I'm unsure if this is the right place to put this...

I suppose today’s news and events are the history of tomorrow, what do you think will make it into the history books in the same way as the Norman Conquest, the princes in the tower, the rise and fall of the British Empire and two world wars… with all the worlds press reporting hours of news several times a day… real time filming of the major conflicts, and so many video cameras recording family events, what stories will fuel the minds of historians a 1000 years from now. Will they still be arguing about the princes, the death of Princess Diana, the phone tapping scandal and global warming?

Well, I'd like to think that future historians will have more sense than to be arguing over an imbecile like Richard. Lord, what an endless fuss over nothing.

But possibly the two Iraq and Afghan wars will be a contender, all three are changing the course of history as we speak. It is difficult to say, what is seen as important to us may not be viewed in the same light in the future.

The question of what will constitute "history" in the future is a complex one. In fact it deals less with prediction than analysis of what constitutes "history" now. If, for example, you purchased the "Chronicle of the 20th Century" book which was a best-seller around the time of the millennium (celebrated a year too early, but don't get me started on that ...) you bought a work which was quite thorough in identifying all the salient events throughout the hundred years in question which could have been deemed significant in terms of political, social and cultural development. It also identified events which were less so, but which were still includable on the basis of their being characteristic of a certain time or fashion.

All in all a very good book, then, and one which survives repeated browsing. That is, until one applies to it an historiographical scrutiny. Then it suddenly is found wanting in certain respects, and one of these is its subjectivity in terms of cultural orientation. This is most noticeable when the subject matter veers from those truly global events which affected everyone on the planet in some form or another and where the editors instead had to use other criteria to define their significance. Then a distinct pattern becomes obvious and a tendency to be biased towards things which impacted on "western" society emerges. Not only that, but things which belatedly have made such an impact since publication and which happened to originate outside western consciousness at the time are therefore completely absent. The editors, for example, could not have predicted September 11th 2001, so therefore the whole issue of the rise of muslim extremism - something which engages the west with an urgent immediacy now - is relegated to unrelated footnotes or ignored altogether.

This book is just a clear example which is easy to identify. However if one takes the history section in any bookshop as a body of reference one could say more or less the same thing about its content. For that reason, were I to predict what current or recent events might in a hundred years time be deemed globally relevant, I would be inclined to start my speculation by asking what people think in China.

I've been mulling on this question through the morning and have come to the same conclusion re China Nordmann. I'd probably go so far as to say we are witnessing the start of the delcine of the west (the catalyst being 9/11) on global influence and the re-emergence of the east, namely China and India. But as the story has yet to be finished it is anyones guess how it will be viewed in the future.

The Chimese factor in world chande has ben relevant but largely ignored since the 60's. B.B.C. Panorama did a double edition on "The Rise of the Red Dragon" in the autumn of 1962 that really alarmed me.

The political mix of Capitalism under Communist control. was, I think envisaged even then or perhaps that was my deduction. At that time I met people who led delegations behind the Bamboo Curtain - when very few were invited, and who spoke with awe of the industrial growth and potential there. Being young and somewhat fearless of their status I asked a great about this, much to their surprise. Ever since I have kept a nervous watch on China's progress - and clever surefootedness.

Thee crunch will come in my little opinion when Fundamental Islam and China glare at one another without a gauze of Human Rights fudging the view. Then History of tomorrow will be made. I close with a shudder.

normanhurst wrote:

the rise and fall of the British Empire and two world wars

The death of Margaret Thatcher comes 34 years after her General Election victory in 1979.

That is interesting because the 1979 election came 34 years after the end of the Second World War in 1945. That in turn came 34 years after the Parliament Act of 1911 which asserted the supremacy of the House of Commons over the House of Lords in the British Parliament. That in turn came 34 years after the 1877 Delhi Durbar which proclaimed Queen Victoria 'Empress of India'...

Quite apart from anything else it's amazing to think that 1979 now marks the half-way point between the Second World War and now. In other words 1979 is the half-way point of the 'post-war era'.

Priscilla wrote:

The Chimese factor in world chande has ben relevant but largely ignored since the 60's. B.B.C. Panorama did a double edition on "The Rise of the Red Dragon" in the autumn of 1962 that really alarmed me.

The political mix of Capitalism under Communist control. was, I think envisaged even then or perhaps that was my deduction. At that time I met people who led delegations behind the Bamboo Curtain - when very few were invited, and who spoke with awe of the industrial growth and potential there. Being young and somewhat fearless of their status I asked a great about this, much to their surprise. Ever since I have kept a nervous watch on China's progress - and clever surefootedness.

Thee crunch will come in my little opinion when Fundamental Islam and China glare at one another without a gauze of Human Rights fudging the view. Then History of tomorrow will be made. I close with a shudder.

Priscilla, (and Nordmann and Islanddawn),

preparing again a reply to the thread: "All History is Modern History" because the thread on Historum (History and Historians) had added new replies. Discussing geopolitics on a forum de Passion Histoire: "le salon géopolitique". When looking to the future I think, educated by the lessons of the past, that the human nature don't change that much over the centuries, but that the combination of all these present tendencies, as in the judging and predicting of the financial markets, gives a mixture that is unpredictable.

As for China I give some intangibles. As the surrounding by "Western" entities and in that Japan can also be "Western". What will be the impact of the nowadays natality of both China and Japan? How quickly will Africa evoluate and to what philosophical community? What impact will the changing natural environment have on the global civilisation? Nobody speaks about one of the BRICs Bresil? In which's camp will the landmass of Siberia stay? And yes how quickly will the islamic states evoluate to the nearly agnostic precedent of the nowadays Europe or not ?

Kind regards and with esteem,

Paul.

Hello Paul

the question of Japan being described as 'Western' is an intriguing one. It all depends upon one's definition of the word 'Western'.

For example in 1988 Margaret Thatcher referred to the then Japanese Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita and his 'commitment to bring about Japan's closer integration into the Western system of nations'. One wonders if the word 'Western' in this context was being used as a substitute for the word 'democratic'.

With regard to the impact of China's birthrate, then (despite over 30 years of state-sponsored family planning in that country) there is a timely and yet eyebrow-raising story today regarding baby milk being rationed in the UK because of a surge in demand in China. That's some food for thought.

Baby milk in our supermarkets have been limited to 2 tins for a couple of years now because of this problem which annoys the locals no end. in Auckland we have a large Chinese population, and a lot more to come, the PM has just loosened up the visa restrictions. We were the first country to have a free trade agreement with China. Something tells me we have a tiger by the tail!

I was just going to mention some of those details, Gran, though I didn't know about the baby milk. Oddly today we went to Dunedin's Countdown and saw a notice in the window saying, "Only one tin of baby goat's milk." What poor baby would want such a thing?

The worry I had (and still have) about the rise of China is that with so many people becoming middle-class it will have a serious effect on environmental aspects of the world. But then, why shouldn't Chinese people have the same benefits of a middle-class lifestyle as I and millions of other western countries have? (I think Western as regards Japan means 'wealthy' more than anything else.) I heard a China expert talking on the radio yesterday and he said what China wanted and would react to was a desire to be left alone in peace.

But with regard to the subject matter, how billions of Chinese view future history won't have a drastic effect on how history is viewed in the UK or any other country really. How many discussions did the BBC History board people actually have about American history? I once asked about Chinese history on the BBC board and it generated very little interest.

Our PM is predicting a rise in five years of Chinese tourists to our country to a million a year, up from 200,000 now. And he has taken a trade delegation of 100 people there at the moment. I am not sure how much free trade deals actually benefit the smaller country though, but since everything we buy is already made in China I don't suppose it will make much difference.

Many people who have allergies to cow milk or are lactose intolerant drink goat's milk Caro. A lot of people also prefer to feed children and babies goat milk for these reasons, and because it requires no artificial homogenization and is closer to human milk than that of a cow.

This is a film from the 1920s about what they thought would happen;

nordmann wrote:

I would be inclined to start my speculation by asking what people think in China.

And India.

The former British imperial possession and the largest member of the Commonwealth of Nations has dropped off the radar of the mass media in 'the West' over the last couple of years. The Indian middle classes, formerly the darlings of Guardianistas and Telegravers alike are suddenly conspicuous by their absence from the Sunday supplements etc. The reason is seemingly the staggering victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Democratic Alliance and the corresponding trouncing of the Congress Party-led Progressive Alliance in the 2014 elections. The subsequent appointment of Narendra Modi as Prime Minister signalled a seismic shift in the history of that country. The first Indian head of government to be born after independence and also the first to be born after India became a republic, Modi represents a genuinely post-imperial generation. A generation of rulers of India who are no longer willing to be patronised by 'the West' or by anyone else, and are showing this in ways which makes the previous 'non-aligned' posturing of their predecessors in the 1960s and 1970s seem positively quaint.  

Even more to the annoyance of the in-denial Guardianistas etc is the fact that of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) countries, India is doing the best economically in terms of GDP growth - even ahead of China in 2015. India is currently hosting the BRICS summit in Goa.

I hope this is the right place to put this. I thought this might be something groundbreaking that is occurring currently.  I looked at the BBC "Learning English" videos on YouTube.  There was a short clip about a scheme on the island of Porto Santo (which when I looked it up transpires to belong to Portugal and be somewhere north of Madeira).  A scheme is being tried out where electric smart cars download electricity to use during the day but have reversible batteries to feed electricity back up to the meters to be used during the night.  There's  more to it than that - that is the bare bones.  The diesel generator at present in use is causing pollution it seems. In case anyone was wondering why I looked at the videos it was because I wanted a video of short duration to practise my shorthand.  I can't write shorthand at the speed the narrator on the video is talking but I can practise the outlines and come back to it and make a stab again.  I've tried it as an unseen and found it quite difficult.  I'll link the video in case anyone finds it of interest.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

I hope this is the right place to put this. I thought this might be something groundbreaking that is occurring currently.  I looked at the BBC "Learning English" videos on YouTube.  There was a short clip about a scheme on the island of Porto Santo (which when I looked it up transpires to belong to Portugal and be somewhere north of Madeira).  A scheme is being tried out where electric smart cars download electricity to use during the day but have reversible batteries to feed electricity back up to the meters to be used during the night.  There's  more to it than that - that is the bare bones.  The diesel generator at present in use is causing pollution it seems. In case anyone was wondering why I looked at the videos it was because I wanted a video of short duration to practise my shorthand.  I can't write shorthand at the speed the narrator on the video is talking but I can practise the outlines and come back to it and make a stab again.  I've tried it as an unseen and found it quite difficult.  I'll link the video in case anyone finds it of interest.

Lady,

they seem to be nowadays being busy with all kind of experiments to store the energy of solar panels and wind mills during the not working hours. Coincidentally I saw on Arte (French-German tv channel) a series about islands being energy self sufficient. I think I saw about Madeira too. Why it are always islands which want to do the experiments with all kind of systems? Perhaps they are a small ecosystem and one is able to oversee it while the system is not that big? For instance: pumping water on a higher level on a mountain during day and then making electricity during night when the water descends again, systems of golf breaking by a kind of caterpillars, where the moving knicks make electricity. It seems that it is the more expensive way to make electrity, at least of the moment. And yes I saw already that system with electrical cars proposed for the big cities (at night fuelling the grid). But then we need at least more E-cars. And a part of a street row in Ghent, where the houses were interconnected with the approval of the owners and by the bigger group, to buy all kind of expensive material, which worked collectively for the community and the surplus electricity feeding in the grid and in the rare occasions that they were short of energy receiving it from the public grid.
PS. I don't watch the island documentaries anymore on Arte because after a year or so, they start again with the old ones and then, as I have still good memory  , I see after five minutes that I have already seen it   ...

Kind regards from Paul.