The World: A Family History

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This crappy app ate my previous review as I was most of the way through it. Ugh. This was a very long book and I don’t want to spend much more time on it, so I’ll try to keep it brief this time as this review is just for my own notes anyway. In this epic, ever-surprising book, Montefiore chronicles the world's great dynasties across human history through palace intrigues, love affairs, and family lives, linking grand themes of war, migration, plague, religion, and technology to the people at the heart of the human drama. To tell a history oftheworldthrough its most influential families is a clever way to marshal thousands of years of humanity . . . . [A]n incredible undertaking.Montefiorefinds enduring resonances and offers new perspectives . . . . Becausethese are family stories, he adeptly eschews traditionally male histories to find greater texture and diversity. A remarkable achievement.” ― Observer 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. 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.

As such episodes suggest, it was one thing to hold power, another to pass it on peacefully. “Succession is the great test of a system; few manage it well,” Montefiore observes. Two distinct models coalesced in the thirteenth century. One was practiced by the Mongol empire and its successor states, which tended to hand power to whichever of a ruler’s sons proved the most able in warfare, politics, or internecine family feuds. The Mongol conquests were accompanied by rampant sexual violence; DNA evidence suggests that Genghis Khan may be “literally the father of Asia,” Montefiore writes. He insists, though, that “women among nomadic peoples enjoyed more freedom and authority than those in sedentary states,” and that the many wives, consorts, and concubines in a royal court could occasionally hold real power. The Tang-dynasty empress Wu worked her way up from concubine of the sixth rank through the roles of empress consort (wife), dowager (widow), and regent (mother), and finally became an empress in her own right. More than a millennium later, another low-ranking concubine who became de-facto ruler, Empress Dowager Cixi, contrasted herself with her peer Queen Victoria: “I don’t think her life was half so interesting and eventful as mine. . . . She had nothing to say about policy. Now look at me. I have 400 million dependent on my judgment.” Mosheshoe’s family still rules Lesotho. Shaka accused Mzilikazi, a grandson of Zwide, of keeping cattle prizes for himself. The punishment was death. Mzilikazi escaped with his Ndebele clan into Transvaal and then Zimbabwe, where his Matabele kingdom confronted the Shona: the two tribes dominate Zimbabwe today. Shoshangane turned his victory into the Gaza kingdom in southern Mozambique, forcing the Afro-Portuguese prazeiros to pay tribute. Sobhuza, ruler of the Dlamini, migrated to avoid Shaka, founding Swaziland – Eswatini – named after his son and successor Mswati. It likewise is still ruled by his family. DM/ ML Hopelessly romantic and hopelessly moving. A mix of lovestory thriller and historical fiction. Engrossing." The Observer If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. Around 950,000 years ago, a family of five walked along the beach and left behind the oldest family footprints ever discovered. For award-winning 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.

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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. 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. 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. The biggest strength is the authors passion and writing style. Montefiore does not shy away from details. Gruesome executions, sexual passion, and affairs of state are all laid out here. This book is not for the faint of heart, most of human history is violent, and its on display here.

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 Another aspect of this is his custom of blithely suggesting he is the only historian to have recognised or understood some particular matter. “Western history writing often…” or “This is much neglected by historians” he laments, without naming the errant scholars. TL;DR - The World, A Family History is a trule global perspective with great writing style. However, the book is a bit too ambitious which risks flooding the reader with so much info it becomes overwhelming. 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. A novel full of passion, conspiracy, hope, despair, suffering and redemption, it transcends boundaries of genre, being at once thriller and political drama, horror and romance. His ability to paint Stalin in such a way to make the reader quake with fire is matched by talent for creating truly heartbreaking characters: the children who find themselves at the centre of a conspiracy, the parents…. A gripping read and must surely be one of the best novels of 2013. ” NY Journal of Books

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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. It was partly to counter the genocidal implications of nationalism that, in 1955, MoMA’s photography curator Edward Steichen launched “The Family of Man,” a major exhibition designed to showcase “the essential oneness of mankind throughout the world.” The trouble is that even the most intimately connected human family can divide against itself. In the final days of the Soviet Union, Montefiore recounts, the U.S. Secretary of State James Baker discussed the possibility of war in Ukraine with a member of the Politburo. The Soviet official observed that Ukraine had twelve million Russians and many were in mixed marriages, “so what kind of war would that be?” Baker told him, “A normal war.” You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here.