Pastwatch by Orson Scott Card

It's the beginning of the 23rd century. After devastating wars and natural disasters that have reduced the world's population by 90%, the remaining 10% have learned to live in peace and equality. Technology has been developed that allows scientists to watch the past. One woman of Pastwatch, Tagiri, makes a startling discovery: they have the ability to influence the past. A woman of great, almost burdonsome, compassion, Tagiri feels she must use this ability to lessen the suffering of the people of the past, especially the enslaved. As more information is discovered and more researchers join the team, the project evolves into a plan to change Columbus's discovery of America into an enlightening and empowering of the native Americans so that they will be able to work with the Europeans instead of being conquered by them.

I really enjoyed reading about Tagiri and the other related members of Pastwatch. Their thought processes as they work out the probable effects of their changes to history are intriguing. But Orson Scott Card balances this with scenes from Columbus's point of view, which never lets you forget that the theories the team is developing will affect real people.

This book brings up fascinating questions. I'd seen it in college and intended to read it but somehow never did. When it was suggested for Book Group Bronte, I was glad to have a motivation to try again. This month's designated book chooser (we take turns) wanted us to come to the discussion with an answer to this question:
~ If you could go back in time and make one change to make the world a better place, like the scientists do in this book, what would it be?
Suggestions like having Hitler get into art school and saving the library of Alexandria were discussed. I copped out and didn't have an answer. As I thought about the question, I realized that I am so ignorant about history that I don't even have a grasp on what the great tragic events of history are that should be changed. In the book, Tagiri is explaining to her first collaborator why Columbus was so pivotal. She tells him that anyone else who discovered America wouldn't have considered it worth exploring and gives her reasons.

"You've been studying," he said.
"I've been thinking," she said. "I studied all this years ago."

And that is why I could never have been Tagiri.

A few other questions (of the many) that this book brings out:
~ Would you marry your true love and have children if you knew that in a few years you would go back in time, and your marriage and your children's lives would be erased?
~ Has there been a defining moment in your life, a choice that has determined everything you've done since?
~ And of course the big one: not how you would change the past but if you should. If the technology is available, is it your responsibility to use it to try to alleviate suffering, or would it be the ultimate arrogance to take the lives of generations of people into your hands?

We may not have the ability to go back in time and change the past, but the decisions we make now are changing the future, and that's responsibility enough.