Just Finished Reading: The Undivided Past – History Beyond our Differences by David Cannadine (FP: 2013) [264pp] 

Identity and Identity politics seems to be THE cultural topic these days. People, across the West (is it happening elsewhere?) are either pondering their core identity or proudly proclaiming it to anyone who will listen or just happens to be in the vicinity of the proclamation.   

But such debates are FAR from a new phenomenon – though I’m guessing they’re far more public because of social media, larger media attention and the fact that they quickly became a political football at least/mostly in the USA. Thinking about who you are and what identity defines you is nothing new as the author points out in this excellent book. Covering topics from the Nation, Belief, Class, Gender and Race then beyond to Civilisations and the so-called ‘clash’ between them he shows repeatedly that these terms we throw about in casual conversation have multiple meanings depending on who you (and when you!) speak to them, have meanings that change over time and change between cultures and are all too often blown out of proportion in how they define any individual. 

National identity seems to be a pretty fixed property, right? But when you think about it and start asking questions things start to get a little fuzzy. Nations are not ‘fixed’ entities when looked at over historic periods. Nations come into existence, change size, grow, shrink and, sometimes, disappear – sometimes permanently and sometimes for generations only to reappear later often with different boundaries. National identity also doesn’t always correspond with national boundaries. A person can define themselves and feel themselves to be French, German or other nationalities despite the fact they were not born in those countries but happen to live near enough to their borders and speak the same language as that nation. They define their nationality in cultural terms rather than mere geographic ones.  

Take Race. Does it even exist? The racial groupings we recognise today were an invention of Europeans from the Age of Discovery to account for the ‘strange’ peoples they were encountering for the first time across the world. Inevitably they created a hierarchy with ‘white races’ at the pinnacle given them dominion over ‘lesser races’ to do with as they may. Without any knowledge of genetics and the belief that ‘types’ were immutable they defined peoples on physical characteristics and then ‘ranked’ them. It wasn’t long, of course, until they discovered that ‘inter-breeding’ was absolutely possible – you know, because we’re a single very homogenous species – which quite naturally led to worries over racial ‘purity’ and other nonsense. With definitions of ‘race’ becoming more and more convoluted and self-contradictory the very concept of such a thing came under increasing scrutiny and its long past the time when we should abandon the idea. 

Without attempting to condense the entire work into a few paragraphs (impossible for such a work), I’ll skip onto the idea of Civilisations – opposing and ranked of course. The idea/phrase “Western Civilisation” is much used these days without any clear definition (or more often without any attempt to define such a thing because everyone ‘knows’ what it means, right?), but what DOES it mean? That’s a good question. Often there’s some hand-waving about Ancient Greece and Rome but no mention of slavery, violent ‘entertainments' or the treatment of women. Likewise, the talk of ‘western values’ is left in mid-air often without a single example or explanation or is followed by vague mentions of Democracy, the Rule of Law and Respect for Individuals. Are these *purely* western values? Do we both value them and practice them as our highest ideals? Or are they ‘aspirational’ values? Drilling down a little deeper we can question the very idea of ‘The West’. Where exactly IS that? Western Europe, North America, Scandinavia, Australia, New Zealand & Japan? Plus a few others... Do all of those countries share a set of values? A set of ‘core’ values? A common culture, language, history... ANYTHING? If defining the West is fraught with problems then how can we define ‘civilisations’ outside of the West? 

Identity is definitely an odd one. We use words in common that mean a myriad of different things to different people at different points in history. What makes it ‘worse’ is that individuals not only define themselves in often idiosyncratic ways but those definitions both change over time and rise or fall in priority not only through a person's lifetime but through a person's day. If you’re feeling confused or overwhelmed by the present (often heated) debate on identity and identity politics this slim but dense volume will give you much to mull over (it took a day longer than anticipated to read because there was SO much to think about) and will help you put things into both cultural and historical perspective. I certainly feel less bamboozled by it all and can look at the latest outpourings or ‘scandal’ with a bit more context and a bit more room to breathe and to make informed rational opinions on the matter. Definitely recommended, but leave some additional time to think, muse, ponder and mull things over.