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51
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
49/100Critics
53/100Scholars
Author:
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Publisher:
Knopf
Date:
May 16, 2023
Around 950,000 years ago, a family of five walked along the beach and left behind the oldest family footprints ever discovered. For historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, these poignant, familiar fossils serve as an inspiration for a new kind of world history, one that is genuinely global, spans all eras and all continents, and focuses on the family ties that connect every one of us.
What The Reviewers Say
An encyclopedic, unwieldy and yet mesmerizing survey of humanity as told through millennia of rulers and their blood-drenched empires. It's a towering work of imagination, somehow successful as it teeters beneath the awesome weight of names, dates and interpretations.
Heavier on masters than on plot.
Tells the story of humanity through families, be they large or small, powerful or weak, rich or poor. It is a book for people who want to read about people. There’s little attention paid to impersonal forces.
A rollicking tale, a kaleidoscope of savagery, sex, cruelty and chaos.
