Your favourite century

[rousseau]

Curious if any members have a century or smaller era that they gravitate to when reading or studying history?

I've read a modest amount of historical non-fiction and I'd have to say I've been gravitating to the 19th century. What prompted my reading on the period initially was that the origins of the city I live in happened in the early 19th, and so I began to read in that timeframe by coincidence when I looked up books on my town.

After that I started to find it fascinating how closely the 19th parallels the 20th and 21st, but with a few key stark differences, like lack of electricity, motorized vehicles, and a robust understanding of different scientific fields. For the most part it was a rationalist era where intelligence and reason was prized, but technology was still a bit under-developed.

After my first few readings I became more curious what the rest of the world was like during that timeframe and started expanding outward from Canada.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Canada existed in the 19th Century? Sorry, we never studied that here in the U.S. of A.

 

[Horatio Parker]

Canada existed in the 19th Century? Sorry, we never studied that here in the U.S. of A.

Leads to the embarrassing memory of our attempting to conquer Canada multiple times.

 

[DBT]

All places and time periods have their attractions provided one has the means or the wealth to live comfortably.

 

[gmbteach]

I enjoy reading books set in, or about, the 17th and 18th centuries.

On our recent trip, I thoroughly enjoyed visiting abbeys etc that were built much earlier. I could easily spend a year touring the UK visiting many more places - should finances ever allow it.

 

[iolo]

Given the state of medicine in previous times, now is about as good as it gets. Wars are fewer, starvation much less, and so on. Any later, though, and capitalism will burn you to death, with the Rightist Yanks cheering as they fry, so stick here as long as you possibly can!

 

[James Brown]

I have to agree with iolo. I prefer to live in this century--we have the internet, dentistry, and antibiotics here. My second choice would be the 22nd century.

 

[rousseau]

Note: question was which century you find most interesting to read about, not when you'd want to live.

 

[Under the Rose]

Canada existed in the 19th Century? Sorry, we never studied that here in the U.S. of A.

Leads to the embarrassing memory of our attempting to conquer Canada multiple times.

(Which you are potentially liable to accomplish by means of free trade and integrated technology.)

I enjoy reading about the manual skills and tools employed in the settling of this vast nation of diverse terrain and climate, largely because the horse was such an integral part of our ability to traverse the land and do work related to building and maintaining settlements. The remarkable horse drawn machinery which bridged our transition into the completely mechanized era was quite intriguing and this early footage is pretty darn good considering the technology of that period.

 

[Tigers!]

I have to agree with iolo. I prefer to live in this century--we have the internet, dentistry, and antibiotics here. My second choice would be the 22nd century.

Only 85 years to go. reckon you'll make it?

 

[James Brown]

Note: question was which century you find most interesting to read about, not when you'd want to live.

D'oh! Sorry!

I'm a fan of the 19th century Hornblower novels.

- - - Updated - - -

I have to agree with iolo. I prefer to live in this century--we have the internet, dentistry, and antibiotics here. My second choice would be the 22nd century.

Only 85 years to go. reckon you'll make it?

What makes me feel old is how many kids will live to see the 22nd century.

 

[ideologyhunter]

I've read tons of 19th Century novels -- feel at home in a lot of Dickens/Eliot/Hardy settings -- perhaps I like the sensibility because it was the first century to be fully explored in its own contemporary novels.
But actually to live in a past era -- does anyone else judge the past centuries by how you imagine the hygiene compared with ours? Or the state of food preservation? Yes, I'd love to see our continent as Thoreau saw it, or Audobon, but if I arrived with my 2016 habits and sensibility, I'd be creeped out for a long, long time by the basic details of physical life. Tooth care, bedbugs, deodorant, frequency of baths, unrefrigerated milk and eggs -- ye Gods -- the fact that every 'privy' would be a backwoods outhouse, by our standards. I have no idea what took the place of our double-ply Charmin. I keep picturing Abe Lincoln with a box of corn cobs. The whole thing seems like those campgrounds that advertise 'primitive camping', and thank you, no.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

What makes me feel old is how many kids will live to see the 22nd century.

The commander of the Blagrothi invasion fleet asked me to let you know that those kids living that long isn't really a worry.

For myself, I think I'd like living in the first century BC in the Roman Empire. It seems like a cool time when lots of interesting things were happening.

 

[Bomb#20]

What makes me feel old is how many kids will live to see the 22nd century.

The commander of the Blagrothi invasion fleet asked me to let you know that those kids living that long isn't really a worry.

For myself, I think I'd like living in the first century BC in the Roman Empire. It seems like a cool time when lots of interesting things were happening.

Hey, since you're there anyway, you should go see Julius Caesar and warn him about the plot...

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Hey, since you're there anyway, you should go see Julius Caesar and warn him about the plot...

Why bother? After all, what have the Romans ever done for us?

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

The best Century

The best century is one yet to come.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

I read a lot of non-fictonal history, and my favourite era is the first few centuries CE. I'm kind of bored with the Romans, though, so been getting more and more into Chinese history of that time - the Han dynasty and its end, and the Three Kingdoms period. All stuff I never learned in school, but which is endlessly fascinating.

 

[iolo]

Note: question was which century you find most interesting to read about, not when you'd want to live.

In which case, the fifth and sixth centuries, in Britain, since all I was ever taught about it was total nonsense, or the great age of Athens. As to China, the thought of learning 50,000 characters is more than I can contemplate at my age, though I used to speak a version of the language once, and I don't see how you can begin to understand a time unless you know what people were saying.

 

[BH]

I wouldn't mind going back to perhaps ancient Sumerian times. They say all the women there went bare chested. At least the scenery would be nice to look at while I observe the invention of writing and early math.

 

[rousseau]

World history was pretty much static until the 16th - 18th century CE. Everyone was either a subsistence farmer or a noble, and prior to agricultural revolutions people were hunter gatherers. There were varying philosophical systems but life didn't change much between the agricultural revolution and the invent of the printing press.

I guess that's why I find the 19th century so interesting. To a great extent it's when knowledge and science started seeing concrete applications, and the nature of the world began changing more rapidly.

It's interesting to me now to think of how brief modernity has been so far. There were still some people in Canada without the right to vote just 50 years ago! Not long before that slavery was common in North America. Point being that many of us have the illusion of modernity, when we're really just at the tip of the iceberg.