The Invention of Yesterday

Tamim Ansary's 2019 world history arguing that history is the story of competing 'worlds' (communities with shared narratives about their past) that occasionally collide — making history fundamentally a question of narrative identity rather than political events.

Creates the narrative-world framework for understanding world history — Ansary argues that history is shaped by the collision of different 'worlds' (Islamic, Chinese, European, Indian) each with its own coherent internal narrative — and that the modern period is the story of a single global narrative emerging from these collisions.