Volume 47, Number 14 · September 21, 2000
The Story of Everything
By Tony Judt
One World Divisible: A Global History since 1945
by David Reynolds
Norton, 861 pp., $35.00
Twentieth Century: The History of the World, 1901 to 2000
by J.M. Roberts
Viking, 906 pp., $39.95
Does the world have a history? The question may seem rhetorical—after all, we study the history of the universe (cosmology) and the history of the earth (geology), so why not the common history of those who live there? Throughout the recorded past, people have interacted within and across communities: exchanging, trading, fighting, conquering, migrating, mingling, and intermixing. The history of any one community or country is inexplicable without reference to the existence and behavior of other communities and countries. So rather than subdividing it into the contingent and ephemeral nations, states, and continents that form the subject matter of conventional history, why not make a virtue of necessity and treat the history of the world as a whole?
Review, 4447 words
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