A review by odbasford
At the Edge of the World? 3500 BC–AD 1603 by Simon Schama

3.0

I certainly love Schama’s voice, but the book begins with way too much sauce and mid-way dries right up—the last hundred pages is a slog of names and places with little connective tissue. I am very interested in the topic (my ancestry lies somewhere between the Welsh and Normans) and appreciated the survey of every monarch from Alfred onwards. Unfortunately, I feel like the chapters tended to lose their themes in the details, while simultaneously leaving out large swaths of historical topics. I hadn’t intended on reading the rest of the series and I’m even less inclined nuts!