The Mental Floss History of the World

An Irreverent Romp Through Civilization's Best Bits

By: Steve Wiegand, Erik Sass

Narrated by: Johny Heller

Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

About 60,000 years ago, the first Homo sapiens were just beginning their move across the grasslands and up the ladder of civilization. Everything since then, as they say, is history. Just in case you were sleeping in class that day, the geniuses at mental_floss magazine have put together a hilarious (and historically accurate) primer on everything you need to know---and that means the good stuff.

Twelve core chapters of world history tackle everything from civilization's baby steps in the Fertile Crescent to the Not-Really-That-Dark-Unless-You-Lived-in-Europe Ages to A World United by Terror and TV. From the Golden Haemorhoids of the Philistines (punishment from above) to the likely namesake of the cartoon elephant Babar (a Mongol prince) to the most pressing language translation issues facing the menus of today ("carp" vs. "crap"), all of history's most interesting bits have finally been handpicked and roasted to perfection.

©2008 Mental Floss LLC (P)2008 Tantor

History can be entertaining.

This is not a book to be used for the scholarly study of history, but it is a great book for making you think about history and want to know more. I have listened to it twice, a little bit at a time and still enjoy it.

Generic overview but keeps your attention

it was ok, but have very simplistic overviews of everything. Gave too much attention to Europe and the US

An honest assessment

A pretty upfront romp through history. Would have been five stars but wanted even more details. Just being picky since that would have been more than actually needed and probably taken away from the enjoyment of an otherwise easy look at our uneasy path from there to here.

Not That Entertaining or Informative

“Don’t Know Much About History” was much more informative and entraining.

Just ok

Not quite funny enough to really succeed as a comedy book and not quite informative enough for a really good 'history' book, it was nonetheless enjoyable enough for me to get through. The excellent narration helped with that.

love to learn

I listen to books while painting, and love to learn. this was fun, ans really like Menral Floss

Disjointed, but Interesting

I suppose I only have myself to blame for my unhappiness in this case. The book is exactly as advertised "an irreverent romp." This is obviously a case where the print version of this book is probably amazing, but it doesn't translate well in the listening. Minutes long lists of dates and events at the end of each chapter are probably very interesting when you look at a timeline. Listening to it...less so. Also, the topic "romps" quite frequently, meaning that there is almost a vignette quality to the book, jumping from era to era and topic to topic pretty quickly. I gave it a good try a couple of times and made it more than half-way, but I just can't stay into this book...I may have to read it in paper form though, because it sounds very interesting.

Good To Know

This was a very interesting book, lots of information but I wish it had been read in a slower manner. It was a bit hard to keep up with the pace of the reader.

Lots of information

This book has a lot of information but at times difficult to follow. I believe the authors put it in an order that does make sense but it's not always chronological. I like the insertion of humor throughout the book. I would recommend this book.

absolutely awesome and worth the read

Those who created and produced this book did a really awesome job with it. While relatively short, given that it is a world history, I find it very balanced fair. It actually covers the entire world. although there are large portions where it probably focuses a bit too much in Europe, Western Civilization and then USA. in all this is worth the read and its is very entertaining.