History

It is amazing how disconnected our contemporary 1st world culture/post-modern culture is from history in a knowledgeable sense, yet is still linked back in to history through stories, narrative, books. For many of us a history book is a closed book, while novels (and movies, the like) are open accepted, so long as they connect with us right 'Now'.

At a time when history still made its way slowly, the few events were easily remembered and woven into a backdrop, known to everyone, before which private life unfolded the gripping show of its adventures. Nowadays, time moves forward at a rapid pace. Forgotten overnight, a historic event glistens the next day like the morning dew and thus is no longer the backdrop to a narrator's tale but rather an amazing adventure enacted against the background of the overfamiliar banality of private life.

Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting -

Quote taken from http://ofblog.blogspot.com/