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A History of the World  By  cover art

A History of the World

By: Andrew Marr
Narrated by: Andrew Marr,David Timson
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Publisher's summary

From the earliest civilizations to the 21st century: a global journey through human history, published alongside a landmark BBC One television series.

Our understanding of world history is changing, as new discoveries are made on all the continents and old prejudices are being challenged. In this truly global journey, Andrew Marr revisits some of the traditional epic stories, from classical Greece and Rome to the rise of Napoleon, but surrounds them with less familiar material, from Peru to the Ukraine, China to the Caribbean. He looks at cultures that have failed and vanished, as well as the origins of today’s superpowers, and finds surprising echoes and parallels across vast distances and epochs. This is a book about the great change-makers of history and their times, people such as Cleopatra, Genghis Khan, Galileo, and Mao, but it is also a book about us. For 'The better we understand how rulers lose touch with reality, or why revolutions produce dictators more often than they produce happiness, or why some parts of the world are richer than others, the easier it is to understand our own times.'

Fresh, exciting and vividly listenable, this is popular history at its very best.

©2012 Andrew Marr (P)2012 Macmillan Digital Audio
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

What listeners say about A History of the World

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  • 08-15-18

Best history book I’ve read

The content is crisp, and the narrator does an excellent job. Highly recommend this book.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing overview of world history

Wonderfully narrated and a rich, clear, mostly linear description and a brief explanation of key people and places throughout history. The only downside is that the book isn't longer.

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Majestuoso!

Increíble saber cómo llegamos a este momento, brindando y relacionado el contexto y el devenir de este Homo Sapiens

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Enchanting

Highly recommended for anyone and everyone. Brilliantly woven, articulate celebration of the story of human existence.

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Great book.

I enjoyed this book very much and I highly recommend combination of Kindle text version with this audio.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Decent, but could have been great

While the narration & performance were good, the story could have been orchestrated much better. Often new threads are introduced in the main chapter which are hard to follow and keep track of. The author chose to pivot on civil axions and countries and was therefore forced to skim through several important events, including the world wars. A better alternative would have been to keep time as the baseline and talk about all significant events in that period.

Also, disproportionate coverage has been given to European civilisations, not enough to The Asian ones and nearly none African and South American history.

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Fascinating history of the world

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was extremely interesting and helped me to gain a better appreciation of our world history.

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    2 out of 5 stars
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Is it 1875?

Reads like a Victorian-style history. The Big Man approach to history isn't especially interesting to me

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    4 out of 5 stars

Thoroughly enjoyable (but at times light on dates)

Where does A History of the World rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This is a very well polished audio book - really like the narrator.

What about Andrew Marr and David Timson ’s performance did you like?

The breadth of the book is massive, spanning all of human history. It is thoroughly researched and enjoyable.

Any additional comments?

My only negative comment is that it is at times light on hard dates, which makes putting the different threads of the storyline together a little difficult at times.

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The world unfolds

It hard not to have a fresh view of the world and culture around you after taking a 2 dozen hour ride from humanity as nomadic tribes to today's urbanized globalized world. You will know the meaning of "history repeats itself" as you will see the same struggles, fears, movements and behaviours today as you did 2000 years ago...the only difference now is we carry iphones and word travels a bit faster

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