Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
medium-paced
I’m not going to rate this book since I wouldn’t have read it other than for my degree.
Honestly, I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t take in a lot of the information as it felt written in a mundane way and information was crammed in as much as possible.
There are also some inaccuracies that other reviewers have pointed out. Perhaps the issue is that Marr is a journalist not a historian.
Honestly, I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t take in a lot of the information as it felt written in a mundane way and information was crammed in as much as possible.
There are also some inaccuracies that other reviewers have pointed out. Perhaps the issue is that Marr is a journalist not a historian.
It's a decent overview of World History, but definitely falls prey to Eurocentrism--and I'm not just saying that. Spending pages on European dynasties with loving detail was a bit much. Marr's style of writing is engaging, partly because he's not an academic, and so that carries the narrative along more so than most overviews of World History.
slow-paced
A Very ambitious book that felt so extremely long, I enjoyed it and it put a lot of events in history into context for me. Being so ambitious as to cover the entire history of the world it could never go into any depths but Marr still managed to get his own opinion through that teetered on capitalist propaganda. It’s funny and scary to read the ending about what will happen in 2020 with artificial intelligence, knowing it really has taken over every tech company, but that’s inevitable of any book looking into the near future. Overall it was well structured and informative, just not without its biases.
This is a rather classical overview of human history, global in scope but undeniably western in focus. Remarkably Marr gives a lot of attention to "big men" (only few women) as a consequence of this being the written companion to a television series (BBC), in order to make it more transparant. But Marr also states "History is about change, and it makes sense to concentrate on the biggest changemakers ".
Of course, as a way to make the complex human history more transparant, I can follow him: history is about men (and women), and there's nothing more practical then presenting the story of real persons to illustrate the complexities of history, or to give the (rather general) story of history a real human feel.
But then, there is this statement on 'change-makers'. Now, that is a bit tricky, because this leads us into the interminable debate on the role of individuals in history. Undeniably some people have had a greater impact on history than others, or if you want it in a more prudent way: some people had a greater ability to act to change the circumstances of their time. Marr cleverly doesn't limit this to kings and presidents, his examples cover a much broader range of sectors (economical, cultural...). But still, he has chosen only about 30 personalities; each of them gets one to three pages, set in a certain timeframe. Well, this is too short, it gives the impression these men "defined" their era, and that is wrong.
Now, I'm not an follower of the (marxist or other) theories that state that individuals just are ruled by their tribe, class, nation or society, or just are the willess instruments of higher powers and forces. People/individuals matter and can make a difference. But the method Marr has used, is way to limited to transcend the traditionalistic view on history as driven by great men.
Of course, as a way to make the complex human history more transparant, I can follow him: history is about men (and women), and there's nothing more practical then presenting the story of real persons to illustrate the complexities of history, or to give the (rather general) story of history a real human feel.
But then, there is this statement on 'change-makers'. Now, that is a bit tricky, because this leads us into the interminable debate on the role of individuals in history. Undeniably some people have had a greater impact on history than others, or if you want it in a more prudent way: some people had a greater ability to act to change the circumstances of their time. Marr cleverly doesn't limit this to kings and presidents, his examples cover a much broader range of sectors (economical, cultural...). But still, he has chosen only about 30 personalities; each of them gets one to three pages, set in a certain timeframe. Well, this is too short, it gives the impression these men "defined" their era, and that is wrong.
Now, I'm not an follower of the (marxist or other) theories that state that individuals just are ruled by their tribe, class, nation or society, or just are the willess instruments of higher powers and forces. People/individuals matter and can make a difference. But the method Marr has used, is way to limited to transcend the traditionalistic view on history as driven by great men.
It definitely is a big achievement to cram all of world history into a book of 560 pages. Marr does a good job in that sense that he is offering a very intelligible story and really does his best to bring the history of the whole world. But... The author has confined himself to present only the big developments, with the great personalities at the center. That way he can raise the level of insight and intelligibility, but it remains very reductionist; economic and cultural developments are rather underrated, with the exception of religion and the Industrial Revolution. On top of that the main focus is on Western history, with a slightly favorite position for the British share in it.
According to the bibliography Marr has consulted lots of studies, and to my modest estimation his number of faults is rather small. I learned some interesting facts (e.g. that Native Americans only learned how to use horses and ponies in the 18th century), but big new insights you will not find in this book. (2.5 stars)
According to the bibliography Marr has consulted lots of studies, and to my modest estimation his number of faults is rather small. I learned some interesting facts (e.g. that Native Americans only learned how to use horses and ponies in the 18th century), but big new insights you will not find in this book. (2.5 stars)
As Marr himself admits, no book, no matter whether it’s titled A History of the World or not, can ever succeed in comprehensively covering the entirety of history. So, as he explains in his introduction, he has chosen to focus on “big man” history: well-known individuals who are often, though not always, rulers. This seems on the face of it a rather traditionalist approach to history, a throwback to decades past where historians only seemed to talk about kings and queens. That kind of history has fallen out of favour in the past 30 years, replaced by an interest in social history, gender history, world theory, and phenomenology; the heretofore “untold” stories. So why is Marr writing about powerful individuals? Marr explains that, like it or not, a small number of people throughout history had greater agency than others, the ability to act to change the circumstances around them. He sees these individuals as important because they drove the great changes of history, and although much of the human past is marked by consistency and continuation, it is the changes that have made the biggest difference in our social evolution.
Marr divides human history into defined eras and then selectively talks about a handful of key “change-makers” in each era. Naturally this type of history leaves out a lot, but the examples Marr chooses are, he feels, demonstrative of the most important changes of their era. By picking out key figures and identifying patterns that emerge in history, Marr is able to bring together the whole and explain the significance of the patterns he draws out. It’s left to the reader to decide whether the conclusions Marr draws are insightful or uninteresting.
In my opinion, some of what Marr presents to us in this book is a little dubious. For example, Marr suggests that humans left Africa around 70,000 BCE, but Stephen Oppenheimer’s (ancient population geneticist) book Out of Eden, presents highly convincing, multiple and independent evidence that it was much earlier, around 100,000 BCE. Marr suggests that humans had not even left Africa by the time of the Sumatra eruption c. 75,000 BCE, but Oppenheimer, who Marr actually refers to in his book, presents evidence outside of Africa both above and below the ash layers that human populations survived and thrived both before and afterwards. Marr also presents the view that homo sapiens was probably responsible for wiping out the Neanderthals and megafauna such as woolly mammoths etc. In fact this is still hotly debated, and many theories are put forwards as explanations for these extinctions, including climate change at the end of the Ice Age, which have interesting points of their own. Not to rubbish A History of the World, but just don’t take everything at face value, and keep in mind that many of these questions are still up for debate. Marr uses Orlando Figes as a source about modern history in Russia at one point – awkward, given Figes’ current state of disgrace after the debacle in which he used a sock puppet account on Amazon to rubbish the works of his rivals.
The above caveat aside, the whole work is smoothly written and very readable, I definitely found it an enjoyable read, and Marr picks out both well known and lesser known figures to discuss, and I found his identification of certain patterns in history very intriguing.
7 out of 10
Absolutely staggering - amazing book. An incredible overview of the development and evolution of human civilisation. However one small caveat… the word ‘orgy’ is used excessively more than I was comfortable with
informative
slow-paced
Informative history of the world.
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced