The World
A Family History of Humanity
Échec de l'ajout au panier.
Échec de l'ajout à la liste d'envies.
Échec de la suppression de la liste d’envies.
Échec du suivi du balado
Ne plus suivre le balado a échoué
The World
Acheter pour 64,10 $
Aucun mode de paiement valide enregistré.
Nous sommes désolés. Nous ne pouvons vendre ce titre avec ce mode de paiement
-
Narrateur(s):
-
Simon Sebag Montefiore
-
full cast
-
Auteur(s):
-
Simon Sebag Montefiore
À propos de cet audio
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A magisterial world history unlike any other that tells the story of humanity through the one thing we all have in common: families • From the author of The Romanovs
A Best Book of the Year: The New Yorker, Smithsonian
“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
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.
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. It features a cast of extraordinary diversity: in addition to rulers and conquerors, there are priests, charlatans, artists, scientists, tycoons, gangsters, lovers, husbands, wives, and children. There is Hongwu, the beggar who founded the Ming dynasty; Ewuare, the Leopard-King of Benin; Henry Christophe, King of Haiti; Kamehameha, the conqueror of Hawaii; Zenobia, the Arab empress who defied Rome; Lady Murasaki, the first female novelist; Sayyida al-Hurra, the Moroccan pirate-queen. Here too are moderns such as Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, and Volodymyr Zelensky. Here are 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. These powerful families represent the breadth of human endeavor, with bloody succession battles, treacherous conspiracies, and shocking megalomania alongside flourishing culture, moving romances, and enlightened benevolence. A dazzling achievement as spellbinding as fiction, The World captures the whole human story in a single, masterful narrative.
©2022 Simon Sebag Montefiore (P)2022 Random House AudioCe que les critiques en disent
Named one of the Best Books of the Year by The New Yorker and The Economist • The Times (UK) History Book of the Year • a Smithsonian Magazine Best History Book of the Year • a Kirkus Best Nonfiction Book of the Year
“This is not the history you learned in school. . . . The World tells the story of humanity through families, be they large or small, powerful or weak, rich or poor. It is a book for people who want to read about people. . . . The World pulsates with the hundreds of human stories Mr. Montefiore brings to life in vivid, convincing fashion. . . . This is history as collective biography, a journey across almost two million years, from the appearance of Homo erectus in east Africa to the rise of Xi Jinping’s China. . . .”—The Wall Street Journal
“In his new book, Simon Sebag Montefiore traces the perilous and prescriptive power of ancestry through centuries riddled with rivalry, betrayal, and violence. . . . As the title suggests, [The World] approaches the sweep of world history through the family—or, to be more precise, through families in power. In the course of some thirteen hundred pages, The World offers a monumental survey of dynastic rule: how to get it, how to keep it, how to squander it. . . . The World has the heft and character of a dictionary. . . . Montefiore energetically fulfills his promise to write a ‘genuine world history, not unbalanced by excessive focus on Britain and Europe.’ In zesty sentences and lively vignettes, he captures the widening global circuits of people, commerce, and culture.”—The New Yorker
"Simon Sebag Montefiore knows how to keep our attention. Perhaps understanding that facing down 1,300 pages of human history might cause even the most committed reader to quail, he makes certain to pepper The World with enough inventive gore, twisted villainy, and seriously kinky sex to keep those pages turning. This book may be huge, but the author ensures it is thoroughly accessible. . . . Montefiore’s accomplishment here is nothing short of breathtaking. It is no mean feat to create a comprehensive timeline of human history that is deeply researched, illuminating, addictively compelling, and—quite simply—a rowdy good time.”—The Washington Independent Review of Books
Ce que les auditeurs disent de The World
Moyenne des évaluations de clientsÉvaluations – Cliquez sur les onglets pour changer la source des évaluations.
-
Au global4 out of 5 stars
-
Performance3 out of 5 stars
-
Histoire5 out of 5 stars
- Kindle Customer
- 2023-09-14
Impressive
The book’s breadth and depth show that Sebag Montefiore put in a great effort. It is difficult to create a crash course that simplifies and yet interconnects many of the modern world’s relevant developments from political, socioeconomic, cultural and technological perspectives.
Even so, some things invariably have to be left out. Perhaps, one such casualty is the inter-black violence that plagued South Africa during the transition from white to native rule. With the exception of Ghana, too little attention is paid to West Africa. Still, this book reads well if one overcomes the frequent change in narrators.
Great book!
Un problème est survenu. Veuillez réessayer dans quelques minutes.
Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.
Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.
-
Au global4 out of 5 stars
-
Performance2 out of 5 stars
-
Histoire5 out of 5 stars
- Barry Dworkin
- 2023-07-03
Chapter-rotating narrators a distraction
One of the basic tenets of communication is to remain consistent with your message and oresentation. You want your audience to remain within the narrative and the story. you do not want to break the fourth wall. Although the work is excellent, the decision to use multiple narrators and changing with each chapter makes it difficult to follow.
Most audio books will either use one narrator or if they decide to have a larger cast, will devote a large section of the book to one narrator and then alternate. However, with alternating narrators occurring every 5 to 10 minutes, one loses the cadence of the narration. It also takes time, (and I understand that the focus is to include people that represent the vast scope of History both geologic and cultural) to adapt to the various intonations, accents, and cadence of the narrator. if they were given the opportunity to read multiple chapters, it would have been much easier to follow the flow and the story.
Unfortunately, some of the narrators mispronounced words. some read in a staccato-like fashion that again made it difficult to understand the text. Others narrated beautifully and expressively in a manner that brought you into the story; they we're not fighting with the text as some other narrators seem to have had.
That being said, it is an outstanding work but one that I think I would have rather read as opposed to listened given the level of frustration I experienced based on the decision of the producers of this audiobook.
Un problème est survenu. Veuillez réessayer dans quelques minutes.
Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.
Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.
-
Au global3 out of 5 stars
-
Performance2 out of 5 stars
-
Histoire4 out of 5 stars
- A
- 2023-07-10
great info, bad narration
After almost 70 hours of listening, there is a lot to say about this book, but I will try to keep it somewhat brief.
First off, the book is a monumental achievement with so much information that no one person could retain a lot of it. For Montefiore to have put this all together is really a great accomplishment and it is a awesome reference to own in any format.
That said, it is not beyond criticism and I think the negative aspects are as follows:
The narration is terrible. Plain and simple. I get they were trying to have diversity of voices to suit the subject matter, but the inconsistency makes it very hard to listen to. Narrators routinely change pronunciation between chapters so it is hard to follow that they are speaking of the same person / place. One narrator strangely does the voices of the character (notably Chinggis Khan). The fact they rotate each short chapter is just too confusing and disjointing.
The style of jumping between notable persons during each era, can make it hard to follow. As in they will speak about the birth of Stalin and then not mention him for another 2 hours when he will did something else of note. So there is never a direct story about a single person’s life.
That said there is much to like with this one:
The amount of information here is crazy and really cannot be beat.
The insights about people’s motivations and actions when in power is really significant.
The perspective of how people (especially men) behave when in absolute power shows why leaders need to be constrained.
Putting together the achievements and brutal behaviour of humans next to each other is sobering but necessary.
Overall, I do recommend this book as long as you know what you are getting into. The positives outweigh the negatives and after so many hours you get used to the narration issues.
Un problème est survenu. Veuillez réessayer dans quelques minutes.
Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.
Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.