The World: A Family History

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Succession meets Game of Thrones.” — The Spectator • “The author brings his cast of dynastic titans, rogues and psychopaths to life...An epic that both entertains and informs.” — The Economist, Best Books of the Year 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 In a fifty-year reign (it ended in 1870), Moshoeshoe defeated the British, Afrikaners, Zulus and Ndebele. More humane and constructive than Shaka, he was ‘majestic and benevolent. His aquiline profile, the fullness and regularity of his features, his eyes a little weary made a deep impression upon me,’ wrote Casalis. ‘I felt at once I was dealing with a superior man, trained to think, to command others and, above all, himself.’ Out of these wars emerged the present shape of southern Africa. SSM’s evident enjoyment of salacious details – of who chopped the largest number of enemy penises off, or who laid the largest number of concubines or other people’s wives (or husbands) – occasionally obscures other interesting aspects. I enjoyed all the sex and depravity for sure, but I’d have welcomed a bit more on the more boring things they did too. For example, after quite a detailed account of bedroom cavortings in Empress Wei’s court around 85 B.C., a throwaway phrase mentions that these oversexed charmers had also doubled the scale of China’s cultural artefacts and activity. It’s true the book is called a “Family History” and not a “cultural history”, but the mountain of genitalia surely gives a slightly incomplete picture of the ancient world. Gripping. Montefiore’s characters snare our sympathy and we follow them avidly. This intricate at times disturbing, always absorbing novel entertains and disturbs and seethes with moral complexity. Characters real+fictitious ring strikingly true.It is to a large extent Tolstoyan …..” The Australian

In 1824, while the British hunters were still in the capital, Shaka was dancing when a would-be assassin speared him in the side. Shaka hunted down the hitmen, who were beaten to a pulp by the people, then he massacred the Qwabe tribe whom he decided to blame – though he rightly distrusted his own family. In 1827, his mother Nandi died mysteriously. She had disapproved of his purges, and may have protected a male baby born of his concubines: he either killed her in a rage or had her killed, like Nero. Zulu royalty were buried sitting up supported by the bodies of sacrificed henchmen, servants, concubines, strangled or buried alive. Killing anyone suspected of disloyalty, Shaka supposedly killed 7,000 people. After Nandi’s death he appointed his aunt Mnkabayi as Great She-Elephant. 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. 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.

Customer reviews

There are 4 sub-themes, at least 4 that I identified: History of Slavery, History of the Jewish people, Art/Music History, and Factoids. I learned much about these topics and enjoyed the footnotes throughout. I thank the author for writing this book. I cannot imaged the time and painstaking effort it took to write. It is a gift to all that read it.

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 TimesI am not sure what the purpose is of trying to consolidate history of all earth in a single book. Is it a bit like climbing mountains – or buildings – to show he can do it? I felt at many times during the expedition that this was essentially a vanity project. Elderly woman fleeced: How scamsters obtained her death certificate, forged house deed, took Rs 90 Lakh loan I must agree that SSM is astoundingly clever: his ability to manage and manipulate all that material is staggering. And, of course, his stamina and persistence in completing this project are notable.

The World: A Family History of Humanity is the latest book written by Montefiore, a historian who has written books on Stalin and the Romanovs. His expertise is on the personal and political, writing about people in power in both their personal and professional lives. This book is a look through the entirety of human history from the first family who walked on the shores of Britain to Putins invasion of Ukraine. In this book you meet hundreds of characters through a series of dynasties across the world. The story is told through their interconnected world and often changes viewpoints from across the world in a broadly chronological format. Succession meets Game of Thrones.”— The Spectator•“The author brings his cast of dynastic titans, rogues and psychopaths to life…An epic that both entertains and informs.”— The Economist, Best Books of the Year It’s written quite readably, it’s not hard to read, but I can’t say that I really enjoyed it as I might enjoy a good novel. I rather generously award three stars in recognition of the author’s achievement in covering the vast span of world history, and covering people and events on every continent. I rather doubt that I’ll ever reread the whole thing, but I may sometimes use it for reference and dip into it.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.

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. Montefiore’s] major achievement is to make us seetheworldthrough a different lens – to maketheunfamiliar familiar and, more important,thefamiliar unfamiliar. . . . [B]rings [history] most vividly, almost feverishly, to life.There is hardly a dull paragraph.” ― TheSpectator 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. 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 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

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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. 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. The book can read a bit tedious especially when I hit points in history I knew more about, but the earliest times and the more current I found to be the most interesting. The earliest because I didn't know much of those histories and the current, because it was interesting to look at modern times from the lens of history.