Margaret MacMillan
Historians are skittish about predicting the future, and not only because there are too many variables and possibilities. It is also not always easy to grasp the significance of events when you are in the middle of them. When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, people grasped at once that a new era had started. But few Europeans foresaw that the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in June 1914 would precipitate a terrifying, continent-spanning war in which more than 16 million people would be killed, and even tech experts did not understand the significance of the iPhone when Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs, unveiled it in 2007.
Since Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election last November, it has been hard not to think of Isaac Asimov’s classic science fiction trilogy, The Foundation, published just at the end of World War II. In it, humanity’s future has been largely tamed by a brilliant mathematician who uses statistical laws to control human behavior and protect against catastrophic events, ensuring what is supposed to be benevolent and stable rule for centuries. But these assumptions are shattered by the appearance of the Mule, a mutant with extraordinary powers and millions of devoted followers, who threatens to overturn the order and bring back unpredictability.
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