Comment Article A la recherche du temps que (peut-etre) sera perdu

摘要

'May you live in interesting times.' is purported to have been an ancient Chinese curse. Many today would agree that we are living in interesting times. There are times that history appears perched on a knife edge. An imperceptible nudge can get it to fall one way. Another, imperceptibly different, nudge can get it to fall in a completely different direction. On most days, it matters little if it rains just south of Brussels. But if it had not rained in Waterloo on June 18, 1815, Napoleon's Hungarian cavalry might not have gotten mired in the mud and carried the day. How might the world be different today if that had happened?