Word: millenniums
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...issues came to outweigh images. I remember jubilantly celebrating the triumph of the Democratic ticket, expecting with complete glee and naive (though still plausible) confidence that the newly-elected President Clinton and Vice President Gore, would occupy the White House for the next 16 years--well into the next millennium, which then seemed far away...
...those first-years and sophomores who have been anxiously waiting to find out who is the class of the new millennium, Stephen Jay Gould has written a book for you. Questioning the Millennium tackles some of the debate before veering into the history of apocalyptic movements and day-date calculating. Gould's discussion of the millennium question proper, by far the most interesting portion of this somewhat tedious book, is the shortest chapter...
...that chapter, Gould retraces the history of malfunctioning Christian calendars back to a monk named Dionysius Exigus who began the A.D. calendar at the year 1 rather than the year zero. From there sprang the simmering academic debate over whether the new millennium begins on Jan. 1, 2000, or one year later. Based on extensive research of fin de siecle newspapers and magazines, Gould observes that pop culture has generally favored the 1999 New Year's Day as the dawning of the new century. The other view "has always been over-whelmingly favored by scholars and by people in power...
...Chapter Two. This person turns out to be the author's son, as Gould reveals in the last sentence of the book. Gould's loving account of his son's day-date calculating abilities is touching and tender, but does seem somewhat misplaced in this book on the millennium that could do with a binding conclusion...
...short, the questions Gould poses about the millennium are usually far more interesting than the answers. Instead of dealing with contemporary psychological and cultural reasons behind the millennial obsession-say, that New Year's Day 2000 may well become the next big conversation opener and common experience of our lifetimes, a Kennedy assassination equivalent for Generation X-Gould approaches the topic from a dry, historical perspective. The result is an eclectic combination of facts, history lecture, and 11th grade math project: an admittedly brilliant big-name scholar's erudition-on-parade...