AUDIOBOOK
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From one of our most acclaimed historians comes an account of human solidarity throughout the ages, provocatively arguing against the received wisdom that history is best understood as a chronicle of groups in conflict.
Investigating the six most pervasive categories of human difference-religion, nation, class, gender, race, and civilization-Cannadine asks how determinative each of them has really been over the course of history. Without denying their power to motivate populations dramatically at particular moments, he reveals that in the long term none has proven remotely as divisive as the occasional absolutist cries of "us versus them" would suggest, whether Christian versus Muslim during the Crusades (and now), landed gentry versus peasantry during the Bolshevik Revolution, or Jews versus "Aryan race" in Nazi Germany. For most of recorded time, these same "unbridgeable" differences were experienced as just one identity among others; whatever most chroniclers, self-serving mythmakers, and demagogues would have us believe, history needs to be reimagined to include the countless fruitful interactions across these lines, which are usually left out of the picture.
"Cannadine does not say so, but he may well have
written his book in response to Samuel Huntington's famous argument about the
clash of civilizations…I can only
hope that The Undivided Past will have all the impact of Huntington's work,
serving as an important reminder that human beings around the world not only
have much in common but also have improved the conditions of their lives over
time…His optimism is both refreshing and necessary."
"A mediation on the
ways in which history has been abused to present the world divided into simple,
opposing identities of good and evil, 'them' and 'us'…If any current historian
might speak truth to power then we should wish it to be David Cannadine."
"One of our most
provocative and profound historians, Cannadine confronts the brutally populist,
crudely polarized Manichean concept of 'us versus them' in the writing of
history. He affirms, rather, the complexity and diversity of humanity and the
connectedness of its manifold identities."
"A spirited case for
harmony against the myths of identity politics…The Undivided Past
succeeds best as a Swiftian treatise on the ignorance of the learned and the
follies of the wise. While the fetishism of a single, adversarial identity
still derails the study of history as much as the practice of politics, The
Undivided Past should earn applause."
"Highly intelligent,
stimulating, occasionally provocative, and enormous fun to read…To write about
the past, Cannadine concludes, requires the historian to celebrate the common
humanity that has always bound us together, that still binds us together today,
and that will continue to bind us together in the future. It is a noble message
and one that historians would do well to heed."
"David Cannadine is a distinguished historian;
his new book should make him famous. Now at the summit of his career, he brings
a message that only a veteran and learned historian could deliver
convincingly."
"Cannadine
systematically examines the six most pervasive areas of identities across
historical periods…Drawing on history, philosophy, economics, sociology, and
religion, Cannadine offers a broad and sweeping look at the myriad ways we've
been at each other's throats throughout history. Still, he ends with the
hopeful prospect that more historians will reexamine the chronicles of group
conflicts and offer balanced perspectives."
"Historian and editor Cannadine constructs a stirring critique of history that questions conventional approaches to narrating the human chronicle…That we exaggerate animosities and fail to recognize how cooperation, at least as much as conflict, has marked humanity's experience, may seem a belaboring of the obvi
Investigating the six most pervasive categories of human difference-religion, nation, class, gender, race, and civilization-Cannadine asks how determinative each of them has really been over the course of history. Without denying their power to motivate populations dramatically at particular moments, he reveals that in the long term none has proven remotely as divisive as the occasional absolutist cries of "us versus them" would suggest, whether Christian versus Muslim during the Crusades (and now), landed gentry versus peasantry during the Bolshevik Revolution, or Jews versus "Aryan race" in Nazi Germany. For most of recorded time, these same "unbridgeable" differences were experienced as just one identity among others; whatever most chroniclers, self-serving mythmakers, and demagogues would have us believe, history needs to be reimagined to include the countless fruitful interactions across these lines, which are usually left out of the picture.
"Cannadine does not say so, but he may well have
written his book in response to Samuel Huntington's famous argument about the
clash of civilizations…I can only
hope that The Undivided Past will have all the impact of Huntington's work,
serving as an important reminder that human beings around the world not only
have much in common but also have improved the conditions of their lives over
time…His optimism is both refreshing and necessary."
"A mediation on the
ways in which history has been abused to present the world divided into simple,
opposing identities of good and evil, 'them' and 'us'…If any current historian
might speak truth to power then we should wish it to be David Cannadine."
"One of our most
provocative and profound historians, Cannadine confronts the brutally populist,
crudely polarized Manichean concept of 'us versus them' in the writing of
history. He affirms, rather, the complexity and diversity of humanity and the
connectedness of its manifold identities."
"A spirited case for
harmony against the myths of identity politics…The Undivided Past
succeeds best as a Swiftian treatise on the ignorance of the learned and the
follies of the wise. While the fetishism of a single, adversarial identity
still derails the study of history as much as the practice of politics, The
Undivided Past should earn applause."
"Highly intelligent,
stimulating, occasionally provocative, and enormous fun to read…To write about
the past, Cannadine concludes, requires the historian to celebrate the common
humanity that has always bound us together, that still binds us together today,
and that will continue to bind us together in the future. It is a noble message
and one that historians would do well to heed."
"David Cannadine is a distinguished historian;
his new book should make him famous. Now at the summit of his career, he brings
a message that only a veteran and learned historian could deliver
convincingly."
"Cannadine
systematically examines the six most pervasive areas of identities across
historical periods…Drawing on history, philosophy, economics, sociology, and
religion, Cannadine offers a broad and sweeping look at the myriad ways we've
been at each other's throats throughout history. Still, he ends with the
hopeful prospect that more historians will reexamine the chronicles of group
conflicts and offer balanced perspectives."
"Historian and editor Cannadine constructs a stirring critique of history that questions conventional approaches to narrating the human chronicle…That we exaggerate animosities and fail to recognize how cooperation, at least as much as conflict, has marked humanity's experience, may seem a belaboring of the obvi