Lest Darkness Fall
Archeologist Martin Padway is visiting Rome in Italy. He is struck by lightning and catapulted back to Rome of the sixth century A.D. The Western Roman Empire has fallen to the Goths, and civilization teetering on the brink of falling into the Dark Ages. As Mysterious Martinus, can Martin win through the life and death perils of religious controversy, political intrigue and international diplomacy to twist the course of history and avoid that fall into darkness? This is a science fiction classic.
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What Hacker News says
- I know Lest Darkness Fall. It’s great. Someone recommended it in the Hacker News thread when I posted the first volume, so I read it after that.
- 'lest darkness fall' by L Sprague De Camp..1939
- You may enjoy the novel "Lest Darkness Fall" by L. Sprague de Camp, who explored this idea back in 1939.
- Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp would be a classic answer (though it is also scifi so maybe not quite what you are asking for).
- Not 4 sentences, but if this topic interests you, this is a good read:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lest_Darkness_Fall
American archaeologist Martin Padway is visiting the Pantheon in Rome in 1938. A thunderstorm arrives, lightning cracks, and he finds himself transported to Rome in the year 535 AD. At this time, the Italian Peninsula is under the rule of the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths...Padway initially wonders whether he is dreaming or delusional, but he quickly accepts his fate and sets out to survive...He can speak both modern Italian and Classical Latin, and quickly learns enough Vulgar Latin (which was spoken at that time) to communicate effectively. Most crucially, Padway has read with great attention the book of the historian Procopius, who described the very war at whose outset Padway finds himself.
- Yes, you wouldn't be building a steam engine with the tools of Greek artisans in antiquity, not even the ones who built the Antikythera mechanism. But we do know some things that would seem like crazy hacks to the ancients. For example, I know a simple trick. I can multiply numbers, of arbitrary size. And I can do it in a few seconds using just a stylus and tablet. This would have blown the minds of a learned Roman or Greek from that time.
For those who find the general idea enticing, there was a book written about 80 years ago on this idea. What if a time traveller got sent back to Ancient Rome? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lest_Darkness_Fall
A couple friends and I are big fans of the book, and premise. We always figured it was far too optimistic. Most likely you'd die of dysentery or be sold off into slavery. But assuming not, I figure the real path to power wouldn't be brandy, but strong acids and electroplating.
