Suppose we found out that most of what we know about history and what shapes it, is wrong. That the traditional manichean world view, that history only marched forward on the feet of soldiers, is not the whole story.

In fact we didn’t get to our globalized, 21st century world via the battlefield, but through cooperation and a sense of our shared humanity. This is the view of distinguished historian David Cannadine, as laid out in his new work, The Undivided Past: Humanity Beyond Our Differences.

My conversation with David Cannadine: