[thisrod]

The thing is, you can't go to most of the sites where history happened. They don't exist anymore.

Want to see where the French Revolution happened? Sorry, Haussmann blew it up and built today's Paris on the rubble. Venice? OK, a few bits of St Mark's basin were there when the galleys came back from the crusades. Dare you to say which bits. Cromwell and the Glorious Revolution? Nup, their Palace of Westminster burnt down in the 19th Century. Imperial China? It fell down and was rebuilt with every earthquake.

Archeologists can go to these places, but they have to work hard for it.

One of the essays in Parkinson's Law turns this into a law of nature. When the grand parliament house was built, parliament no longer mattered, and the country was really run from a dingy shed out the back. That shed was later demolished and a well-appointed cabinet room built in its place, but by that time cabinet no longer mattered, and the country was run by a king.

On the other hand, visiting exotic places makes me curious about how they got that way, which is one way to discover history.