Summary

The first chapter opens with the elderly Claudia Hampton announcing to her caretaker at a nursing home that she is writing a history of the world. Her nurse responds with polite condescension and later asks a doctor if her patient was ever “someone.” The doctor informs the nurse Claudia has written books and newspaper articles as well as having spent some time in the Middle East. Here, Claudia’s voice takes the narrative over in a series of free associations on the nature of historical knowledge. She plans to write a history that intertwines global history with her own life story, a move Claudia knows will be seen as self-centered. Claudia questions the negative valence attached to the idea of self-centeredness and sees in her own childhood the misguided admonishment of a self-centeredness that is not only natural but also universal. Claudia recalls that her brother...