Where or When

In the near future, as eco-disaster and political repression take their devastating toll on the human race, the past seems like an ideal destination, quieter, more hopeful, known. In response, a few individuals develop an ability to travel in time: first, simply to cast their consciousnesses back, passively sharing the experiences and sensations of people and creatures long dead; then, actively to usurp the bodies of our ancestors, and, ultimately, to venture into history physically, standing in their own right on the streets of Elizabethan London or Pompeii. But human nature being what it is, madness, jealousy, and fear accompany the time travellers wherever they go; and as history is inflexible, subject to no alteration or redirection, the past is no utopia anyway...