The Undivided Past

<p><b>David Cannadine''s impassioned, controversial plea for us to recognise the importance of both equality and history</b><br><br>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''. <br><br><i>The Undivided Past </i>is an agonised attempt to understand how so much of the writing of history has been driven by a fatal desire to dramatize <i>differences - </i>to create an ''us versus them''. Is is above all an appeal to common humanity.</p>