Originally published on April 18, 2022 (Episode 260)
Introduction
Richard Cohen begins his new book Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past (Simon & Schuster, 2022) with two particularly apt epigrams. First, from historian E.H. Carr: “Before you study history, study the historian.” And second, from the novelist Hilary Mantel: “Beneath every history, there is another history—there is, at least, the life of the historian.”
Cohen’s book is precisely about that life. Ranging from Herodotus and Thucydides in the very long ago, to Ibram X. Kendi and the 1619 Project of just yesterday, he shows how historians have shaped history itself by how they chose to see and tell it. This is therefore a book not only about the past, but about how we think about the past.
About the Guest
Richard Cohen is the author of By the Sword, Chasing the Sun, and How to Write Like Tolstoy. Formerly publishing director at two leading London houses, he has edited numerous prize-winning and bestselling books, and written for most UK quality newspapers. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
For Further Investigation
Richard Cohen, Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past (Simon & Schuster, 2022)
Adrian Goldsworthy on Julius Caesar – soldier, politician, and historian’s subject
Steele Brand on Polybius – soldier and historian of the Roman Republic
Shakespeare and History – a site devoted to Shakespeare’s history plays
Abbotsford – the house that Sir Walter Scott’s novels built
“Holocaust Denial on Trial: The Story of Irving v Lipstadt”, HistoryExtra, February 17, 2020
💬 Listen & Discuss
If “every history has another history beneath it,” whose histories have shaped the way you think? Share your reflections in the comments, and forward this episode to a friend who enjoys thinking about how we tell the past.
