25 hours of enjoyment

As soon as I saw this book I knew I was going to love it. 25 hours of the history of the world, based on a BBC production. The made-for-TV origins of this book meant that it was always likely to be entertaining and not too highbrow, and that's exactly what it is. A really good listen, starting with our hunter-gatherer ancestors and ending with today's problems of overpopulation and global warming, with quite a bit of other stuff in between.

The author unashamedly ascribes to the 'individual' human theory of history, whereby the story of the world has been significantly shaped by the actions of particular people. In many cases, history could have taken a radically different turn if, by chance, something had happened differently. An obvious example is that Hitler survived World War One, and the author believes that the course of history might have gone drastically differently if he had not – there wouldn’t necessarily have been a ‘substitute’ Hitler waiting in the wings to do what he did. Of course he also acknowledges the importance of the general flow of history, but this audiobook is mostly the story of important people and the things they did.

One of the difficult things about taking on such a big subject is that the world is a big place and at any given time there are many different histories rolling out in the different continents. So he tells us the histories of Africa and China and America, but I guess, as this was a BBC production, the focus may be a bit biased in the later centuries towards the influence of Britain. This doesn’t offend me because I’m English and was indoctrinated as a schoolboy into thinking that the Battle of Hastings and the Battle of Britain were landmark events in World History, when the rest of the world might see them as minor struggles on a small island. But I’d be interested to know if non-British listeners to this audiobook found it excessively Brit-centric.

Go ahead and listen, and I’ll look out for your reviews.

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24 people found this helpful

Excellent introduction

Marr's book is a quick and informative introduction to the subject, with some blind spots. To mention the blind spots first: it is, as many such books are, heavily Western and Eurocentric in outlook. China and India are mentioned early on, in the roundup of the earliest civilizations, but then mostly drop out of the picture until they once again begin to impinge on Western sensibilities. Not much here either about the growth of the major world religions; the conflict between Christianity and Islam gets especially short shrift. The entire history of the Crusades is reduced to a couple of sentences; if you blink, you'll miss it. Marr spends far more time talking about the tulip mania that swept Holland in the early years of capitalism.

But what he does cover, Marr covers well, with plenty of anecdotes and surprising connections along the way. His coverage of Africa, like his coverage of India and China, mostly focuses on the interaction of Africa and Europe, but the story he tells about that interaction is electrifying (and horrifying). And he asks the big questions, such as the one I've always wondered about and which is seldom addressed so explicitly: granted that the life of hunter-gatherers was full of novelty and free time, and the life of farmers was filled with backbreaking, tedious labor, why did the human race opt for farming? (Marr makes the case that the farming came first, and then the increase in population, rather than farming being devised as a way to support an already increasing number of people.)

Marr is an unabashed proponent of the "great person" school of writing history. There's plenty of material here about Alexander the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Margaret Sanger, and Mao Zedong and the infamous Jiang Qing. He also weaves a discussion of technology into the narrative, including the technologies of war and medicine. His goal throughout is not to throw a bunch of names and dates at the listener, but to give a sense of individual personalities and the gradual unfolding of the larger story.

First-rate narration by David Timson.

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22 people found this helpful

Wrong Title

This audiobook should be titled; A PC History of years 1700-2010 with a Short Introduction about the History of the World

First let me say the narration is extremely good, one of the best I've heard.

In general if you want a brief history of the ancient world this will do, the author does a great job of keeping it interesting (I say brief since less than half the book is focused on this). Unfortunately the political correctness really starts to heavily influence the 1700+ world to the point of silliness. It's not all the time and it's by no means the worst I've heard, the author I believe attempts to be fair and balanced but just isn't able to do so. I recommend you have a good grasp on the modern world when listening to this otherwise you'll go away about as smart as your average high schooler, which is an insult in case you didn't realize it. If you don't already have a good grasp on modern history I'll go as far as to say this book will actually make you dumber. It's very difficult to recommend this book despite the interesting story and excellent narration. I really wish the author would have spent much more of his time on the pre-modern world since that's where I learned the most -- but even in this case it wasn't much. I can honestly say I'm not sure I learned hardly anything about the modern world and was more frustrated with what the author left out than allowed in (although unlike the other reviewer I found the tulip part interested since that is one thing I did now know about).

3 stars overall, 3 stars for the story due to it being unbalanced and too politically correct on modern subjects and a strong 5 stars for the narration.

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13 people found this helpful

Entertaining yet banal

This is a history of the world written by a journalist and this is easy to tell. Too much focus on recent events - within world history everything past 1900 can really be considered recent - and with too little attention for the broad strokes, this volume doesn't stand apart. Marr's histories of Britain are far better than this mediocre dabble with world history.

That being said, the book is an entertaining listen. Just don't expect anything new or special.

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6 people found this helpful

The best Audible history I've every bought!

This is hands-down the best history book I can remember reading/listening to! First of all, the narrator is spot-on. He speaks at the perfect pace and inflects just enough emotion/personality into the reading to keep you engaged.I'm actually going to seek out more by him.

The book itself is incredible. Andrew Marr explains exactly the things you need to know in exactly the right way. I often found myself thinking, "Oooooh, THAT'S why that happened! Now I get it! Why didn't anyone explain it that way before???"

I only have three hours left in the book, so I'm off to find more by the same author and the same narrator. If you only buy one history book, make it this one!

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5 people found this helpful

A (short) History of the World

Would you try another book from Andrew Marr and/or Andrew Marr and David Timson ?

Early in the book Andrew Marr mentions that he could have written this book, then written another as long without including any material in it from the first, and then a third just as long without including any material from the first two. I think that I was hoping to read that third book. Early history went by way too fast and the modern material was largely events I already knew in detail.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

"The Muslim Age in Europe was much better than we have been told and the expelled people took their advances elsewhere" What? Where did they go? Am I missing pages? Off to do research to figure out just what the Islamic age of Europe was all about. And again, "When the Dutch tulip bubble burst everyone forged on as usual, aside from individually sad stories, commerce refused to prosecute and civilisation soldiered on." What? Very relevant to now! The judges did what? Municipal people did what? The bubble popped with minimal damage? How exactly did they do that! I need an index! Auuuggghhh!

Then again, he got much more than 26 hours of extra work out of me attempting to answer the questions that his narrative raised. I learned more about Cleopatra than I could have possibly guessed could be known.

Which character – as performed by Andrew Marr and David Timson – was your favorite?

Cleopatra's life was told in detail, and I had no idea how she fit into the larger narrative until reading this book.

Was A History of the World worth the listening time?

If Andrew Marr writes those other two books I will be right on the spot to read them, too. What a great thinkertoy this book is.

Any additional comments?

I wish I had a really gook book that started at the collapse of the tulip trade.

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5 people found this helpful

Excellent Overview for a wide audience

Andrew Marra condensed version of his documentary series is concise, well balanced and centrist in its presentation. He is very clear in the introduction about the approach taken so that readers looking for an extremely feminist, Marxist or third world perspective on history will not be disappointed. That being said, Marr does indeed try to be more inclusive in his overview of history than many past authors have been. This is a useful resource for honors high school courses, as part of university curriculum or for the average intelligent person out there who wants to understand the flow of history and the consequences of key developments , changes, personalities and events.

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2 people found this helpful

excellent!

thoughtful and provoking and what every human needs to hear. And also a little bleak. sometimes being a member of the homo sapiens club is not all its cracked up to be.

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1 person found this helpful

Sweeping History

Really enjoy this book! It is a sweeping human history that can be returned to again and again. As with any historical account there are elements of the author's interpretive preference that inevitably creep in and colour the narrative. However most of the time Marr's perspective is illuminating and informative and he does a great job tracing the influence of seemingly unconnected events.

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1 person found this helpful

Massive educational/time commitment but worth it!

If you could sum up A History of the World in three words, what would they be?

This is an excellently written and performed, lengthy audio-world-history book that kept my attention so well, I often fell asleep at night with it playing on my smartphone. As a guy who never enjoyed (world or US) history, I learned a tremendous amount from this well organized work. My coworkers joke that everyday I come into the office with a new 'factoid' about world history that startles and provokes their curiosity in much the same way it has mine.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

This book is heavy - every single orated sentence is a new learning point of world history. It took me a month (between other commitments) to complete this ... dare I say the War and Peace of world history audio books?

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1 person found this helpful