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Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 18:19:39 -0800
To: classics@u.washington.edu
From: David Lupher <dlupher@ups.edu>
Subject: The Year X (was: a depressing tan Steiner, vel sim.)

Al Kriman wrote (inter alia):

>There was an article late last year in the C of Higher Ed about
>historians writing books that focus on a single year.  I expect
>fisticuffs eventually -- they can't *all* be "a pivotal year."

Early *this* year, actually: Jan. 5.  Not all chroniclers of a
single year argue for the transcendent significance of their
favorite year.  I was disappointed to note that the Comical of
Higher Ed. failed to honor a granddaddy of the genre: Ray
Huang's "1587: A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in
Decline" (Yale, 1981).  Who could resist a book titled with
such charming modesty?  But I see that Ray Huang felt that
he had to compensate for his first book's impressively limited
scope by publishing eight years later "China: A Macro History."

In a lame attempt to inject some classical significance into
this, let me ask how many books this learned list can name whose
titles proudly proclaim a focus upon a single year.  I was
about to say that I couldn't think of any, but then there
floated into my mind Kenneth Wellesley's "The Long Year: A.D. 69."

And then there was the Jan. 8 U.S. News and World Report cover
story "The Year One A.D." (with a bust of Augustus on the cover).
I take it that what I believe was a resounding silence here about
this article represents the list's collective opinion about this
bit of historical journalism.  It did rather smell of the
public library card, complete with reverent citations from the
works of "Will Durant, the 20th century philosopher."  And those
who like to see the old popular scholarly traditions continue to
flourish were no doubt delighted to note that a major factor
in the decline and fall of Rome was "poisonous lead in the pipes
of an otherise splended plumbing system."  I regret to report,
however, that there was no reference here to the celebrated Roman
barfing-room, the "vomitorium," which has starred in many a
list thread.

By the way, I was intrigued by a statement this article attributes
to "historian John Evans" (would this be John K. Evans, author of
"War, Women and Children in Ancient Rome," Routledge, 1991?) who
"tells his first-year students at the University of Minnesota they
would find it easier to 'deal with a star-faring race that showed up
from Betelgeuse than to cross the divides of time and space and deal
with the Romans on their own terms.'"  Hmm.  A *wee* bit overstated,
perhaps?


David Lupher
Classics Dept.
Univ. of Puget Sound



.