" . . .it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair"

This book was published in November 26, 1859.  It takes place from 1775 through 1793 in Paris and London.   Dickens wrote about a period that began 85 years earlier and ended 67 years earlier.  He himself wasn't born until 1812, nineteen years after the end of the time he wrote about.  

Today, that would be like writing about the period between 1936 and 1954.  There are folks alive today who were alive in that period who could be consulted.  

Looking ahead, it would be like a writer in the year 2093 writing about events between 2008 and 2026.  How much of today's social media posts and videos will be available to that writer?

A Tale Of Two Cities  begins with this single sentence paragraph.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness,  it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on being received for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

 

It does seem to describe the times we're living in.  

And many of us might see similarities between the inside cover illustration and January 6, 2021.

It's still less than a year since that infamous day. But quickly it will be further and further behind us.    Most of us see it as a day of infamy when Donald Trump hoped to overthrow the election and install himself permanently in the White House. A troublingly noisy and large minority see it as a day when patriots tried to overthrow a democratic election.  I'm hoping it's the worst Trump legacy, but I worry there will be more and worse.  

How many years will it take for historians to give the verdict?  And how long will that verdict stick?

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