Historians would love to search the past in a Wellsian time machine and return to tell the “tales of long, long ago, long, long ago” that in the words of Thomas Bayly, a nineteenth century ballad writer, “to us are so dear.” Historians little know that a timeship has been invented by a professor in the Department of Fantasy and Virtual Reality at the University of Massachusetts. In this secret diachronic conveyance we shall take a journey – a safari in time – back to earlier periods of cosmic history.

Let me welcome you aboard with these comments. Moving backward in time is an uncommon way of presenting history, and to avoid the incongruity of a movie show in reverse, I shall occasionally stop the machine and allow time to resume its normal Newtonian flow while gazing at the scenery. I must warn you that our timeship is still in an experimental stage and will not always do exactly what we want. Please fasten your seat belts.

Tentatively I start the timeship in reverse gear and it lurches into motion. Its dials spin alarmingly, and although I slam on the brakes almost immediately, we have already traveled two million years. Through the windows we see hominids striding around in the early Pleistocene. It would be very interesting to stay and see their progress. But we have other more urgent business.