Which centuries interest you the most?

[Beet]

The 19th century, although I have to admit my reasons are rather idiosyncratic. It's the last century where everyone who was alive then was dead, and thus the last one which represents a fully "closed story" to history.

The 1960s, for example, you would wonder what half the young people would think of coronavirus, and you wouldn't know because the pandemic isn't over yet. The story of the people of the 1960s has not yet been finished writing! We are co-contemporaries still. I mean, one's parents were alive in the Sixties, and remember them well. Will that young man marching with Dr. King endorse Biden or Bloomberg in the South Carolina primary? Who will he want for VP in 55 years? It defeats the point of history, which for me is that it is the study of something already complete, fully formed and captured for study-- and also something distant enough to be objective about, ideally to have no relevance to contemporary politics. History is not the same as memory-- it after all began with the advent of writing. The 20th century, outside perhaps the Edwardian era, just doesn't fit the bill.

Besides, many key things did truly begin in the 19th century, not least the start of a truly global history, although admittedly the impact on daily life was not complete until about 1970.