Brute").
You can tell a lot of Roman names started out as peasant nicknames. Baldy, Wart-Face, you name it.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Amusing and interesting comments! The classical Roman naming system was for a man to have a given name, a gens (clan) name, and surname. E.g, Gaius Julius Caesar or Lucius Cornelius Sulla. With Caesar and Sulla being used for those branches of the Julii and Cornelii. Sometimes a man might gain a fourth name, either officially or by popular "acclaim." Sulla came to be called Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (happy, fortunate) because he triumphed over his enemies and ruled Rome as Dictator.
I think "Caesar" originally meant "Baldy,"
Btw, the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire led to many new names being adopted, taken from the heroes, prophets, saints, and apostles of the OT and NT. Such as David, Isaac, Isaiah, Deborah, Rebecca, Matthew, Peter, John, Paul, Mary, etc. Most Biblical names were not just "noises," but also had meanings. "Michael" means "Who is like God?"
Merry Christmas! Sean
Sean: the biblical names had meanings in their original languages, but most of the people who adopted them didn't -know- those languages; so the names were just sounds to them. That was the beginning of the switch.
Eg., English names tended to remain 'meaningful' and traditionally Germanic well after their conversion to Christianity -- until after 1066, when French (and mostly ultimately biblical) names became common.
They mostly meant things like "Bee Wolf" (bear), or "Beautiful as an Elf" or "Friend of the Elves" or "Iron Hand", or "Protector of Kin" or "Noble Stone" or "Spear Warrior", stuff like that.
This was a very old tradition, dating back to Proto-Indo-European times. PIE names were usually "dithematic compounds"; "Strong Warrior", "Ruler of Men", and so forth.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
No objection, I agree with these comments. Albeit I think some who were given or adopted
Biblical names may have been interested enough to learn their meanings.
Merry Christmas! Sean
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