The World: A Family History

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Not just a thumpingly good read, but also essentially a story of human fragility and passions, albeit taking place under the intimidating shadow of a massive Stalinist portico." The National Another fascinating aspect (for me) was the placing in a wider context of the great empires of old. In the west we have all possibly tended to assume/learn that the Egyptian, Roman, and Chinese empires were the colossal edifices in history, gigantic peaks that loomed over anything else for centuries. I exaggerate a little maybe. But SSM makes no attempt to sex them up in such a way, describing them instead in the same level terms as all the others – the Babylonians, Persians, Seleucids, Hittites and so on – and to my mind makes it all the better for that. The mountain range was bigger than one might think. Another of my private pr What I liked most was the choice to jump between concurrent stories. While it may be confusing to some, for me it helped put things in chronological context. I think it’s easy to forget when things happened in relation to each other. I also found the book easy to read, despite the conversational tone getting a little too chummy at times for my taste. The author included information about many women, who are often left out of histories written by men. Visibility was also given to sexual minorities, who have of course existed forever (sometimes with more acceptance than experienced today) despite the beliefs of some modern bigots. Some of the ancient history that was new to me sent me down research rabbit holes. One word for Montefiore’s book: magisterial.”— Ben Okri, Booker Prize–winning author of The Famished Road This is more than schoolboy fun in a way – it puts our contemporary obsessions, both with talking about sex, and also with condemning such things: in a new light. We've always been at it.

Alan Moore’s first short story collection covers 35 years of what The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen’s author calls his “ludicrous imaginings”. Across these nine stories, some of which can barely be called short, there’s a wonderful commitment to fantastical events in mundane towns. His old comic fans might enjoy What We Can Know About Thunderman the most, a spectacular tirade against a superhero industry corrupted from such lofty, inventive beginnings. The World: A Family History I should mention, though, that Montefiore has provided an extensive reading list online, a resource which is vastly under-utilised by authors of history books; many would greatly benefit from the possibility of providing online many more photographs, illustrations and maps than are practicably available in a bound book. The novel is hugely romantic. His ease with the setting and historical characters is masterly. The book maintains a tense pace. Uniquely terrifying. Heartrending. Engrossing. " The Scotsman 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.

In all honestly, nothing I say can possibly do justice to the immeasurable hard work of the author and every single person involved in bringing this book to life. I feel nothing but profound respect and admiration for this unbelievably relevant and crucial book, even more so because, despite its intimidating length and density, it is full of good humour. Seriously good fun... the Soviet march on Berlin, nightmarish drinking games at Stalin's countryhouse, the magnificence of the Bolshoi, interrogations, snow, sex and exile... lust adultery and romance. Eminently readable and strangely affecting." Sunday Telegraph Nevertheless, there is some very good stuff in Montefiore’s concluding thoughts, making me wish again that he had limited his scope and written three or four more finely targeted studies. At heart, though, my objection to The World: A Family History is more substantial than these points. I would describe SSM’s approach to the work as being, essentially, salacious tabloid. It is a conglomeration of gory violence; sexual activity, particularly favouring slightly eccentric varieties, and rape; excessive alcohol and drug-usage; and general scatology. (It is something of a paradox, then, that he describes Martin Luther as “fixated on faeces and sex”, the “faecal fulminator”.) I should mention that Montefiore also enjoys describing the appearance of misshapen or disfigured individuals. And there are many times when trivial information is included amongst the omission of significant historical events. Thus a whole paragraph is dedicated to details of “Haroun’s wedding to his double first cousin Zubaida (which) was said to have been the greatest party of all time” in 1782.

The book is written in a curious mixture of styles. There is the tabloid argot (“Philadelphos supposedly kept nine paramours, of whom the star was a badass chariot-racing Greek beauty Belistiche.”). And there is a prolific use of genital vocabulary which would never have seen light of day in tabloid publications. But there is also a slightly exhibitionist use of rare words. “Bertie, the twenty-five-year-old pinguid Prince of Wales”, for example. And the Arab world is “fissiparous”. At times, this becomes intrusive and obfuscatory. One chapter contains “frizelate” or various forms of it, in several instances. Neither my collection of dictionaries, nor ChatGPT, recognise this word, although it would seem, from the context, to have some sort of sexual connotation. The real problem of humanity,’ said Edward O Wilson, ‘is we have Palaeolithic emotions, mediaeval institutions and Godlike technology.’ Just because we are the smartest ape ever created, just because we have solved many problems so far, it does not mean we will solve everything. Human history is like one of those investment warning clauses: is no guarantee of future results.I read somewhere that Montefiore had seen, as a child, Toynbee’s A Study of History and mused then upon whether he might one day write a similar work. This seems similar to the multitude of people who have proclaimed as children that they would become Prime Minister or President of their country. Are these ambitions anything more valuable than egocentric vanity? Regardless of my personal reading experience, it would be a crime not to mention the extraordinary and out-of-this-world research behind this book. Spanning millennia and continents, it covers the history of the world as we know it from the perspective of prominent families, some more well-known than others, but all of them fascinating nonetheless. I was mesmerised by this comprehensive look at world history and ultimately saddened to realise that, throughout the years, conflict, death and the suffering of millions of humans usually begin with the greed of a few. References to Jewish history seem to me to be out of proportion (and references to modern Israel are surely anodyne in contrast to the scathing critique applied to other nations.) On occasion, the references to the West display the contemporary predilection for showing the West it is not as smart, creative, powerful, etc as it is presumed to think it is. This is one of those tedious fashionable tropes which intend to show the author as a bit cleverer than hoi polloi. Montefiore also insists, despite all his examples of egregious slavery carried out in many countries at many times, that US slavery was the worst of them all. And he pontificates against incest, I think misrepresenting the likelihood of birth defects in offspring. Gripping and cleverly plotted. Doomed love at the heart of a violent society is the heart of Montefiore's One Night in Winter... depicting the Kafkaesque labyrinth into which the victims stumble." The Sunday Times From the New York Times best-selling author of The Romanovs—a magisterial world history unlike any other that tells the story of humanity through the one thing we all have in common: families

I read The Romanovs a few years ago, and it is still, until this day, one of my favourite Non-Fiction books of all time. This has to do with my obsession with the Romanovs, of course, but also because Simon manages to write utterly entertaining history books... something I did not think anyone was capable of. But truthfully I will have to read this again. Next time I will have to take notes or use my highlighter option on the kindle to mark the very interesting parts.

There’s probably no better person to write a biography of “TV talking head, pop culture conceptualist, entrepreneur and bullshitter” Tony Wilson than Paul Morley, a man who formed an esoteric writing career in his Manchester orbit. Still, Morley immediately understands the pitfalls of this enterprise: he calls Wilson “beautiful, foolish, dogmatic, charming. Impossible.” This moving portrait of Manchester from the late 1970s onwards is richer, more complicated and thoughtful than mere biography; a history, of sorts, of a city long since passed into memory. As an Irish person I was interested to hear what he had to say about my own little island. I thought his representation of the Cromwellian period was even-handed enough but then we seemed to totally disappear from the narrative even as it became increasingly more Anglocentric.