Two themes dominate Timeline: history and technology. History is a large concern in the novel as well. Both the historians and Doniger recognize the past as the root of contemporary culture. Johnston's comment on temporal provincials is that "if you didn't know history, you didn't know anything.
You were a leaf that didn't know it was part of a tree." Crichton maintains the importance of knowing the past throughout the novel: "Yet the truth was that the modern world was invented in the Middle Ages.
Everything from the legal system, to nation-states, to reliance on technology, to the concept of romantic love had first been established in medieval times." Even Doniger seems to recognize its importance at some level. He predicts that people will want to pay to experience the past. He may also.....
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