Histories of Nations

Global histories tend to be written from the narrow viewpoint of a

single author and a single perspective, with the inevitable bias that it

entails. But in this thought-provoking collection, twenty-eight writers

and scholars give engaging, often passionate accounts of their own

nation’s history. The countries have been selected to represent every

continent and every type of state: large and small; mature democracies

and religious autocracies; states that have existed for thousands of years

and those born as recently as the twentieth century. Together they contain

two-thirds of the world’s population.

In the United States, for example, the myth of the nation’s “historylessness”

remains strong, but in China history is seen to play a crucial

role in legitimizing three thousand years of imperial authority. “History

wars” over the content of textbooks rage in countries as diverse as

Australia, Russia, and Japan. Some countries, such as Iran or Egypt, are

blessed—or cursed—with a glorious ancient history that the present

cannot equal; others, such as Germany, must find ways of approaching

and reconciling the pain of the recent past.