ABSTRACT
Tim Unwin, in his contribution to this collection (Chapter 19), argues that we need to contribute to social reform through the study and criticism of aspects of our world “with which, for whatever reason, we as individuals feel ill at ease.” Popular versions of national history which rely on metaphors of natural development, are, for me, one such aspect, and so this chapter is intended as a constructive critique of the idea of “natural” and “unnatural” wars in national history. The chapter is closely focused on a case study of a particular version of national history shared by one group of Americans, but its wider relevance comes from the suggestion that a currently inhibiting sense of the inevitability of national history and of particular forms of national identity may rest in part on ways of thinking which we have inherited from the past.
