How to Create History

Michael Young, a graduate student from Cambridge, believes he has written an excellent dissertation on the origins of Nazism and is eagerly anticipating a brilliant university career. For a historian, knowledge of the past is much more important than fantasies about the future, but fate offers Michael a completely different chance: instead of a calm but boring academic career, he is to recreate the future and, along the way, the history of the last six decades. And his partner is the elderly German physicist Leo Zuckerman, whose soul is haunted by a dark secret stemming from the darkest years of the 20th century. Using a time machine invented by Leo, they intend to drop infertility pills into the drink that Alois Hitler sips to shake off his hangover. But everything turns out to be not as wonderful as the idealistic duo from English academic paradise imagined. The world has indeed changed. In a fundamental and incredible way. But has it become better?..
Stephen Fry, in his unique ironic manner, reflects on history and what is more terrifying: absolute evil or good will. However, it is unlikely that one should look for answers to global questions in his book. Fry does not provide answers; he asks.
Translator: Ilyin Sergey Borisovich.