A great reference of the major historical events. I had 'won' this book from an early reviewers giveaway but didn't receive it. I finally purchased it myself and read it. As a lover of history, I found this book to be well written and quite interesting. The author was able to connect the dots of history. I like his style, history is not dull and he is able to relay this to the reader. True is indeed stranger than fiction, and Mr. Lascelles easily shows us this with his book. ( )

This is exactly what it claims to be - a short, very readable, history of the world, which I quite enjoyed and can imagine myself continuing to use as a basic reference work for general information. The frequent maps are a much welcome inclusion. I was less enamored with the idea of footnotes in an e-book and would personally have preferred that they were either incorporated into the text or omitted altogether. Obviously, readers looking for more than broad brushstrokes will need to consult other sources. The final chapter asking 'what's next?' was an interesting inclusion, whether you agree or disagree, it's interesting trying to look at the contemporary world through a historical gaze ... ( )

As someone who loves history, I thought this would be a great book. I was disappointed. ( )

A Short History of the World delivers as advertised: an “easy-to-read history book” that is “epic in scope but refreshingly short in length”. I found this book was great in that you could pick it up for a short period of time and always come away with having learned something. Also interesting to see how much conflict has shaped the past, as basically all of history’s major events result from one group warring with another. ( )

I was a bit surprised by the length of this excellent short history of the world: it covered a lot of ground and provided quite a coherent narrative beginning with the Big Bang 13 billion years ago and ending with the European wars of the 20th Century.

This book is a tour de force. It keeps a consistent voice and tone all through, and given the amount of material that is summarised, this is quite an achievement. “Just the facts, Ma’am, the facts, and nothing but the facts.“ In a very few places the author’s British-centric and Christian oriented world view shines through, but the overwhelming majority of the story reads neutrally. As anyone who has tried to write any form of narrative can attest, to write consistently and neutrally is a high achievement.

This history shines in including non-Western history, and shows the early rise of Chinese cultures and the ways the East has interacted over the centuries with the West.

The question that kept occurring to me was that of audience: who could possibly want or need an overarching, intelligent and non-partisan history of nearly everything? I think there is certain type of curiosity which knows that it missed the opportunities school provided just to get a full picture of world history. This book answers to that curiosity. It’s not exactly a reference book – I doubt I will go back to it to check this detail or that – but its vivid all-inclusive picture of human activity on the earth in simple chronological order is a useful element in understanding where we human being have come from.

It could also be useful for a young graduate student whose knowledge of a specialist subject has become so narrow that she could use the help of understanding the position of her particular topic.

Of course, such an ambitious scope means that it is easy to pick holes in a book like this: the reader will learn little about Australia modern or aboriginal, for example, but by and large the selection of facts seemed to me to be about right.

Some reviewers have complained about the illustrations: I read A Short History on a standard Kindle and had no trouble in enlarging the useful maps and reading the information on them. I did have to wait a few seconds for the enlarging to take place and then turn the reader to its landscape position; but these were tiny frustrations given the poor quality of illustrations I have seen in other Kindle books.

If you think you want an overview of all human history in a shortish dispassionate read, Christopher Lascelles Short History will entertain and inform. If you want more, Chris Lascelles blog (http://lascelleshistory.tumblr.com/) is designed to extend the reader’s experience. ( )