focus of attention from Russia to the world more generally, we canfind a convenient reminder of recent great changes in TheEconomist’s end-of-year suggestions for an updated list of the sevenwonders of the world first compiled in the second century BC.Here they are with their year of creation in brackets: themicroprocessor (1971); the ‘pill’ (1951); the global telephone net-work (still some way to go—Asia has more than half the world’spopulation, but only 7 per cent of its telephones); the ‘jumbo jet’(Boeing 747) (1968); the off-shore oil platform (1947); the hydrogenbomb (1952); the human moon landing (1969). Not everybodywould accept this list, but few would argue with the essentialsuggestion that the times we live in are indeed very different towhat they were fifty years ago.6Responses would probably vary according to generation, animportant consideration for current affairs and history alike.Arguably, the longer people have lived, the more likely they areto appreciate history’s essential component, the passage oftime, and to possess a sense of perspective on today’spreoccupations. On the other hand, while the senior citizenmight recall the days before the automobile and the aeroplane,he or she might also have difficulty in getting to grips with theimplications of such new-fangled hardware as the computerand the video-recorder, which most young people take toalmost as ducklings to water.But if we look forward, and assume that human beings will stillbe in existence in 2093, in a hundred years’ time there may well besome researchers pouring scorn on the short-sightedness of TheEconomist’s choice in 1993. ‘Why no mention of geneticengineering?’ one can imagine somebody asking in that far-forwardyear. None of us can yet perceive what the really significantdevelopments of our own time may turn out to be.Apart from partiality of generation, and of moment in time,there are other differences of viewpoint. Western attitudes willby no means always coincide with Russian, while within thesetwo main groups there will be further variations in worldoutlook, especially since the disestablishment of Soviet Marxism-Leninism. For example, on both sides, especially in the English-speaking world where the two words have distinctive meanings,there will be some who maintain that history is an art, otherswho insist that it is a science; everywhere, some will be moreconservative, resisting change, others more progressive,