History
The history discussed in the novels to date extends back for over 300,000 years and has not been fully revealed. Erikson has stated that he has kept the history of his world purposefully ambiguous.
At the beginning of the series, the reader is uninformed about the nature of the Malazan world. The history of the world is deeply tied to the many intelligent humanoid races that populate the world. By employing the viewpoints of extremely long-lived characters, and through a few scenes from the ancient past, Steven Erikson reveals details of the world, its history, and its inhabitants.
Read more about this topic: Malazan Book Of The Fallen
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Philosophy of science without history of science is empty; history of science without philosophy of science is blind.”
—Imre Lakatos (1922–1974)
“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)