Forgotten, but Not Gone: New Jersey's Past Is Now
Many of us tend to think of history as separate from the present, but in reality, the two almost completely overlap. We can stand in the same places where other people stood centuries ago, inhabiting the exact same space: we touch the same ground, and we breathe the same air. Even the time that lies between us and historic people is not so great a gulf as we might imagine. I once shook hands with an older person who had, when she was younger, shaken hands with a living person who had once been a enslaved in America. This was mind-boggling to me at the time, but ultimately I realized that while the 1860s might feel like a long time ago, the truth is that the turning points of history happen so quickly that we tend to forget how recent the past really is. Less than two human lifespans separate us from the Civil War. Less than one lifespan separates us from World War II. And the spaces where those historic events happened are all still there--buildings and landscapes may change, but ...