Uriason speaks for an entire page, then pauses for breath, enabling Ridenour to ask a question. Uriason continues to speak. He summarizes some Freeholder history:
anti-Christian upheavals three centuries previously
many Christians joined the outbackers
Mechanists came to power
Hedonists fled to avoid persecution
later, the Third Constitution guaranteed tolerance
Freehold joined the Empire
Outbackers oppose any expansion by the Nine Cities
That plus the local planetary war with the Arulians is the situation that Ridenour has been sent to investigate. Maybe the characters have at last expounded the background for us but Ridenour has still to learn that the outbackers are not savages.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Ha! Well, politicians like to hear themselves talk. We should be glad some pols manage to be interesting in what they talk about.
And that was the mistake made by both the Nine Cities and the Outbackers, mutual isolation from each other. Staying in regular and frequent contact might have enabled both cultures to work out an accommodation with each other.
Ad astra! Sean
Summarizing history is tricky. There is so much of it.
I have a friend who grew up in China while Mao was in power, and she complained about being taught next to zero history. I guess no one knew what was safe to say about history, or what might become unsafe to have said the following week.
I have a somewhat better knowledge of Western history than average, & I'm less ignorant of Chinese history than my friend.
So every so often in our conversations I find myself giving a lesson on some point of history. Then I think, to explain this I have to mention this earlier set of events, and that leads to jumping forward and back in historical explanation.
Maybe Uriason had taught history and previously thought through the best ways to explain Freeholder history.
Kaor, Jim!
I never did go to China, but I did go thru a Chinese phase and read quite a lot about Chinese history, from ancient times to the hideous Maoist regime now misruling it. Your friend was right to complain about the abysmal quality of teaching history in China, because it would be dangerously easy for an honest teacher to say or quote something violating the Party line and getting into trouble--or worse.
I have an interest in Western history as well, nations like France, England, a scattering of others. I was esp. interested in translations of original sources, such as Gregory of Tours' HISTORY OF THE FRANKS, St. Bede's HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH AND PEOPLE, Snorri Sturluson's YNGLINGASAGA, etc.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment