Blackout

Blackout by Connie Willis, 2010 is another intriguing time travel science fiction book.  The premise is that in 2060 historians ply their craft by time traveling back to earlier times to experience history first hand.  Talk about an awesome primary source – being allowed to observe past events in person!!  In Blackout we follow the adventures of several historians who travel back to World War II England.  One travels to a village manor in the country where evacuated children are sent to be safe from the Blitz – the bombing of London.  She is a servant who cares for the children, some of whom are a handful – street urchins ala Dickens.  Another travels to London to observe the Blitz firsthand and to experience life among those who sit out the night in shelters and the underground.  During the day she works as a shop girl in an upscale department store.  A third travels to a small coastal village south of Dover to cover the evacuation of British soldiers from Dunkirk.  Through a series of missteps he ends up traveling on a small, leaky boat across the English Channel on a rescue mission.  He returns safely, but slightly damaged.

In this book Willis gently reveals history from the ground up – history from the eyes of the common folk who lived it -- one of my favorite approaches.  All three of our historians assume roles of ordinary people caught up in the times they are studying.

The stories of these three historians converge as they find themselves trapped in the past with no apparent way home.  To discover the outcome we have to wait for Willis’s next book, All Clear, this October.  Based on Blackout it will be worth the wait…

J. Rufus Fears

I earned my Ph.D. In history from the University of Oklahoma in 1992, and I regularly receive alumni communications. A recent Sooner Magazine included a story about Professor J. Rufus Fears, David Ross Boyd Professor of Classics at the University of Oklahoma, where he holds the G. T. and Libby Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty.  You can read the article here: http://www.oufoundation.org/sm/winter2010/story.asp?ID=360 You might find it interesting to wander around the back issues of Sooner Magazine. Digital versions are available online back to 2001.

Many of Professor Fears's publications are in the form of audio books, marketed by The Teaching Company. Here is his bio on their website... http://www.teach12.com/storex/professor.aspx?id=165

Curious about this popular and prestigious faculty member of my alma mater I decided to see what Amazon.com offered from him. Mostly, it offers audio books from... The Teaching Company. He has authored audio courses including Life Lessons from the Great Books, Famous Greeks, Famous Romans, andHistory of Freedom, among others. Because I wanted to hear a little about what he has to say before investing in a fairly expensive audio course, I went to my old friend google search and found a few YouTube snippets of his talks. For my money he lives up to his acclaim and is worth hearing. You might start with “Bush and The Imperial Lessons of Rome” at http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FC553719F41D9E42 Professor Fears reminds us that our founding fathers relied heavily on Rome when laying the foundations of our own freedom. A transcript of a lecture entitled “Lessons of the Roman Empire for Today” at http://www.heritage.org/research/politicalphilosophy/hl917.cfm further explores this theme.

I hope you enjoy learning something from Professor Fears. I did. As always, question what you hear and read, and test it against your own knowledge and experience. If you do that I think Professor Fears will have accomplished his purpose, and I, mine in writing this blog...:-)