full circle

I've come full circle, in the last few weeks--immersing myself once again in my post-graduate quest for understanding all things technology (technology and literacy, that is) and in my undergraduate thirst for knowing all there was to know about the story of our world (and, more specifically, about the European history that is my heritage).

The technology stories I'll tell, all this next year, on (one of) my other blogs, thevirtualsandbox. But the world history stories will make their home here, I think.

I spent much of last weekend reading the first half of Volume 3 of Susan Wise Bauer's The Story of the World--fodder for fashioning texts sets to support the humanities curriculum writing going on at my school. It was fascinating reading--stories new and stories I'd once known, but long ago forgotten.

Coming full circle . . .

One story I did not know. All my life I've heard the phrase "Black Hole of Calcutta." I had no idea what it meant, or even that it meant anything worth knowing. A seed of a story in Bauer's book led me to an out-of-print reprint--Noel Barber's The Black Hole of Calcutta: A Reconstruction--a book newly published at about the time I should have read it first, but am sure I didn't. I made the time for that reading this weekend . . . oddly enough on the anniversary dates of that world-changing event, June 20-21, 1756.

I've gleaned two important truths from the story of the Black Hole of Calcutta. I now understand how and why the British came to rule India. Retribution. The second truth validates my valuing of life's simple pleasures. The author concludes his account with this observation: nature has a habit of outlasting history.

Coming full circle . . .