friedrich o. georg

When writing a historical novel which reaches into the future, it is important to select a setting the reader can associate with and achieves a sense of reality. Now, is it possible for the United States of America following in the steps of decline as seen by other great Nations? One can ask how it could possibly happen here as well. Could a case be made even in our own history that the steps toward grandeur or decline are never far apart in reality?

Pessimists express the fear we are in the final stages of the American Century and we may be close to such a self inflicted end if it came, it would have to be self inflicted.

Much of our American history is the extended history of western civilizations. Yes, we can imagine ancient grandeurs of the Chinese Dynasties, India, Japan, Central America, Egypt or even some mystical societies in the deepest of Africa, yet our current cultural world was formed in little more than the past two thousand years. The most dramatic ones were roughly the last two hundred years.

Once power shifted from Greece and the Roman Empire, World history was driven by Western Europe and the spread of Christianity. During the dark ages Islam emerged and reached its zenith during the Middle Ages, only to regress back to what many claim its founding ages. Islam must receive credit for much of the Greek and Indian derived knowledge it preserved for posterity, but we must also recognize it failed to build on this knowledge and it destroyed much of what it could not assimilate.

Much bloody conquest was also undertaken in the name of Christianity and shall always be a reminder of where we have been.

For roughly three centuries Europe suffered through untold hardships of Nationality driven wars and collectively committed unspeakable human disasters. Slavery existed through most of the recorded history and was ended in western societies less than two hundred years ago, while in some regions of the world it seems to be an accepted practice still even today.

While in the earlier history of Nation or Tribal formation wars were total and aimed to destroy an adversary and taking survivors into bondage, the inhumanity of man toward man reached their lowest points during the past century with the deliberate destruction of untold human beings. The Soviet Unions revolution and the deliberate mass starvation of the Ukraine and the multi-million killings in Maos Cultural Revolution in China stand out. Yet the bottom was reached in cold blooded mass exterminations in Germany of Germans with a different Faith and this happened but years after Germany was perceived to be the most civilized of Nations.

Yet during these three centuries of European strive, Western Europeans pioneers were the first to permanently colonize the North American Continent. In the drive toward establishing permanent settlements, the actions toward natives and the importation of the enslaved followed along the pattern established in the Old World, but in the time during this strive the concept of equality and freedom arose.

The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill of Rights ushered in a New World of Freedom unknown before. The achievement of these ideals was not instantaneously but evolved over time and in the face of often strenuous opposition. During now its well over two hundred year existence this great democracy was the beacon to untold millions rushing to its shore to build new lives in freedom and toward prosperity, while at times some also came to destroy this very same concept.

This Nation demonstrated its stability through wars, famine, disasters, internal strife and direct terrorist attacks of unspeakable magnitude, but in its democratic principles never wavered. With no reasonable external thread that would cede the survivability of the adversary, is the vision bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers strong enough to handle internal strives as well to ensure survival of their vision? This Nation was born in Revolution, survived its Civil War, the Great Depression, the 9/11 Terror attack, but could it lose its Freedom in a silent revolution through the overthrow of its elected Government?

The danger is never far away and could come from least expected corners; as we shall read.