Poul Anderson and John K. Hord

My fellow Poul Anderson fans may know that he was influenced by a historian named John K. Hord, who had a model of the stages through which civilizations pass, and who advanced over Toynbee by being more quantitative, assigning numbers of years to the various stages. Anderson supposedly modified the timeline of his Technic civilization future history in accordance with Hord’s model. I had not been able to learn much about Hord, who apparently never published a magnum opus; however, Paul Shackley published a link at the Poul Anderson Appreciation blog, with a link to an article by Hord, “Creatures of the Long Night.” That refers to Terrestrial creatures of actual long nights that followed the collapse of empires.

Several readers, including myself commented on the article, so you may be interested in reading those thoughts, and if you have time, in reading the article itself.

P.S. Dagnabbit, the link doesn’t work. I’ll try again later; in the meantime, you can Google on the Poul Anderson Appreciation Blog, and look for the May First article, “Creatures of the Long Night.”

P.P.S. The link now works.