The Undivided Past: History Beyond Our Differences

Throughout history, humanity has defined itself by the mutually-exclusive and adversarial identities of nationhood, race or civilization; religion, gender or class. David Cannadine’s provocative, masterly book shows why this is at best misleading and often wrong.

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.