The Undivided Past: History Beyond Our Differences

by David Cannadine

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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Cultural, Anthropology, World History, Sociology, Death

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Sir David Cannadine FBA FRSL FSA FRHistS is a British author and historian, who specialises in modern history and the history of business and philanthropy.

Reviews

[Sense of History]

It is a very traditional view that history of mankind can best be seen as a neverending line of struggles, conflicts and wars. I tend to agree: peace and the absence of struggle or conflict is dull; when nothing happens, there's nothing to report, and so there's no history. What is actually meant, is: when nothing changes, nothing happens, and there is no history.

But... gaining some experience in life, as the years flow by, I noticed that this point of view does not offer a completely adequate perspective on reality, and so also on history. A lot of things don't change in a lifetime, and there are even strong arguments to state that a lot of experiences of people are just recurrent: everyone goes through birth, education, youth traumas, love, hatred, happiness and unhappiness, loneliness and social interaction, and eventually death. When I was younger I read a lot of books by Marguerite Yourcenar, and she had a very strong developped feeling about this. So, in conclusion, there are much aspects of reality that historians just don't grasp, because they too focus too much on change, and especially on the continuous motor of change: conflict, struggle and war.

With this in mind, I began to read Cannadine. And I was rather disappointed. He's a well-educated historian, that's for sure. And his aim, that historians seem too much drawn towards antagonism, and as a consequence, don't see the cooperation, coexistence and dialogue in history, is very accurate. But his argumentation is not quite convincing. As I read his book, I began to see that the clash of ideas, conflicts and struggles, are indeed what mankind has driven to go on the path of progress (or at least of change, if you insist on a more neutral stance). Of course, this is not to say that we must dismiss the interminable suffering of people, but through this 'action' things really did change, many times for the worse, but - in my view - much more for the better.

So, perhaps Cannadine has just taken the wrong point of view. Maybe he did so out of a crave to be contrary, giving a dissident voice, going against the grain. But I can partly agree with him that there is a case for historians focussing on plain, dull lives, "without history", because, well... maybe that's just life.

[Anastasia Fitzgerald-Beaumont · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s by pure chance that I came to David Cannadine’s recently published The Undivided Past: Humanity Beyond Our Differences in succession to Catalin Avaramescu’s An Intellectual History of Cannibalism, though they harmonise quite well. Both are concerned with categories and perceptions, both with the divisions created between ‘civilization’ and ‘barbarism’, both with notions of ‘Us’ and notions of ‘Them.’

Cannadine, a professional historian who professes history at Princeton, comes to us rather in the manner of a prosecutor, bearing a heavy indictment against the profession of history! Actually his beginning is the profession of politics, or the sort of simple-minded politics embraced by the likes of George W. Bush and Tony Blair in the aftermath of 9/11, a new form of Manichaeism, with clear and uncomplicated division between the forces of light and the forces of dark.

Historians are to blame here, Cannadine feels, in creating a general mood of division and derision. They have spent too much time, he argues, on conflict and very little on collaboration, on disharmony rather than harmony. Above all, they have failed to celebrate a ‘common humanity.’

The Undivided Past, if you like, is a critique of artificial identity politics. Professor Cannadine unveils his six paper tigers. These are religion, nation, class, gender, race and civilization. In cementing differences and creating antagonisms, historians made their particular choices. The overall result is a kind of interpretive straightjacket.

The simple truth is that we have multiple and shifting identities, a truth so simple it scarcely deserves repeating. But the author’s blood is up and his gauntlet thrown. He bears down on “the conventional wisdom of single-identity politics, the alleged uniformity of antagonistic groups, the widespread liking for polarized modes of thought, and the scholarly preoccupations with difference.” My, how those paper tigers fall, driven down by this mighty verbal onslaught!

Broadly speaking it’s possible to accept elements of Cannadine’s argument. All history, to take one example, is not the history of class struggle! But Marx and Marxism is such an easy target, for the simple reason that ‘class’ is the weakest of all the tigers. Old dinosaurs like Eric Hobsbawm and E. P. Thompson, are now themselves consigned to the past with a good part of their tendentious scholarship, though they and their kind still have an abiding influence on sections of the liberal media.

Yes, what a chimera class politics proved to be. The whole sandcastle was swept into the sea in 1914, when the German Social Democrats, the largest Marxist party in the world, voted for war credits, thus in a single move destroying the Second International. Here nation trumped class, but even so Cannadine’s method would not allow us to comprehend why class-based politics became so important in the Second Reich in the first place. Why on earth did Bismarck and Bebel not simply celebrate ‘togetherness’? Altogether there is a conceit and polemical blindness here that I find difficult to accept, for all of the author’s weighty scholarship.

Actually I’m not quite sure who he is arguing against, beyond the ghosts of the past, those who rest in the shade of Karl Marx or Oswald Spengler or Arnold Toynbee. I know of no reputable scholar today who is in thrall to any single one of the six categories. We all know – surely we do? – just how complex the past is, just how hopeless the search for any imperial model of explanation. On the front of religion the supposed big division between Christianity and Islam sublimates a great many internal divisions within these faiths. Historians have certainly long been alert to the truth that wars of religion, for example, are never exclusively about religion. The Thirty Years War is very fertile ground here.

Cannadine is certainly no Marxist but paradoxically he seems to have lifted notions of false consciousness from the ideological wreckage. His fellow historians, you see, have helped to create artificial and misleading perceptions of reality. Alas, he would do well to remember that the task of historians is to interpret the past, not change it. If there are conflicts, the conflicts are real; if there are debates, the debates are real; if there is oppression, the oppression is real. We cannot conjure away the things we do not like or approve of by fatuous appeals to a ‘common humanity.’ This book, for all its weightiness, is replete with too many unsupported generalisations and too much, well, self-regarding and pious intellectual conceit.

Anyway, there is the professor at the end of the lists, his tigers knocked down one by one. The contest was just too easy, the false solidarities all dead. The only solidarity acceptable from this point forward is human solidarity; it’s really as simple as that. Come, now, ye academic historians, see the truth and abandon the artificial divisions and celebrate those things “that still bind us together today.” Yes, I imagine Haitian slum dwellers and Russian billionaires will be delighted to see a celebration of a ‘common humanity’ as the profession of history sinks into a sleep of quietism!

All history may not be the history of class struggle, but it is the history of struggle, as Arthur Schopenhauer rightly contended. Yes, we are all human, but any attempt to create a ‘common identity’ or a common history is a task that is bound to fail, destroyed by its own absurd contradictions. There is nothing new in this observation. As long ago as the 1960s J. H. Plumb described UNESCO’s History of Humanity as “an encyclopaedia gone berserk, or resorted by a deficient computer.” Speaking of berserkers, there is the European Union’s House of European History, which begins the story in 1946, because the various national governments can’t agree on what went before! I’ll go with Cannadine’s six categories, liberally mixed, any day over absurdities like this, or over his hippy-like Kumbaya approach to the past.

At the end I found that The Undivided Past was the biggest paper tiger of all. It’s entertaining, certainly, at least now and again, though far too prolix and dense in style. It’s also wide-ranging, but that does not compensate for its deficiencies. My most serious criticism is over the stunning banality of the central message. Simply put, it’s almost impossible to provide an acceptable definition of a ‘common humanity’ when one proceeds beyond the basics – we are born, we breath, we eat, we grow, we decline, we die. That’s it, a ‘common humanity’ we share with every other species on earth.

Historians have to grapple with the past and interpret it for the present and perhaps even the future, with as much honesty and integrity as they can, not be seduced by cosy common room cant. We are in the presence here of a new Francis Fukuyama.

[Marc Lamot · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cannadine has drawn a lot of criticism for his main assertion that historians, just as journalists, are too much focussed on the negative, give too much attention to confrontation and neglect situations of coexistence, dialogue and cooperation.
He develops his assertion around 6 identities that have been understood and proposed as too exclusive (against others): religion, nation, class, gender, race and civilization. These identities are not as homogeneous and exclusive as they claim to be, and their claim that they are the most important way of collective organisation, is bluntly wrong, the author says.
I find Cannadine's argumentation interesting and deserving, but it is all a bit too superficial (as he himself concedes in his intro). Some identities (like class) are treated with rather cheap contempt (for example the wrong asumptions of marxism), whilst others are treated with more respect.
I can agree with Cannadine that there is need to focus on the positive aspects of human development, but it seems to me that he has put his "opponents" too much in the negative, so he can "stab" them more convincingly, thereby making the same mistake as the one he says to fight.
And with that he ignores the fact that in human history, the 6 covered identities hàve played a very prominent role, indeed often in the negative, but also in the positive way! To belittle that is like closing your eyes for reality.
So, in the end, Cannadine has not convinced me, but nevertheless his book really is a stimulating read!

[Al Bità · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite some of the more virulent critiques of this book, I believe Cannadine’s work represents a point of view which is not only important, but crucially relevant to the way we understand ourselves (all of us) as we proceed along the potential trajectory/ies of the twenty-first century and beyond.

Since at least from the last two centuries, much of what we presented to ourselves (at least in the West) as the clear-cut linear progression of history has become questionable. There are alternative interpretations. Dyed-in-the-wool conservatives of whatever persuasion have tended to find this development disturbing (to say the least) and fundamentalists tend to see this all as proof of increasing decadence and dissolution, presaging the end of times… In an important sense, Cannadine is concerned to point out that such negative thinking is essentially erroneous. Our belief that the only way to ‘deal’ with history is to determine certain tendencies by definition, while more or less inevitably linked to how we have come to understand the past, is in many ways delusional. The lectures in this book hone in on six such delusions: religion; nation; class; gender; race; and civilisation. We tend to believe that these words represent objective realities regarding humanity; Cannadine points out that they are not, and indeed, that if one were to proceed as if they were, all we can expect to achieve is more confrontation and divisions than we can afford to accept.

In dealing with these issues, Cannadine must of necessity traverse much time, and in some cases millennia, and in so doing, he could easily be accused of being too simplistic. I suggest that his ‘broad-stroke’ approach is the only way a modern reader can encompass the overarching argument: there is much more to history and humanity than that which is suggested by inadequate definitions. Critics can easily point out that this assessment itself can be equally applied to Cannadine’s argument — but that is precisely the point! Any simplistic interpretation is suspect. The fault lies in our intellect. We cannot adequately ‘discuss’ anything without first establishing definitions. We need to understand that such definitions are in themselves arbitrary, and not absolutes; and that whenever they are taken as absolutes, and used to promote conclusions based on them, that the ‘Manichaean’ dualities of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ (with the emphasis on ‘versus’!). It seems that we cannot appear to progress very far on any line of inquiry unless we first make distinctions. What we need to be reminded of is that the moment we do make such distinctions we are already in ‘erroneous territory’. Such an awareness is not new: it is essentially the argument made by Lao Tzu and philosophical Daoism.

Cannadine’s conclusion appears to be that whatever extremities of individual distinctions are made, we can find within them many more similarities than differences, and that we should concentrate on those similarities rather than on the differences. However, his inclusion of an extraordinary paragraph (the note reference is to a work by a Christian apologist) is disappointing: “And one such institution of which the same may be said [i.e. that in a broader perspective, differences can be dissolved in similarities] has been Christianity, which for much of its history has been belligerently and intolerantly opposed to alternative religions, as well as to heretical and heterodox versions of itself, but which has also been a powerful force in the twentieth century against such evils as racism and the mistreatment of women, in the cause of proclaiming a common humanity.” This suggests that Christianity, which has at its very heart the Manichaean dichotomy of sinful humanity versus spiritual goodness (derived from Augustine of Hippo, via Plato, Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, and the Gnostics) which Cannadine decries, needs to eliminate that dichotomy from its core values. Be that as it may, it does not augur well for the future, considering some of the very real problems faced by many Christian organisations (none of which entirely agree with one another). The Roman Catholic group, for example, has problems regarding potential Vatican Bank scandals, child-sex scandals worldwide, and the apparently perpetual antipathy against women priests, gay marriage, and homophobia in general. The mindset here is, and remains, Manichaean. The book would have been better has this paragraph not been included.

Zoroastrianism is possibly the earliest extant religion. Its original ‘trinity’ of the creator-god Zurvan (his job was to create the world, and then he disappears from the scene) and Zurvan’s twin sons Ahura Mazda (aka Ormuzd) and Angra Maynu (aka Ahriman) who created and are responsible for Good and Evil respectively. (A later version of this story has Angra Maynu as a son of Ahura Mazda, thereby establishing the counter-claim that Good begat Evil… ) These two elements are supposed to be in constant battle with one another, with the Good god Ahura Mazda ultimately winning over the Evil god Angra Maynu after thousands of years of struggle. This original concept of "duality" is, of course, an error, since it implies that Good and Evil are separate, distinct entities, eternally destined to be at war with one another; but it is this basic distinction which is at the heart of the ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality that stains our history.

Manichaeanism is an offshoot of Zoroastrianism, and holds the same basic, erroneous dualism. Its particular distinction, however, is that it considers all matter to be inherently evil (and, by implication, anything which increased and perpetuated matter, such as reproductive sex, was and is, by its very nature, Evil), and that Good can only be found in the spiritual. Augustine of Hippo was a Manichaean for about a decade before he ‘converted’ to Roman Catholicism, but his Manichaeanism remained as part of the core values for Roman Catholicism: Augustine used Paul’s negative view of humanity as expressed particularly in his Epistle to the Romans as the basis for his stance. The Zoroastrians condemned the founder of Manichaeanism, Mani, and he was flayed alive for his presumption. Eventually the Roman Catholics also condemned Manichaeanism as a heresy, but it retained the mindset…

Such quibbles aside, the basic premise of Cannadine’s work is important, if only as an antidote to simplistic assumptions such as the erroneous concept of Zoroastrian dualism which we find everywhere. We may not be able, intellectually, to operate without making distinctions, but if we keep this antidote to hand, with any luck we can ensure that proponents of such distinctions are not permitted to make them ‘absolute’ as a matter of course. Humanity can only benefit as a result.

[Nicky · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m not sure if I’ve totally grasped the point of this book, because if I have, it seems very simplistic: basically, that none of the great dividers between people (religion, nationality, class, gender, etc) are actually as divisive as we think, and that they haven’t been historically either — that men and women have cooperated in societies before now, that Islam and Christianity have coexisted, etc, etc. If there’s really a trend for historians to claim that’s not so, then it does make sense to offer a counterpoint, but it’s not really a point of view I’ve ever seen. While people might not have been talking about intersectionality under that name for so long, I think it’s always been obvious that it exists.

So, in that sense, Cannadine’s book reads as though he’s setting up a series of strawmen to knock down. Of course religion doesn’t divide us wholly — nor does it unite us, as he shows by talking about the quarrels between Catholics and Protestants, or Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Of course there’s been cooperation between genders, between nations, and of course there has been conflict between them. To me, a lot of this seemed very obvious, and hardly worth spending so much ink and paper discussing why it proves that no one identity divides (or unites) man.

If the call is ultimately for unity, one still has to wonder — on the basis of what? Humanity? But the time is coming, if it hasn’t already come, where we could dispute the boundaries of humanity. If you rely on machines to survive, are you human? Are your interests aligned with “humanity”? Once almost any organ can be replaced with an artificial one, is a person in receipt of a lot of those surgeries still human, with the same preoccupations and needs as the rest of us? (My answer would be yes, but it’s a thing which has yet to be debated politically and socially, outside of science fiction.)

Also, I think it’s already showing its age, and it was published in 2013. There’s been no movements based on male identity, according to Cannadine — but Men’s Rights and GamerGate have been a thing. And there’s no modern feminism? What about EverydaySexism, etc?

The book is still a worthwhile survey of the divisions between us and how significant (and not) they’ve been, but if I understood the thesis correctly, then it’s not exactly groundbreaking.

Originally posted here.

[Amy Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

The New York Times reviewer was right; this is not a book about what people in the past have in common or were more unified than imagined. It's about how we are even more splintered than the stereotypical categories we think of most often. Humans do as much/more fighting within groups than without. It also seems we float between multiple categories simultaneously, now and then picking one to align enough with to fight the other. However, we are just as apt to not do so. I started to get tired of the repetitiveness of the format of each chapter and realized I wasn't getting what I needed--he gives maybe one page in each category to examples of people working together across groups. I didn't see the point in reading every word and skimmed to the end. At the end he says what we need to write more histories of cooperation. Based on the title, I thought that that was what I WAS reading. I desperately want to read that for my own research and haven't found it yet. Anyone have suggestions?

[Tim Chamberlain · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this book. I may need to re-read, or at least revisit parts of it further anon. But initially, it strikes me as a book very much *of* its time, which I suspect isn't wholly apparent to most people reading it now. Perhaps this book will read very differently in the years yet to come, when we are all more removed from the immediate present? - or when it is read by future generations who aren't of the present time period?

After all, whether they admit it or not, historians generally seek to understand the past through the prism of the present, and when they attempt the reverse the results are often rather wobbly at best - something which this book attempts to lay bare, especially in its final chapter on the concept of 'civilizations', and the current perceived ‘clash of civilizations.’ Attempting to synthesize or distil such large themes down into relatively short chapters on Race, Gender, Class, etc., is also inherently dangerous as the sin of omission is effectively unavoidable, hence anyone attending the feast will inevitably leave the table still feeling hungry for more of one thing or another which they felt was unjustly lacking.

I note many of the reviews of "The Undivided Past" here on Goodreads are highly critical and some are quite disparaging. Perhaps this shouldn't be so surprising. 'Contra' stances are always controversial, and that's usually the point. Hence a book which espouses any sort of moderation is always at fault. Inevitably, it is neither liked nor lauded by either side of the debate - instead it gets shot down in flames for ostensibly not taking a proper position, especially when it's written by someone who apparently occupies a very lofty perch in the field it discusses. Cannadine's "Ornamentalism" was also shot down in flames by many, rightly or wrongly, because it sought to march out of step with the current academic trend concerning the study of Imperialism and the British Empire. And so people wonder if Cannadine is doing this deliberately simply to be controversial, or is he genuinely seeking to challenge the consensus, and if so, to what end? - The jury sitting in my head is, as yet, still undecided.

[Joshua Crebo]

A refreshing, pertinent, and deeply erudite reminder that it is our common humanity, rather than any exclusionary identity, that brings us together - all the more necessary in a world that at times appears increasingly divided.

[Wayne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I DID find this book ...eventually.
It is one of the many repeated covers shown when you go to look at other editions.
There only seem to be these TWO other versions...it's a pale fawny cover with curvey lines down the sides.

I DID NOT find this book at all interesting
because I didn't believe in what he was talking about.
To claim that his SIX Chosen categories were more unifying than divisive
was to me ...astounding.
On the contrary, these 6 categories all seemed VERY divisive ones:
-endless wars;
-religious hatreds;
- battle of the sexes; transgender has NEVER been an issue until recently not because people accepted it previously, but because they were too wise to mention it, too screwed up to discuss it, and if they did try who listened???;
as for more obvious "genders"- well I did mention the Battle of the Sexes, no? yes !!
-Race?? - WWII was a racist war ...65 million dead...no definitely NOT a problem!!
the extinction of the aborigines and the american indians....no, no problem I can see there!!!????
-Nation, tribe, family...however you divide up the masses....are friendly on the whole, I suppose,
but also where troubles start...hardly an example of union as is...
-Class...even MORE divisive.

That's about the Lot...and surely there are less divisive ones. Probably...hopefully ???

I might just burn this book slowly as I briefly scan the pages
before casting them into the Inferno
and meantime soak up the Enlightenment given off by the Bright Flames...
it then will have served the Purpose hoped for by the author even if only VERY INDIRECTLY.

I probably missed the WHOLE Point and Purpose of his Endeavour
so if he reads this he might be inspired to REwrite it.
Sorry, Mate !!!
AND I didn't even get around to reading it
...just read alot of the reviews
and THAt had people either agreeing with me
OR doing an Intellectual Wank.
I definitely will browse it now my curiosity has been aroused
and I feel a definite empathy with a Bloke who wasted a fair bit of his Life
writing IT !
Bad Luck, Mate...I'd take up writing Kids' Books if I were you.

[Moris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book challenges how history is narrated through the Marxist lens of struggles and conflicts. That there is also prevalence of dialogues and cooperation that historians seem to often neglect. It captures the problems with mainstream identity politics quite comprehensively. I really enjoyed reading this one, and it should perhaps be read together with Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.

[Brendan McKee · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book. Though I vigourously disagree with many of the author's assertions, particularly regarding nationalism, I appreciate the goal of this text as well as the author's ability to touch on a variety of topics in a manner which perfectly opens up for discussion. This would be a great book to read for a book club looking to have some great debates.

[Vee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful view of the connections both historically and archeologically across the whole of humanity!

[Guilherme Jorge · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not an amazing book but I learned a lot from it. The chapter about NATION is the best one. It made me realize how much national states are an artificial constitution!

[Jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting historiographical work that attempts to show that historians have focused too much on the divisions between humans. While I agree with his premise that the positive side of human interaction is too often ignored, I am not completely on board with his argument that it is finding common humanity between groups that allows them to get along and drives historical progress.

Cannadine approaches this topic by seeking to show that the six most common ways to view history are not effective in capturing human behavior. He systematically shows that each division of class, race, gender, nation, religion and nationality are not adequate to alone act as historical framework. Here, I am not completely sure why he takes the time to point this out, as most well-read people I think realize that no single classification is adequate in this regard. He argues that instead focus should be given to the common humanity among us and how it allows the differences between groups to be over looked and to allow groups to live and work together in relative harmony. I find two things wrong with this.

First, I would argue that it is the differences between groups of people that drive our development as a species. It is true that no one of these categories adequately explains all of human interaction, but it makes perfect sense that historians have focused on divisions among us and not our similarities. Divisions between groups, and the conflicts that arise from them, often result in major changes to our world, and not always in the form of war. Conflict or competition and its resolution often leads to advances in technology or social thought. I do not think he is trying to argue that conflict should be ignored, it just seems like he ignores the rational for historians having focused on conflict.

Second, I feel that his statement that it is the search for "common humanity" that should receive more attention is too narrow. Instead, Psychology offers a better explanation that should be more often applied to history. Social Psychology has long studied the effects of in-groups and out-groups, and Evolutionary Psychology states that humans have formed a mechanism for coalition building that is predicated on knowing who is in one's group, and who is not. Evolutionarily, this allowed for allocation of resources to those that were part of your group and led to better survival. This mechanism is often misapplied to be seen as just a race-finding mechanism. Instead, it allows us to categorize individuals based on any thing that might prove useful in that moment. In Cannadine's book he uses communities of Christians and Muslims who have been able to live together in harmony to show how they are finding the common humanity in each other. This may be better explained as the locality of the individuals being more salient and realizing that classifying each other as a member of the city, rather than by race, is more useful to personal survival. Through this, the in-group becomes citizens of whatever city they are living in, and not the individual's religion. This phenomenon can also be seen after catastrophes such as 9/11, where normally people from Boston and New York would see each other as not part of the same group - for example "I am a New Yorker, he is a Bostonian" - they began to see each other as part of the same group - "We are Americans." This is not that they suddenly saw each other as human and hadn't before, the circumstances had merely altered as to what mattered. If this psychological principal is applied more often to historical work, it may be better than only focusing on "common humanity."

Overall, this work was enjoyable and informative. I recommend it for anyone who would like an overview of the historiography of any of the subjects in his book. He eloquently points out that none of these subjects are adequate, and that people generally have much more in common than dividing them along a single category would have you think. This in itself is a fact that many people would benefit from knowing when they approach the challenges of our world.

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review title: Different and equal
This set of historical essays takes an interesting approach to a survey of world history through the lens of fissures upon which human history has traditionally been divided: religion, nation. class, gender, race, and civilization. Cannadine's conclusion is documented in his title: the past has not been so divided by these fissures as most historians and political leaders have claimed.

Cannadine starts with the first and the biggest one, religion, quoting Jesus's dividing line statement that He will separate "the sheep from the goats," but concludes that "there are many facets of lives, activities, and identity . . . not significantly informed or explicitly explained. by religious sentiment." He then proceeds through the rest of the fissures in the order in which they seemed most important in the historical record, outlining their development and showing how despite their occasional value at explaining historical events and trends, they never dominated or inexorably divided the world along homogeneous lines.

Interestingly, civilization as a category of human difference is the most recent, the word itself being rejected as a proper English usage by celebrated English lexicographer Samuel Johnson n 1772, and finding common usage only in the 19th Century. With "barbarian" a long accepted phrase for the collective groups on the other side of the divide, dating back to the ancient Greeks, it is surprising it took so long to apply a collective noun to the "us" to contrast to the "them" so clearly defined. Also of interest, Cannadine finds the fissures within the group deeper and more divisive than those between groups. He notes a similar phenomenon in religion, where fissures between Protestant and Catholic Christians through the centuries were often more virulent and violent than between Christianity and Islam, Judaism, and other religions.

Cannadine does not claim that these dividing lines do not exist, but rather argues that they have never been the sole divider and driver of history. I was struck by a quote he uses from Robert Knox, a 19th Century proponent that race is "everything", explaining "Race implies difference, difference implies superiority, and superiority leads to predominance.". While Cannadine does not directly challenge Knox on this point and on this page of his essay, I would question whether difference must necessarily imply superiority; might not difference (different races, nations, classes, civilizations) be equal in historical value, political importance, and explanatory power? When the U.S. Supreme Court declared that "Separate but equal" was inherently discriminatory, that was a statement about what was in the specific context of American race relations, not what must be across all races and nations over the course of history.

As a historical survey, Cannadine's book does not attempt to argue his point through exhaustive numbers or conclusive proof, but rather demonstrate through the weight of historical evidence that these categories of division have at times been important but never decisive in world history. And he uses his historical essays to suggest that recognition of this fact should give us optimism that different and equal may share time and place and not tear us apart.

[Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really fascinating book. Cannadine seeks to dispel the notion of a world history driven by an “us vs. them” dichotomy. He not only runs through the version of history put forth by 5 such dualistic divisions: religion, class, gender, race and “civilization” but also takes care to delve into their historiography. Time and again he seeks to show the simplifications that historians peddling these ideas made in putting them forward, overlooking periods of peaceful and prosperous coexistence as well as minimizing the instability in each division-ridden ideological camps. He also points out the way these original simplifications get compounded when political leaders simplify them further in order stoke antagonism for their own ends. Finally, he points out how the successful movements that sought to improve the condition of marginalized groups within these categories did so by focusing on their common humanity rather than on their differences. He highlights the more successful record of Martin Luther King’s inclusive vision of race relations when compared to Malcom X’s radical separatist vision or that of the labor unions that sought to negotiate with capitalists when compared to those that advocated the overthrow of the entire system. Yet it is in dispelling the notion of the existence of one overarching identity that this book shines. Cannadine argues that while some of the identities implicit in these divisions are real they are all part of each of us and the argument that any one of them is the principle one is folly. Yet he also argues for the obsolescence of such nonsensical divisions as race and civilization, showing the thoroughly factually-erroneous history of those terms. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in our understanding of history.

[Michelle Sterry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I generally do not read reviews in newspapers, I like my book shopping in real book shops and pick what I see. So I do judge books by covers!

I love history and I thought this would be another way to look at the topic from on high. It is a short book but there are many pages of Notes of Pages, which were some of the best organized notes I have seen, so there is opportunity for further reading.

For such a small book the topics are big: Religion, Class, Race, Civilization, Gender and Nation. Throughout history we have used differences to make excuses for the treatment of the other, this is undeniable, it is still happening today and the same categories are used. History usually teaches the two sides of the history and generally these are the views that are diametrically opposed.

What I felt Mr Cannadine was doing was to look at the reality on the ground. People with access to media, victors who write the history (one sided) tell the story, while the every day facts are put aside as they do not fit the narrative, the humanity. People trading, getting married, getting along, can be ignored as it dos not fit. The Old Silk Road trade route is an example of many cultures getting along and swapping ideas etc.

I found the book quite positive as I think we need more of this kind of thinking and I think we need to be more critical of what we see and read in the media, I think parts could be used in the classroom to discuss prejudice.

I am a little surprised at some of the negative reviews, because he says himself it is a brief introduction and that he cannot possibly cover everything.

[Chris Charlton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Isn't it Brian Eno, who when acting as producer, asks bands to rip up their lyrics and patch them back up at random? This thought was at the forefront of my mind when reading this book. Althougn I found the content to be questionable ( think Prof Susan Greenfield, in terms of regurgitating other people's work), I had more trouble with a writing style and construction that was incredibly clunky, and just seemed to have been vomited out. There was a unwelcome sense of panic thoughtout the whole book, in terms of the authors word economy, and lack of it. Be concise, get to the point...have you even got one or is this massive sentence just going to trail off into the whimsical ether like the last one...and the next one? I just kept reading the authors over long and ponderous sentences thinking, 'slow down, take a breath and stop bloody rambling'. I found the book, almost unreadable in parts.The book gave me the feeling of sitting next to a slightly racist, boring, drunk old Uncle at a xmas party. Someone out of time with the modern world. This was one of the worst non-fiction books I've read in a long, long time and something of the standard I would expect to pick up at a discounted book shop.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really liked. From a historical perspective Cannadine criticizes a common tendency to view the story of humanity as a clash between opposing sides, whether those are religious, national, class, gender, race, or "civilization vs barbarism." In all cases he shows that these divisions are not nearly as clear as some propose.

From the conclusion:

Whether envisaged individually or collectively, the reality of the human past has always been informed by dialogue, interaction, connection, borrowing, blending, and assimilation, at least as much as it has been by disagreement, hostility, belligerence, conflict, separation, or unlikeness.

[Elsa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really disappointed in this book. Reading the descriptions, reviews and blurb, it truly was exactly the kind of book I had been wanting to read for a really long time; a compelling argument for the common nature of humanity and all that. Unfortunately after reading the book I found that despite the author's prestigious position, the writing was overworded and confusing, the evidence he provided was less than compelling, and the conclusions he drew were few and heavily repeated.

Nov 2014- after re-reading bits of this book for my interview, I annoyingly found it better written and more compelling than before.

[Jeni Enjaian · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the narrator was fairly enjoyable The rest of the book was not. I take issue with the idea that the way that people did things in the past is always wrong. That seems to be the authors primary purpose in writing this book. I believe that juxtapositions are not only valid but also quite useful. This is definitely not the authors view. Sometimes the examples he uses to make his point up scare the point that he's trying to make. Additionally, the examples he uses show how people lived history dichotomously. Why should we be forced to tell a homogenous history? Overall this book was rather disappointing. I do not recommend it.

[Jeffrey Cavanaugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

An academic, though approachable, discussion of the major ways in which human identity can be constructed and used politically. The author makes the point that though often discussed in Manichean terms that creates hard and fast 'us' vs 'them' dynamics, no form of identity is clearly predominant or impermeable enough to its opposite to justify either armed conflict or division of the human race on a permanent basis because of it. When it comes to identity, we all wear many hats, so to speak, and in so doing have far more in common with our fellow man (or woman)than is commonly believed.

[Max A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historians, like all specialists, are required to do their work critically, meaning too often that they often present a negative edge. What is difficult seems to be a positive turn, a vision, perhaps, that there exists a way out, a way up. David Cannadine's view reminds of Empires of Trust by Thomas F. Madden (2008), a praiseworthy effort. Some dryness doesn't detract from Cannadine's achievement.

[Charles Gonzalez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some reviewers have downplayed the authors thesis regarding the argument that human conflict is the explanation for human history. Like some, I was initially underwhelmed by his ideas and his articulation of them...I found myself forcing myself to continue my reading....I am glad I kept it up as the book ended on an up note for me, his last chapter on civilizations turning the corner for me; I came away at the end having a deeper appreciation for his ideas.

[Ken · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who is us? Philosophy of history to show similarities rather than differences. No rigid dividing lines. In some ways too academic (distinguish carefully between "culture" and "civilization"); in some ways too simple ("We are the World" and categories of race, religion, gender, nationality etc. have fuzzy boundaries.)

[Robert · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are so many problems here that I don't know where to begin. Not only does Cannadine fail to deliver the goods with regard to his overall argument, but at times he seems to abandon the argument altogether as he blathers on. A complete disappointment from someone generally considered a first-rate historian.

[Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cannadine argues that the large collective identities that we give to ourselves - religion, nation, class, gender, race, civilization - are not nearly so divisive and conflicting as we often think. Instead, humanity is a whole, and the divisions between us are not permanent or inevitable. Very thought-provoking.

[Jason Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

If the political climate was different right now, this would be the most important book of the year. We don't live in that world. This is a great book and there is no reason to categorize it as other reviewers have tried. What we know and what we don't know are equally beautiful.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've learned in recent years that "the past is a foreign country" but the people who inhabited it are in so many ways familiar. Cannadine makes a more articulate case, in which I do not always agree but found his arguments nearly irresistible and ever intriguing.

[Bill Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historian and editor David Cannadine (History/Princeton; Mellon: An American Life, 2008, etc.) has constructed a stirring, generally persuasive critique of history that questions conventional approaches to narrating the human chronicle.