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“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.”
— Daily Telegraph (London)
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“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.”
— Times (London)
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“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.”
— Independent (London)
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“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.”
— Spectator (London)
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“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.”
— History Today (UK)
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“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.”
— Booklist (starred review)
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“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 obvious. Yet Cannadine, an accomplished writer, details it in fresh and provocative terms.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
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“A complex, thoughtful examination of the fundamental ways in which humanity divides itself.”
— Publishers Weekly
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“The Undivided
Past offers us a great historian’s skeptical and liberating exploration of
the ways in which our various social identities do and do not make us what we
are. David Cannadine deploys his penetrating erudition through contentious
territory, maintaining always an exemplary elegance and civility.”
— Kwame Anthony Appiah, author of The Ethics of Identity