The World: A Family History

The human race is not very nice at all. Simon has written a massive book on the history of the world, its a sort of horrible histories for adults. We are a nasty, horrid, murdering, blood thirsty race only interested in land acquisition and power and rape of the lands and people for financial gain and nothing will stand in our way. Nepotism, Machiavellian, despots, dictators, kings and queens, servants and slaves and revolutionaries . And as for the women, blimey ! Its all there and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and learnt so much, history lessons at school were never this interesting or fun if you can call it fun. (there is wry humour in it) The sort of book to read while cringing and saying urgh quite a lot and it's sad to say the human race still has much to learn from the past. Thank you Simon its a wonderful book well researched and as always you write so well, I'll be buying more copies to give as gifts but I'm glad to say my copy was on kindle which I think was much more manageable. So what next Simon? how do you top that?

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.

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.

A book to keep forever. A book for every family. Fascinating.

An excellent book. I’ve only just received The World by Simon Sebag Montefiore and have been enjoying it since. It is a huge book at over 1000 pages and differs from other world histories in its approach by focusing upon families to tell the story of The World. The author writes in the Introduction: ‘Unlike many of the histories that I grew up with, this is a genuine world history, not unbalanced by excessive focus on Britain and Europe but rather giving Asia, Africa and the Americas the attention they deserve. The focus on family also makes it possible to pay more attention to the lives of women and children, both of whom were slighted in the books I read as a schoolboy.’ The writing, as one has come to expect from Simon Sebag Montefiore, is superb; beautifully constructed and a pleasure to read. I’m only a couple of chapters in, so far, but have skimmed through the whole of the book and I am very pleased with my purchase. Highly recommended. I hope you find my review helpful.

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.

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.

I'm lost for words to adequately describe this work from Simon Seabag Montefiore. I wouldn't have the first clue as to how to even start such a mammoth task. The research alone is daunting, to say the least. This is brilliant. An eye-opener, it's interesting, it educates, it saddens the reader and delights the reader. It has taken ages for me to read and digest, but easily worth the effort. The World is magnificent.