The Undivided Past
History Beyond Our DifferencesSelect a format:
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Summary
David Cannadine's impassioned, controversial plea for us to recognise the importance of both equality and history
Great works of history have so often had at their heart a wish to sift people in ways that have been profoundly damaging and provided intellectual justification for terrible political decisions. Again and again, categories have been found--religion, nation, class, gender, race, 'civilization'--that have sought to explain world events by fabricating some malevolent or helpless 'other'.
The Undivided Past is an agonised attempt to understand how so much of the writing of history has been driven by a fatal desire to dramatize differences - to create an 'us versus them'. Is is above all an appeal to common humanity.
Great works of history have so often had at their heart a wish to sift people in ways that have been profoundly damaging and provided intellectual justification for terrible political decisions. Again and again, categories have been found--religion, nation, class, gender, race, 'civilization'--that have sought to explain world events by fabricating some malevolent or helpless 'other'.
The Undivided Past is an agonised attempt to understand how so much of the writing of history has been driven by a fatal desire to dramatize differences - to create an 'us versus them'. Is is above all an appeal to common humanity.
Reviews
[Cannadine's] great strength is his lucid and crushing treatment of false prophets ... his case is urgent, as the news demonstrates every day ... Cannadine is frank in acknowledging that his is not the last word ... but he has uttered the first word and deserves exhaustive discussion. His plea is of enormous value. It should be heard in every think tank, madrassa, history workshop and sixth form and should guide the utterances of statesmen
Hugh Brogan, History Today
