"And what are you going to do with that?" everybody asks the history Ph.D. candidate. Well, here's proof that historians don't only teach, write books, and provide commentary for bad History Channel documentaries. We're also at the forefront of battling the latest great threat facing our nation and world: the rapid expansion of the past.
If we don't act quickly, the past just may consume our entire present and huge chunks of our future. In fact, it's already on track to do so. A recently released American Historical Association report suggests, however, that it may already be too late. Just who and what will the past swallow up next?
Painting a stark portrait of a phenomenon that appears to be irreversible, a report published Thursday by the American Historical Association has found that the past is currently expanding at an alarming rate.
The comprehensive 950-page study, compiled by a panel of the nation’s most prominent historians, warns that the sum total of past time grows progressively larger each day, making it unlikely anything can be done to halt, or even slow down, the relentless trend.
“We believe the past is larger now than it’s ever been before,” said College of William and Mary professor Timothy Gibbon, lead author of the report, observing that whole generations of people have already become a part of history, and that if nothing changes, an untold number more can expect the same fate. “Many things that are in the past today were, during our parents’ and grandparents’ time, still in the present—or even the future. Based on precise measurements of its size, we believe the past has subsumed every single person and event that has ever existed.”
“It’s shocking to contemplate, but in the relatively short stretch since 1984, when I first began tracking its growth, the past has expanded by more than 30 years,” he added.
Gibbon adds:
This massive, unrestricted accrual of time is quickly becoming unmanageable—it’s growing bigger and bigger even now as I speak. Presidential administrations, extinct species, ancient empires—all have been claimed by a relentless past. There was some speculation that World War II would end history, but it didn’t.
The article adds that fears about the expanding past are surpassed only by fears about the future. But what we should really be scared of, it seems, is how much smaller the future is going to be.
How are you preparing for this crisis? Kibitz about other things at your own peril.
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