The World: A Family History

Product Information

From the master storyteller and internationally bestselling author – the story of humanity from prehistory to the present day, told through the one thing all humans have in common: family.

The book is written in a curious mixture of styles. There is the tabloid argot (“Philadelphos supposedly kept nine paramours, of whom the star was a badass chariot-racing Greek beauty Belistiche.”). And there is a prolific use of genital vocabulary which would never have seen light of day in tabloid publications. But there is also a slightly exhibitionist use of rare words. “Bertie, the twenty-five-year-old pinguid Prince of Wales”, for example. And the Arab world is “fissiparous”. At times, this becomes intrusive and obfuscatory. One chapter contains “frizelate” or various forms of it, in several instances. Neither my collection of dictionaries, nor ChatGPT, recognise this word, although it would seem, from the context, to have some sort of sexual connotation. When I see film of someone climbing the outside of a skyscraper (this is “buildering”, apparently), I am amazed at the audacity of their enterprise, and I am confronted with the reality that, whatever my skills are, they would not include this activity. Yet I wonder at their purpose and find no convincing answer to the question of what has been gained by the successful completion of the exercise. On the other hand though, it’s worth recording that SSM does perform a kind of service through all the schoolboy chortling. If the book is a bit light on man’s spiritual journey in ancient times, it’s clear enough that most other historians have failed to convey what obsessive and saucy boys and girls we have always been, everywhere. It is simply amazing how many different cultures were fixated on genitalia. From “Abarsam [who] had himself castrated and sent his testicles to the king in a box of salt – surely an example of protesting too much”. to ”After [Andonilos] had been hung upside down in the Hippodrome, his eyes were gouged out, his genitals amputated, his teeth extracted, his face burned..” Because there is was so much information, the brief information we get on each family constantly left me wanting more about each family, some more than others but I was left unsatisfied for the entire book. Yet as I took in these much smaller stories of each family, I started to see a much larger story - the history of humanity. How it all happened, how all the little parts fit together to make a much bigger history. It was pretty incredible. I was able to understand in a much clearer way how things played out over the course of humanity, why things are the way they are now.

One word for Montefiore’s book: magisterial.”— Ben Okri, Booker Prize–winning author of The Famished Road To be fair he doesn't mention Scotland much either and the only references to Wales are as the birthplace of David Lloyd George and T.E. Lawrence. There’s probably no better person to write a biography of “TV talking head, pop culture conceptualist, entrepreneur and bullshitter” Tony Wilson than Paul Morley, a man who formed an esoteric writing career in his Manchester orbit. Still, Morley immediately understands the pitfalls of this enterprise: he calls Wilson “beautiful, foolish, dogmatic, charming. Impossible.” This moving portrait of Manchester from the late 1970s onwards is richer, more complicated and thoughtful than mere biography; a history, of sorts, of a city long since passed into memory.

The World: A Family History of Humanity is the latest book written by Montefiore, a historian who has written books on Stalin and the Romanovs. His expertise is on the personal and political, writing about people in power in both their personal and professional lives. This book is a look through the entirety of human history from the first family who walked on the shores of Britain to Putins invasion of Ukraine. In this book you meet hundreds of characters through a series of dynasties across the world. The story is told through their interconnected world and often changes viewpoints from across the world in a broadly chronological format.

Customer reviews

A staggering achievement. Simon Sebag Montefiore has given us a tremendous gift: a pulsingly readable world history through the millennia and from one end of the globe to the other.” —Sir Simon Schama, author of The Story of the Jews Seriously good fun... the Soviet march on Berlin, nightmarish drinking games at Stalin's countryhouse, the magnificence of the Bolshoi, interrogations, snow, sex and exile... lust adultery and romance. Eminently readable and strangely affecting." Sunday Telegraph In all honestly, nothing I say can possibly do justice to the immeasurable hard work of the author and every single person involved in bringing this book to life. I feel nothing but profound respect and admiration for this unbelievably relevant and crucial book, even more so because, despite its intimidating length and density, it is full of good humour.

If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. We don't appear again until the late 20th century when non-contextualised "Irish" terrorists threaten the UK, a country he never explains the origins of, though to be fair, there were other things going on in 1800-01. Even though he explains the origins of two of the last three US Presidents in some detail but neglects to say how Joe Biden's ancestors ended up in the US. He does say something about the Kennedys though not where they came from originally.Records the default button state of the corresponding category & the status of CCPA. It works only in coordination with the primary cookie. In a fifty-year reign (it ended in 1870), Moshoeshoe defeated the British, Afrikaners, Zulus and Ndebele. More humane and constructive than Shaka, he was ‘majestic and benevolent. His aquiline profile, the fullness and regularity of his features, his eyes a little weary made a deep impression upon me,’ wrote Casalis. ‘I felt at once I was dealing with a superior man, trained to think, to command others and, above all, himself.’ Out of these wars emerged the present shape of southern Africa.

I wish this had been shorter. I don't think that could have been possible. I feel like I missed a lot, my mind would glaze over if I read it for too long, and since I borrowed it from the library and I had a limited time to read it I had to push myself and read more in one sitting that I would have liked to. Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial?

You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here. And I found very interesting his contention that, at the time of Boris Yeltsin’s demise, the US would have been better served in the long term by offering a sort of Marshall Plan to Russia instead of seeking to buy off the satellite Soviet states.