"An Intimate History of Humanity"

[fiefoe]

This book has different titles for every other page. A typical one: 'A Chinese eye, an African ear, an Arab heart'.

Not the way we were taught World History:

• American historian has compared these (Muscovites) slaves to the American poor living on welfare. <> Slavery in Russia was a kind of pawnshop for people who had nothing but themselves to sell;
• In China and Africa the freed slave often became a sort of poor relation; in Europe a client.
  
• It took Spaniards a long time to realise that their contribution to the history of the harmonisation of incompatibilities was more important than their contribution to the history of pride,
  
• All these thinkers (the Royal Society of London, Alexis de Tocqueville, Darwin, Marx, Freud) put the idea of conflict at the centre of their vision. The world continues to be haunted by that idea. Even those who want to abolish conflict use its methods to fight it.
  
• However, expressing ideas of their own was such a bold adventure that the (Renaissance artists) needed the support of constant praise.
  

The most lovely passage so far:
        If the past is replayed too fast, life seems futile, and humanity resembles water flowing from a tap, straight down the drain. A film of history for today needs to be in slow motion, showing every person who has ever lived as a star, though dimly visible in a night sky, a mystery still unexplored. The focus would move into closeup to reveal the amount of fear there is in the eyes of each one, and how much of the world each can confront without terror. They each cast their light on as much space as they feel at home in, revealing the real limits of their personal, private civilisation. In such a setting, what they have in common depends less on when or where they were born than on the attitude they have towards their fellow beings. You belong with those people with whom you can sympathise.

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