Customer Reviews

History of the World, The Penguin: Revised Edition (Penguin History)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a fascinating read, worth reading and rereading. It will give you a background for every event in world history and in the headlines. It gives a sense of the sweep of history that could not possibly be given in any less ambitious format. I disagree that there are no overarching themes in the book, I pick out two big ones. One is that to understand events at any time in history you have to know what went before. He carries this to its logical extreme by starting with the big bang, and it allows him to present history with no arbitrary boundaries. That is fun! His second theme is the prime place of Europe in world history. Roberts argues that while many cultures have contributed their own strand to the world culture, the European contribution is the largest. For this reason, events in Europe get more play than those in any other part of the world. While this might strike some as Eurocentric, it strikes me as Roberts' best efforts to make clear why our world is the way it is today. I recommend it very highly for the PATIENT reader. If you can get past the Sumerians you've got it made.

This book consists of 1109 pages of dense historical facts and analyses from the early beginnings of civilization right up to 1995. It was a long hard read and impossible to totally grasp it all. There's just too much information packed into tight paragraphs and a presupposition that the reader is familiar with the material.

I was determined to read it however, and absorb as much as I could, and so I just kept reading, letting my eyes skim over parts I couldn't quite understand. I pushed on through with the intention of getting a general understanding even though I knew I'd never remember all the names of kings, battles, and constantly changing borders of countries.

The author is British and the book a bit Eurocentric, but he did manage to include the whole globe in a somewhat confusing way. Sometimes he'd jump from Europe to Asia to the Middle East all on one page. And then from century to century. It was an ambitious undertaking. I applaud him for it. And I must say that it did make the sweep of history very real for me.

I read this book cover to cover five years ago and have been using it ever since as a reference book. It's a great read if you like an urbane, erudite "Oxford (or is it Cambridge?) don" style, and Roberts is careful about stating grand theories as though they were incontrovertible fact. All in all, a wonderful comprehensive world history. I'm buying a second copy for my 19 year old nephew who is studying history.

This is a very good book, a 1,200 or so page summary of the history of the world. Roberts is balanced, fair, and accurate in his reporting. He does not pander to Western stereotypes like some do. For example, he acknowledges the fact that the 'Middle Ages' really were no such thing. The period we label that was really a development of tradition along a straight trajectory into the present modern world. He effectively dispels the 'Dark Ages' myth. As an example, he demonstrates that it was in the 11th and 12th centuries that Europe began recovering the ancient Greek and Roman philosophies from the Arabs, translating them, expanding upon them. One of the most important late realizations of the foundations of Western civilization is the debt that is owed to Islamic society. To them we owe much: medicine, algebra, astronomy, architecture, anatomy, the diffusion of Eastern culture to the West.

Roberts also writes in an engaging manner. He does not go into great detail often, surely impossible in a world of such vast scope. On occasion he will indulge in detail when it is particularly important or interesting. He pays careful attention to the roots of events; the fall of the Roman Empire for example. He eloquently explains all the changes to Roman society that began in the 3rd century that resulted in the eventual fall of the Western Empire, without simplifying obscurely. I find this a very easy book to read, and highly enjoyable.

The book is somewhat Western-centric, and as you move eastward there is less and less detail. I think that Islamic civilization is covered in considerable depth relatively which is positive, but when you proceed to India, China, Japan the material loses some attention. Overall, still a very good read.

J. M. Roberts has written a very enjoyable one volume history of the world. It's true that it is "dense," but what can you expect from a history of the world. It took me a year to get through, but I'm not apologizing. In addition, I can't agree with the idea that Roberts ignores or even marginalizes other cultures. He spends significant portions of the book on the Middle East and the Far East, China and India in particular. Considering that I read the book in bits and pieces, if there is an overarching theme to the book, I didn't detect one. I did find Roberts' judgments balanced. Readers who are interested in studying various theories of history should consider Brander's STARING INTO CHAOS, a book describing the thought of Toynbee, Spengler and Sorokin.

J.M. Roberts is a good popular historian. Of the several works of his for the popular audience that I have read, all have come across as interesting and well organised, accessible and fairly objective. Roberts also writes for scholarly audiences; while his popular works are not a rigourous, his other works prove that there is serious scholarship underpinning these works.

Roberts' large, one-volume 'History of the World' joins many such volumes in having strengths and weaknesses, the primary weakness affecting them all being the inherent problem of selectivity. The history of the world, even if one simply means by this the history of human civilisation, has so much data in so many directions that ultimately no single volume (or, indeed, whole series of volumes) will satisfy all on every count.

Roberts begins with the pre-historical beginnings of human beings in various parts of the world, based on archaeological evidence. He then explores of civilisation in various parts of the world (Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, India - all the places civilisation arose largely independently of each other). From there, Roberts traces the advances of civilisation through the Classical Mediterranean period, the post-Roman imperial time, the period of European expansion around the world, the period of world wars, and the modern post-war period. Within these broad divisions, Roberts introduces the history of other parts of the world -- the Islamic civilisation, more advanced the post-Roman lands, is not seen as a mere afterthought or addendum to the 'real' action in Europe; Roberts also traces historical development in China, India, and Japan as major centres of civilisation.

The majority of the text does centre upon the European stage and their expansion around the world, as this historical strand (for better or worse) is still the dominant influence around the world today. More than half the text deals with the past 300-400 years, in which European hegemony politically, militarily, and culturally took hold. Roberts keeps speculation and judgement to a minimum for the most part, reporting the facts of European growth and the response in the various lands around the world.

In my opinion, the primary piece lacking here are New World (western hemisphere) civilisations prior to the colonial conquests. While it is true that the influence of Native American cultures does not have tremendous impact upon the world stage today, it is also true that the civilisations of the Incans, Aztecs, Mayans and others were at least as interesting and advanced as various Sumerian and Egyptian ancient civilisations, even if they lack the historical continuity to today's world.

Roberts does add the occasional 'colour commentary' to his analysis. For example, in discussing the Lutheran Reformation, he mentions that Luther replaced the idea of eucharistic transubstantiation (the idea that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ) 'with a view which is even more difficult to grasp'. Roberts' biases are definitely Eurocentric and toward a progressive, humanist view of history's path. However, there can be no total objectivity in any historical presentation, and Roberts keeps his biases in check for the most part.

There are nearly 100 maps, and hundreds of images and graphics, including many full-colour plates. These are photographs of places, artifacts, paintings, and other images of importance serving to highlight the text. There is a worthwhile index. The text lacks recommendations for further readings, which is a drawback, given the survey nature of the text. However, it is one of the better single-volume histories of the world available today, particularly for those who are looking for broad historical trends leading to the present day.

The book is an excellent narration of the world history. It provides a solid foundation for understanding the events and building a perspective for trends coming ahead in world civilization. However the book has certain misrepresentations and misjudgements about Oriental civilizations. The coverage of the book is rather Eurocentric. The sections on the Western history is brilliant, however when it comes to Islamic civilization, Indian, Chinese, Central Asian and Russian the coverage becomes rather superficial. In fact I find several misrepresentations, misjudgements and even omissions of great events and names that shaped the history of mankind not to mention the history of that part of the world. There is almost no reference to the peripheral yet important civilizations of Southeast Asia.

I wished that the book could have more balanced presentation and coverage.

However if you are aware of such deficiencies and make your own reading the book is an excellent foundation, a coherent narrative of world history.

I read this history of the world with great pleasure and with increasing admiration for mr.Roberts. Don't feel daunted by its size, a book like this makes for excellent piece-meal reading.

I found this book quite interesting. It covered everything from the dawn of civilization to the fall of communism, and gave an excellent analysis.

I also found this book quite a challenge. I don't consider myself to be of inferior intelligence, and am a graduate of a highly ranked university, but on many occasions I found myself using a dictionary in order to understand some of the vocabulary in the book.

This book is not for the faint of heart, nor the high school dropout. However, for those people with a desire for historical knowledge and the willingness to take up a challenge, this book is well worth the time.

I initially listened to this book on tape, and then decided I wanted to have it lying around as a reference. Roberts, I understand, is an Oxford professor. I don't really know enough history to judge to what degree his views are colored by a Western European perspective, but it was very helpful to me, particularly in his early coverage of areas whose history I didn't know that well -- Arabia and the Far East. I finished the book feeling I had a considerably more solid understanding of things like why Russia is like it is, and what actually happened between Sumeria and modern Iraq... what the world looked like to a person from the Middle East in various periods of history.

In the preface, he states as one of the primary criteria of a good historian is his or her ability to write from an unbiased perspective. He doesn't lie about the brutality of the Spanish conquistadores, but he also doesn't present a falsely idyllic or nostalgic picture of the Aztecs. And he doesn't villainize anybody... reasons for successes are always sought in climate, geography, circumstances -- not in the inherent superiority of one people over another. Throughout all of Part I, he calls Europe, the 'barbarians', and I don't think uses the word 'England' until well into Part II (of III). I don't think, therefore, that it can be claimed that at least England gets more attention than its due. The ancient near East, 15th-20th C. Europe, ancient Rome, and Arabia prior to the fall of the Ottomans get more press than do ancient China and India, though these are both given two extensive chapters each. They get more than Egypt. He certainly favors those places which carry 'civilizations' more than those which don't. His perspective seems to be that civilization is what's interesting, and he follows its centers around. Very little is said, therefore, about early Sub-Saharan Africa. Almost nothing is said about the North America prior to the coming of the Europeans. And virtually nothing is said about Western Europe north of Greece and Italy until Charlemagne or so. Perhaps that's just because his subject is history, not archeology, and history by definition needs to be written down.

What I liked best about the book were his little insights into the mindset of people at various points in history. For example, he effectively conveys that a 12th Century European wouldn't know what you were talking about if you spoke in terms of 'nations' the way we understand them. He describes nicely the difference between the mentality of the Russian tzarism vs. Western European kingdoms at the same point in history. I wish he'd done more of these flashes into the mindsets of various peoples and times, actually.

And I suppose I would have been interested in more detail about how ordinary people lived. Kings and generals got a lot more discussion than the peasants and artisans. I'm thinking, for example, that one of the most revealing 'histories' I read about the settlement of the American West was simply a collection of diaries written by women in the wagon trains. I felt in this way (or even by reading Black Elk Speaks) that I sank much more fully into the place and time than by reading about Custer or Louis and Clark (though these too are interesting). So if I were to venture a criticism, it would be that it's a little bit traditionally male in its focus more on externals -- governments and battles -- than on the internal minds and experiences of ordinary people.