One of the things I rarely see discussed is the fact that books—fiction and non-fiction—are products of the times in which they were written. Well, that's not completely true. Literary criticism often discusses the milieu in which a book was written if the book is fairly recent. This is true even for books a few hundred years old. Perhaps the reason for this is that we know more about the environment of recent times than we do of ancient times. 'Twas the Night Before Poverty… In a few months, many of us will either be reading Dickens' A Christmas Carol or watching one of its numerous versions being replayed on TV. The focus of the story is rightfully on the rebirth and redemption of