Once my sixth-grade teacher said that of all times and places, she wished she could go to classical Athens.
If you had a time machine and could go to any historical time and place, which one would you choose? Why would you choose it?
For me, of all times and places I would love to go to Minoan Crete, circa 1500 B.C.
An early civilization where seemingly efforlessly, gracefully, there flourished the arts of civilization and living, civilization that just seemed to spring up out of nowhere. A peaceful society without fortifications or wars. An egalitarian society where there was no huge gap between the rich and poor. A matriarchal religion of the Goddess and a society where women were the equals of men, with neither class nor sexist oppression. A culture dedicated to beauty and aesthetic appreciation, where the arts flourished. A proto-feminist society of beautiful, powerful, athletic, women. The earliest civilization of the Aegean, which led to the later Mycenean civilization and thence the classical Greek world, and so is at the root of all Western civilization. Vitally important to our world, but yet largely unknown.
A mysterious civilization whose secrets I would love to discover: where did the Minoans come from? What was their language? (their writing, Linear A, is still unreadable.) How did they achieve such a high civilization so rapidly—while avoiding war? What was life like there? To return there would be my heart’s fondest desire.
I’m a 20th Century beast, I guess. I would probably enjoy the Inter-War Period (1918-1939), because it was so promising until the Depression kicked it in the teeth: It had all of the artistic and social flowering of the 50s (from the avant-garde literature of Hemingway and Fitzgerald to the proto-feminism of the Sufferagettes to the racial awareness of the Harlem Renaissance to the radical politics of the Wobblies and the ultimate Socialist Mouthpiece, Steinbeck) without a war or mass race riots or a president hell-bent on destroying the Constitution. Plus, the flowering was happening both in the US and West Europe. New York’s Harlem and Paris’s Lost Generation and Germany’s Bauhaus were all going on at once, cross-fertilizing and laying the seeds for those poseurs thirty-forty years later.
I’d get out by 1933, however: In America, that was the nadir of the Depression. In Europe, that’s when the German Neuremburg Laws were passed. When would I go? Either the 1900s, for the last decade of the Pax Brittania (I’m a huge Kipling fan for some reason), or the 1980s, for the rebirth of popular music and the birth of home computing.
If I had to choose some time outside the past century, I would be inclined to go back to Jefferson’s America in 1800. I think he was the first American Libertarian (not completely, but he lived in a much less enlightened time), and that period was one of huge growth for this nation.
Of course, the future holds more interest for me than the past. If I had a time machine, I might just take a Grand Tour of the Future, with stops once a century to get a zeitgeist, more often if I find something interesting.
Of course, this raises a few questions: Would I lay in wait outside a certain German prison for a certain Little Adolf One-Nut with my 2030s-era neurotoxin fletchette rifle? Would I suddenly make an important discovery in the field of semi-conducting crystalline silicon' alongside my partner, Philo Farnsworth? Would I hand Fitzgerald my newest poem, one that begins I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked’?
Would I test to the limits the Chronological Protection Conjecture?
Low Middle Ages, Byzantium. Rumored to be among the most enlightened cities of it’s day.
c. 2000 B.C.E., Ireland. Before the Celts. When the Daanans walked among the Rowan trees and all the days were perfect, until you died at the ripe old age of 27.
c. 2500 B.C.E., Ur of the Chaldeans. Running water in the houses, public works projects paid for by tarriffs, Abram and Sarai as neighbors.
595 B.C.E. Babylon, capital of Babylonian Empire. I want to know just what those “Hanging Gardens” really were.
13th century C.E. (A.D.) North American continent (somewhere around San Fransisco Bay). Had to be beautiful. No cannibals like in Texas Gulf Coast (Karankawas).
It’s fascinated me since practically forever, especially since so little seems to be known about it. Even though their writing was based on Egyptian hieroglyphs, we still haven’t managed to unravel much.
I like the idea of the queens of Meroe kicking the heck out of the Romans, what can I say.
Either the 1960’s (Peak of rock’n’roll and the anti-war movement/lifestyle looked like fun), or maybe the times of the ancient Hebrews or Bethlehem when Jesus was around. It would be interesting to see what really happened, as far as the bible and all.
I would never relocate to the past if I couldn’t bring modern medical care with me - can I return to modern times whenever I want to go to the doctor? In that case, I think I would enjoy New York, circa 1900, if I could be moderately wealthy there.
With the caveat on vaccinations, and skipping the Depression, I’d say the English countryside between the wars. In a big country house with a name like “The Laurels” and lots of faithful servants.
The place would be exactly where I want to live anyway, the area of Kilgore, Texas. The time would be the postwar era, the late '40s and '50s. They had an oil boom on, the towns were prospering, and all the clothes and furniture and decorative designs I like were brand-new and readily available. The only drawbacks I can think of right now? Much less reliable air-conditioning, and no internet to play on when I got bored.
Speakeases, Legal Tommy guns, one of my favorite authors still alive and writing (Ironically, almost all the authors I like are dead), Marx Bros. still performing live, the film industry coming into it’s own, Labor unions beginning to have influence(but not yet gone too far), and Sanitation and Medication that was halfway decent.
No worries about nuclear war, terrorism, being drafted, or a collapsing economy. So pretty good as long as International communism doesn’t scare you.
Plus, at least to me, there seems to be something interently cool about the 1920’s.
Two choices: I’d love to have been in London during the ‘Swinging 60’s’: just to be an eyewitness to the birth of the Beatles, Stones, Who, Kinks, etc. My second choice would be to have been on Powell’s first trip down the Colorado River.
Ancient Egypt- I’ve been fascinated with it ever since I was in fifth grade and did a big project on Cleopatra and the Egyptians (complete with me in a cleopatra costume and heavy black eye liner while presenting).
The Renaissance: I love the style that was created in this age, especially the Baroque.
The Enlightenment: So many discoveries were made during this time period. My favorite feature of it is the salons, in which philosophes would discuss and debate stuff.
Ancient Rome: Preferably a long way before the end of the empire, but I have loved Roman culture ever since taking Latin I in sixth grade and traveling to Italy the summer after.
