You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.39 AVERAGE
3.39 AVERAGE
This book was all over the place and not in a good way. Ferguson set up the ostensible premise at the outset of the book that his purpose was to discover what made the west different from the rest, what made western civilization dominant over the past several hundred years. As a historian, Ferguson fails utterly miserably. Not only does he not support his thesis but he also shows now progression whatsoever in the text. He does not organize his chapters chronologically. For instance, in one sentence he goes from discussing the underwear bomber of 2009 to discussing in the next sentence, Edward Gibbon's description of the fall of the Roman Empire. That example also serves as evidence that Ferguson did not organize his supporting arguments topically either.
I really wanted to like this book. The Scottish narrator was fantastic. If the narrator had been any where near as bad as the one for Marco Polo, I would have been seriously tempted to abandon the book.
Quite frankly, only the narrator and the engaging prose within the utterly unorganized chapters kept me from giving this book one star. I would not recommend it. I'm currently reading another book by Ferguson. I don't have high hopes for it after this disaster.
I really wanted to like this book. The Scottish narrator was fantastic. If the narrator had been any where near as bad as the one for Marco Polo, I would have been seriously tempted to abandon the book.
Quite frankly, only the narrator and the engaging prose within the utterly unorganized chapters kept me from giving this book one star. I would not recommend it. I'm currently reading another book by Ferguson. I don't have high hopes for it after this disaster.
Really I give this book 3.5 stars. There are a lot of interesting ideas in it and a lot of good history lessons, many of which I was not previously familiar. However, at times this book was a difficult slog. The author goes off on tangents that don't have a clear connection to the point of the chapter or at least take too long to get to the point. The last few chapters were better, maybe because they dealt with more recent history, which is more interesting to me.