Global histories tend to be written from the narrow viewpoint of a single author, but how do writers and citizens in the different countries of the world view their own past? What key events and influences shaped those perspectives? And how accurate are the views of foreign commentators?

Leading writers and scholars from twenty-eight countries give thoughtful, engaging 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 recently. Together they make up two-thirds of the world’s population.

In the USA, 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 millennia of imperial authority. ‘History wars’ over the content of school textbooks rage in countries as diverse as Australia, Russia and Japan. Some countries, such as Iran or Egypt, are blessed – or cursed – with an ancient history that the present can never equal; others, such as Germany, must find ways of approaching and reconciling the pain of the recent past.

In order to understand the cultural and political differences that enliven and endanger our world, we need to appreciate these fundamental national stories.