The World: A Family History

The research has been phenomenal , and reading is easy ,a wonderful book. Gives an insight into man’s behaviour since early times , and shows how it has not changed

There has never been a world history anything like this one. Partly because it's a truly global history that is as interested in places like Hawaii, Haiti and East Africa as Europe and America and partly because it is a history made up of individuals and families and their stories, rather than states, movements, trends or statistics. But what really makes it different is that it gives you world history with all the juice left in, unfiltered by scholarly primness. It brings to vivid, bloody, sexy, eccentric life hundreds of great historical figures from around the world by focusing on their human qualities: their passions and obsessions, their physical beauty or ugliness, their loves, hatreds, desires and addictions.While it's a very long book, it doesn't actually feel like that when you're reading it because it's organised in tight, fast-moving short chapters, because your attention is taken all around the world and because the familiar characters - the Atillas, Caesars, Cromwells, Bismarcks, Michaelangelos and Roosevelts, are mixed up with less familiar, equally fascinating figures from China, Africa and the Arab world. It's a history buff's delight.

The World: A Family History by Simon Sebag Montefiore is a very good book that tells the story of humanity from pre-historic times to the present day. It is a well-written and informative work that, through the medium of families and familiar relationships, chronicles the history of the world.The author, using this interesting approach, explores a wide range of events from across the entire globe and examine lives and stories that are perhaps less well-known to readers used to a more euro-centric view of history. As the book covers a vast breadth of time, a multitude of places and numerous incidents, it will, however, perhaps not be as detailed as some individuals may like - although for others, it may fire the imagination to discover more about a subject(s) that has caught their interest.Overall, a very good book.

I read this on and off for 3 months. And missed a few tube stops because I was engrossed by it. Details, names, and words were overwhelming at times and I've forgotten so much but so what. I've enjoyed the journey.BTW the footnotes worked well on the Kindle app.

You have to admire SSM. One wonders when he finds time to sleep with his literary and media endeavours. Undoubtedly, he is a refreshing historian who eschews superfluous academic detail and his prose is rarely turgid. Unfortunately, however, it is all too often disjointed and could really do with proper editorial control. It is well known that the more successful writers become the less tolerant they are of editors and, as in his Jerusalem, it really shows here. I am about a quarter way in and finding it rather hard going. Quite apart from the attempts to maintain chronological order - worthy but unsettling when a story is stopped so as to jump to another story elsewhere in the world - the huge list of characters makes it very hard to follow. Another problem is the considerable number of non-sequiturs, occasioned I suspect by wholesale extraction of paragraphs to reduce the size of the volume. The stories themselves, moreover, are frequently presented as lists of facts which makes for a fairly indigestible mix. This is not to dismiss the sheer magnitude of his effort and the scholarship involved. However, I wish it could have been more reader-friendly.

I enjoy the author,his novel way of telling a huge undertaking is full of fascinating details and stories.

Better than any fiction. So we'll researched. As a history buff I learned so much from this book. Must read for history fans.

To call this book a momentous achievement is a gross understatement. It almost beggars belief that one man could dare to try to summarise world history from pre history till now yet Montefiore has attempted just that. He uses families to recount how power and progress have shaped humanity. Given that he is himself part of an ancient Jewish dynasty, it is no surprise that Jewish involvement in history attracts frequent references. I was surprised and saddened that the author seems almost obsessed with the sexual proclivities and habits of almost all his chosen subjects to such an extent that it almost spoiled the book for me. Similarly, although violence and power do go hand in hand, the author seemed to delight in the gory details of violence which did not seem necessary. The breadth and depth of the global canvas on which he paints is breathtaking and I was somewhat overwhelmed with the constant torrent of detail. Rather like taking off a pair of tight shoes I was relieved to finish the book but will never forget it. At the end, Montefiore defends his decision to use a limited bibliography at the end of each chapter but I do not think that worked well since cross referring the additional information was often difficult.

Historia

Awsome ! Bravo !

instructif et agréable à lire.

Livro que conta a história do Mundo com uma abordagem diferente e muito interessante.

I would've wanted to give more stars but the binding is aweful, I opened it up, carefully as I' d read that pages fall out.. and lo and behold, crack, the binding is coming undone. Shame, now I' m in a dilemma.. to send it back or not. I want to read it but it's falling apart.