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The World

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The World

By: Simon Sebag Montefiore
Narrated by: Ajjaz Awad, Ako Mitchell, Anna Cordell, Ayesha Dharker, Damian Lynch, Gunnar Cauthery, Jonathan Aris, Kevin Shen, Lara Sawalha, Leighton Pugh, Lucian Msamati, Nabiha Akkari, Nneka Okoye, Rachel Handshaw, Raj Ghatak
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About this listen

THE TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR
ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

From the master storyteller and internationally bestselling author - the story of humanity from prehistory to the present day, told through the one thing all humans have in common: family.

We begin with the footsteps of a family walking along a beach 950,000 years ago. From here, Montefiore takes us on an exhilarating epic journey through the families that have shaped our world: the Caesars, Medicis and Incas, Ottomans and Mughals, Bonapartes, Habsburgs and Zulus, Rothschilds, Rockefellers and Krupps, Churchills, Kennedys, Castros, Nehrus, Pahlavis and Kenyattas, Saudis, Kims and Assads.

A rich cast of complex characters form the beating heart of the story. Some are well-known leaders, from Alexander the Great, Attila, Ivan the Terrible and Genghis Khan to Hitler, Thatcher, Obama, Putin and Zelensky. Some are creative, from Socrates, Michelangelo and Shakespeare to Newton, Mozart, Balzac, Freud, Bowie and Tim Berners-Lee.

Others are lesser-known: Hongwu, who began life as a beggar and founded the Ming dynasty; Kamehameha, conqueror of Hawaii; Zenobia, Arab empress who defied Rome; King Henry of Haiti; Lady Murasaki, first female novelist; Sayyida al-Hurra, Moroccan pirate-queen. Here are not just conquerors and queens but prophets, charlatans, actors, gangsters, artists, scientists, doctors, tycoons, lovers, wives, husbands and children.

This is world history on the most grand and intimate scale - spanning centuries, continents and cultures, and linking grand themes of war, migration, plague, religion, medicine and technology to the people at the centre of the human drama. As spellbinding as fiction, The World captures the story of humankind in all its joy, sorrow, romance, ingenuity and cruelty in a ground-breaking, single narrative that will forever shift the boundaries of what history can achieve.

©2021 Simon Sebag Montefiore (P)2021 Orion Publishing Group World War Royalty Ancient History Middle Ages China Ottoman Empire Imperialism Marriage Winston Churchill Military Mongol Empire Africa Imperial Japan Latin America Pirate Iran Interwar Period

Critic Reviews

A history of the world from the Neanderthals to Trump. It's a rollicking tale, a kaleidoscope of savagery, sex, cruelty and chaos. By focusing on family, Montefiore provides an intimacy usually lacking in global histories. [It] has personality and a soul. It's also outrageously funny . . . an enormously entertaining book (Gerard DeGroot)
Magnificent . . . magisterial . . . [a] real-life Game of Thrones. Dip into this book anywhere and the minutiae of history leap off the page . . . Dip too into the author's copious footnotes and there are gems to be mined. Often sassy, always entertaining . . . To my mind what it gives above all is perspective from which comes understanding and not a little wisdom (Tony Rennell)
For any reader with the stomach for bloodshed and megalomaniac ambition, for anyone with a taste for Ptolemaic depravities or who would simply like to spend some quality time with China's imperial eunuchs, Montefiore's 'World' . . . will deliver it and more in spades. The author's major achievement is to make us see the world through a different lens - to make the unfamiliar familiar and, more important, the familiar unfamiliar. There is hardly a dull paragraph (David Crane)
All stars
Most relevant  
History really does keep repeating. An entertaining review from a cast of engaging voices. Perfect for dipping in and out of over summer.

Beautifully long

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Comprehensive historical record of the major characters in human history from a unique perspective with so many intriguing and surprisingly salacious details. Impressive piece of research across vast breadth. Bravo Simon. Delivery was somewhat mixed.

Fascinating

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Broad in scope with some fascinating anecdotes. But one or two readers who clearly had English as their second language made some listening infuriating.

Comprehensive

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A jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring achievement. I loved every (considerable!) minute of it. The performances were good with one or two exceptions who either sounded monotone or not fully understanding what they were reading. Will warrant a second listen to try to take it all in.

Incredible!

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This is a timely and essential book for anyone who values history. And wants to gain an idea of where humanity is headed. One needs to play sections again of course as so much material is covered. But what an amazing resource and overview. To be fair to the other narrators I gave them 5 stars even though I wanted to give a lower score. There was one grating sing song narrator that absolutely murdered some of the most pivotal and important sections. Don’t know how that performance was let through. Apart from that 5 stars.

Must listen

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Wonderful book, would be great reference.
Every home should keep a written copy in their library.
With such a vast all encompassing tome the author needed several readers, which made it interesting, & when covering middle Eastern history the accents added to the story.
Unfortunately some of the readers didn't have English as their first language so they run paragraphs into each other & sometimes didn't even pause for sentences. And sometimes we would have the same reader, change countries & time period, without even taking a breath, so I had to go back to understand what happened.
But overall, it's great & comprehensive, & shocking that leaders had (& still have) such a disregard for human life.
If you have any interest in history, this book is a must have
M. P. K.

Vast

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There are many unfamiliar names and events in this massive account. Narrating it is a challenge and some of the narrators, especially those who appear to be non-native speakers and female, make the narration hard to follow especially if you are a bit hard of hearing. On the other hand, a few narrators were superb and I could just relax and listen. It’s not easy narrating and therefore I think more care should be taken in selecting narrators. Volunteering should not be a recommendation. I would have preferred one good narrator to the various good and bad presenters in this text. Some made it impossible for me to relax and listen as I strained to make sense of their accounts. Just one good narrator please and, in general, be more selective in choice of narrators, it is a specialist skill.

Some narrators difficult to understand.

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It is impossible to properly judge the content of this book when it is totally overshadowed by the appalling narration.

Avoid at all costs.

Update: Thankfully it is just one of the narrators who is completely incomprehensible. The others are mostly fine.

The most poorly narrated book on Audible.

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Some of the readers haf such poor diction that they were difficult to understand, others read with a monotonously repetitive inflection, apparently not really caring what they were reading, and yet others were clearly highly competent, but reading their section for the first time and only just finding their way through the sentence structures.
Not easy to listen to.

A great book ruined by poor performances

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Potentially fascinating stories spoiled by uneven and at times terrible narrators which makes it hard to listen to despite having a great interest in the subject matter.

Poor Narration let’s stories down

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