All history, of course, is the history of wars.
It seems to me that everything that happens to us is a disconcerting mix of choice and contingency.
The consideration of change over the century is about loss, though I think that social change is gain rather than loss.
People die, but money never does.
You learn a lot, writing fiction.
Equally, we require a collective past - hence the endless reinterpretations of history, frequently to suit the perceptions of the present.