History Lesson (short story)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"History Lesson" is a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, first published in 1949.

This two-part story speculates on the doomsday scenario on Earth and doomsday scenario on Venus, if the Sun were to sufficiently cool down.

The title of the story comes from the attempts of space-faring Venusians, eons after Earth became an icy lifeless world, to reconstruct the life and times of erect bipeds that once walked on the Third Planet.

[edit] Similarities with other works of Clarke

According to Clarke's introduction to his story collection Reach for Tomorrow, this story shares its roots with Rescue Party. Rescue Party is similar in that the Sun is changing in a way that dooms Earth. But rather than cooling, it explodes - destroying all planets. But both the response of humans to the event, & story endings, are very different.

There is another similarity with Rescue Party & also with Trouble with the Natives and 3001: The Final Odyssey. In all 4 stories, aliens draw naive conclusions from little information about humans - a movie reel in this story, a 2D portrait in Rescue Party, some BBC broadcasts in Trouble with the Natives, and information taken from the end of the "Century of Torture", the 20th, in 3001: The Final Odyssey.

In one aspect, this story is very similar to a story in Clarke's "2010 Odyssey Two": superfast evolution of smart animals on a world newly made habitable. In 2010, heating up of Europa brings native animals to the stage of human cavemen in just 20,000 years; in this story, cooling of Venus brings Venusians to the level of space farers in just 5000 years!

At the end of The Fountains of Paradise, the Sun cools turning Earth into an icy wasteland. This situation is very similar to first story of History Lesson. But the response of humans to this doomsday scenario is very different in the two works.