Friday 10 November 2023

Historian Of Civilizations

See The History of Civilizations.

Among sf writers, the title of "Historian of Civilizations" rightfully belongs to Poul Anderson whose History of Technic Civilization shows us:

the transition from Western to Technic civilization;
the two phases of Technic civilization;
post-Technic societies and civilizations.

Anderson's Time Patrol shows us Babylonian, Roman and medieval civilizations and mentions future civilizations including several Matriarchies and the post-human Danellians. His The Boat Of A Million Years spans a period from before Christ to an indefinite future.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I agree, Anderson can rightly be called the "Historian of Civilizations."

I do think THE BOAT OF A MILLION YEARS has a couple of weak points. We are not told in any satisfactory way how the "immortals" of that story handled the problem of dementia caused by memory overload long before the existence of advanced meditech. Also, we could have been told how Hanno and his friends outwitted Sen. Teddy Kennedy (oops, Sen. Edmund Moriarty!).

Ad astra! Sean