Machine readable archives and future history

A few years ago, if you were in any one of the right places at the right times, you could have heard the economist Robert Theobald explain how we have moved into a post-historical era, how thanks to science and science-based technology, change is occurring on so broad a front so rapidly that we have broken through the historical speed barrier. The past cannot catch up with us or influence us. 1 Brave new world. A few months ago, if you happened to get the New York Times on the right Sunday, you could have read the historian John Lnkacs explain that, in spite of appearances, things really have not changed much in recent decades. That, for example, science has not progressed as much in the last half century as it did in the previous one; that the advent of atomic and nuclear weapons has not generated a tremendous expansion of the influence of the atomic powers. On the contrary, the balance of terror has kept things pretty much where they were at the end of World War II. The surprise, said Lukacs, is not that the Arabs raised the price of oil, but that it took them thirty years to realize they could. 2 Two completely opposed views of modern reality: tremendous and profound change versus not much change. Which is right? Obviously we cannot give a simple, straightforward answer to this question. It encapsulates a reality far too large and complex. But would we know how to determine objectively which of these two world views is correct? We really don't know very much about historical processes, about the temporal dimensions of our collective life. What is historical or post-historical change? We don't know whether there are intrinsic temporal characteristics in social structures or cultures or political systems. The possibility of inherent limitations to change in any of these areas is unexplored. Is there any limit to the kind or amount of change that a society could experience before its established political order became inappropriate? Is there any such thing as historical inertia? If so, what is it? Is it characteristic of an entire society or merely of its demographic or economic growth? Does a value, an idea or a behavior pattern have its own momentum, or does that force derive only from formalized institutions? We can identify change empirically. The French and Russian Revolutions are undisputed examples of one kind of change. The Industrial Revolution and decolonization illustrate other kinds. But change in what? The vast amount and great diversity of change and the tremendous differences in rates of change which can be observed challenge the idea of a social system in essence. That is another meaning of the post-historical era: not that the past cannot catch up with us, but that comprehensive underlying structural elements evaporate in a whirlwind of change so that no identifiable basis to our collective life remains. But perhaps society or civilization or, if you will, basic historical reality is a beast of a very different color, far more complex and supple, more imperious to superficial change. We have a long way to go before we can begin to answer the myriad questions which arise when we consider historical processes. To be able to answer them we must first have adequate and accurate information about the history of our civilization over a significant time; secondly, we need the ability to process this information, to analyze it and reveal interconnections, underlying structures, and inherent temporal characteristics. Thirdly, we have to integrate the results of our analyses of different areas to answer complex questions. The National Archives of the United States has the opportunity to contribute substantially to improved historical understanding. The opportunity is greater