A History of the World

By: Andrew Marr

Narrated by: Andrew Marr, David Timson

Length: 26 hrs and 28 mins

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

25 hours of enjoyment

As soon as I saw this book I knew I was going to love it. 25 hours of the history of the world, based on a BBC production. The made-for-TV origins of this book meant that it was always likely to be entertaining and not too highbrow, and that's exactly what it is. A really good listen, starting with our hunter-gatherer ancestors and ending with today's problems of overpopulation and global warming, with quite a bit of other stuff in between.

The author unashamedly ascribes to the 'individual' human theory of history, whereby the story of the world has been significantly shaped by the actions of particular people. In many cases, history could have taken a radically different turn if, by chance, something had happened differently. An obvious example is that Hitler survived World War One, and the author believes that the course of history might have gone drastically differently if he had not – there wouldn’t necessarily have been a ‘substitute’ Hitler waiting in the wings to do what he did. Of course he also acknowledges the importance of the general flow of history, but this audiobook is mostly the story of important people and the things they did.

One of the difficult things about taking on such a big subject is that the world is a big place and at any given time there are many different histories rolling out in the different continents. So he tells us the histories of Africa and China and America, but I guess, as this was a BBC production, the focus may be a bit biased in the later centuries towards the influence of Britain. This doesn’t offend me because I’m English and was indoctrinated as a schoolboy into thinking that the Battle of Hastings and the Battle of Britain were landmark events in World History, when the rest of the world might see them as minor struggles on a small island. But I’d be interested to know if non-British listeners to this audiobook found it excessively Brit-centric.

Go ahead and listen, and I’ll look out for your reviews.

12 of 12 people found this review helpful

Excellent introduction

Marr's book is a quick and informative introduction to the subject, with some blind spots. To mention the blind spots first: it is, as many such books are, heavily Western and Eurocentric in outlook. China and India are mentioned early on, in the roundup of the earliest civilizations, but then mostly drop out of the picture until they once again begin to impinge on Western sensibilities. Not much here either about the growth of the major world religions; the conflict between Christianity and Islam gets especially short shrift. The entire history of the Crusades is reduced to a couple of sentences; if you blink, you'll miss it. Marr spends far more time talking about the tulip mania that swept Holland in the early years of capitalism.

But what he does cover, Marr covers well, with plenty of anecdotes and surprising connections along the way. His coverage of Africa, like his coverage of India and China, mostly focuses on the interaction of Africa and Europe, but the story he tells about that interaction is electrifying (and horrifying). And he asks the big questions, such as the one I've always wondered about and which is seldom addressed so explicitly: granted that the life of hunter-gatherers was full of novelty and free time, and the life of farmers was filled with backbreaking, tedious labor, why did the human race opt for farming? (Marr makes the case that the farming came first, and then the increase in population, rather than farming being devised as a way to support an already increasing number of people.)

Marr is an unabashed proponent of the "great person" school of writing history. There's plenty of material here about Alexander the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Margaret Sanger, and Mao Zedong and the infamous Jiang Qing. He also weaves a discussion of technology into the narrative, including the technologies of war and medicine. His goal throughout is not to throw a bunch of names and dates at the listener, but to give a sense of individual personalities and the gradual unfolding of the larger story.

First-rate narration by David Timson.

16 of 17 people found this review helpful

Entertaining yet banal

This is a history of the world written by a journalist and this is easy to tell. Too much focus on recent events - within world history everything past 1900 can really be considered recent - and with too little attention for the broad strokes, this volume doesn't stand apart. Marr's histories of Britain are far better than this mediocre dabble with world history.

That being said, the book is entertaining to listen too. Just don't expect anything new or special.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

A (short) History of the World

Would you try another book from Andrew Marr and/or Andrew Marr and David Timson ?

Early in the book Andrew Marr mentions that he could have written this book, then written another as long without including any material in it from the first, and then a third just as long without including any material from the first two. I think that I was hoping to read that third book. Early history went by way too fast and the modern material was largely events I already knew in detail.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

"The Muslim Age in Europe was much better than we have been told and the expelled people took their advances elsewhere" What? Where did they go? Am I missing pages? Off to do research to figure out just what the Islamic age of Europe was all about. And again, "When the Dutch tulip bubble burst everyone forged on as usual, aside from individually sad stories, commerce refused to prosecute and civilisation soldiered on." What? Very relevant to now! The judges did what? Municipal people did what? The bubble popped with minimal damage? How exactly did they do that! I need an index! Auuuggghhh!

Then again, he got much more than 26 hours of extra work out of me attempting to answer the questions that his narrative raised. I learned more about Cleopatra than I could have possibly guessed could be known.

Which character – as performed by Andrew Marr and David Timson – was your favorite?

Cleopatra's life was told in detail, and I had no idea how she fit into the larger narrative until reading this book.

Was A History of the World worth the listening time?

If Andrew Marr writes those other two books I will be right on the spot to read them, too. What a great thinkertoy this book is.

Any additional comments?

I wish I had a really gook book that started at the collapse of the tulip trade.

4 of 5 people found this review helpful

Massive educational/time commitment but worth it!

If you could sum up A History of the World in three words, what would they be?

This is an excellently written and performed, lengthy audio-world-history book that kept my attention so well, I often fell asleep at night with it playing on my smartphone. As a guy who never enjoyed (world or US) history, I learned a tremendous amount from this well organized work. My coworkers joke that everyday I come into the office with a new 'factoid' about world history that startles and provokes their curiosity in much the same way it has mine.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

This book is heavy - every single orated sentence is a new learning point of world history. It took me a month (between other commitments) to complete this ... dare I say the War and Peace of world history audio books?

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Fun and engaging

Being a spin off to a BBC documentary there is a solid body of facts and, at least to me, new information about parts of history that may have been "less" covered in popular history books that I've come across.

It is well narrated, engaging and easy to listen while going through your everyday activites.

I'm relatively new to audiobooks but this one almost felt like a paper one, I cold pause more or less anywhere and pick it up minutes or days later without "loosing the plot".

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Wrong Title

This audiobook should be titled; A PC History of years 1700-2010 with a Short Introduction about the History of the World

First let me say the narration is extremely good, one of the best I've heard.

In general if you want a brief history of the ancient world this will do, the author does a great job of keeping it interesting (I say brief since less than half the book is focused on this). Unfortunately the political correctness really starts to heavily influence the 1700+ world to the point of silliness. It's not all the time and it's by no means the worst I've heard, the author I believe attempts to be fair and balanced but just isn't able to do so. I recommend you have a good grasp on the modern world when listening to this otherwise you'll go away about as smart as your average high schooler, which is an insult in case you didn't realize it. If you don't already have a good grasp on modern history I'll go as far as to say this book will actually make you dumber. It's very difficult to recommend this book despite the interesting story and excellent narration. I really wish the author would have spent much more of his time on the pre-modern world since that's where I learned the most -- but even in this case it wasn't much. I can honestly say I'm not sure I learned hardly anything about the modern world and was more frustrated with what the author left out than allowed in (although unlike the other reviewer I found the tulip part interested since that is one thing I did now know about).

3 stars overall, 3 stars for the story due to it being unbalanced and too politically correct on modern subjects and a strong 5 stars for the narration.

13 of 21 people found this review helpful

Excellent and fascinating account of Human history

This book really helped me place different periods of history into perspective for me. I knew a lot about Roman, Greek and Egyptian history (I do wish more attention would have been paid to the latter), but my time frame was completely off in regards to ancient Chinese and Southern American cultures.

The narration is sublime. A fantastic buy in my opinion.

Best history book I’ve read

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

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.

Awsome, educational and epic work

I embarked on listening to this epic and well-researched book on the history of civilisation with some trepidation. There are after all, a total of 92 Chapters (26.5 hours) to work through and this is a formidable listening marathon by any stretch of the imagination. However, I found them all totally worth the effort. I am pleased Andrew Marr opened the narration by lending his voice to the introduction. This is a very expansive work as Mr. Marr draws references to a research base of some 2,000 or so books. In addittion, David Timson's highly expressive narration that followed is clear, assertive and a joy to listen to as it is consistenly intonated throughout without ever being condescending. You don't have to be a professional historian to appreciate the amount of effort that has gone into producing this book and the (at times) rather violent TV series to which this is a perfect accompaniment. The passion for the subject, dedication and commitment shine through at all times and for me, this is a notable quality of the book. Overall, a highly recommended purchase indeed which takes pride of place on my Audible bookshelf!

74 of 75 people found this review helpful

Informative and interesting

Honestly I expected it to be slightly boring as most history books and also had some reservations towards listening to such a book rather than reading. But from the very start it has been very interesting and entertaining. The book provides comprehensive explanation of major historical events and their interconnection which has led the world to such as it is now. This is worth book to purchase for either just refreshing historical ones historical knowledge or broaden ones view on the history and how it has made us the way we are and assist understanding some of today's events.

17 of 17 people found this review helpful

Interesting and informative

A great book that packs in enough detail to keep you interested, but not so much that you lose interest.



The narrator was superb.

11 of 11 people found this review helpful

A very detailed look at the world history

This is a very detailed and well written book about the world history. The book starts with the first evidence of mankind on Earth and takes it to the present. It is a fun to listen to the interesting anectodes and lesser-researched areas of the history. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect and the approach is clear and well documented. Recent research findings are also mentioned which makes the listening experience even more interesting. The narration is very clear and a pleasure to listen to.

23 of 24 people found this review helpful

Better than the TV series

Not of the same quality as Andrew Marr's British history but an enjoyable romp through world history with a few 'well I never knew that' moments. His interest in modern politics means the book gets more involved towards the end. Thoroughly enjoyable, and the narrator does a fine job.

21 of 22 people found this review helpful

A very enjoyable and educational listen

I enjoyed listening to this very well read book, I listen to my audio books as I drive my heavy goods vehicle so I get through quit a lot of books, I like history and I particularly enjoyed this book, there is a lot of information to take in so I will listen to it again very soon, if only history has been this enjoyable when I was at school.

21 of 22 people found this review helpful

An engaging sweep of history

You might think listening to over 26 hours of history would be heavy-going: not so. Well-written text that lends itself to being read, and read with verve, kept me listening and eager to continue. Inevitably superficial over detail, owing to the sheer scale of the undertaking, it emphasizes the chronological progression of history and the points up the parallel events in different part of the world.

17 of 18 people found this review helpful

Simply perfect. Far better than the TV series!

Very well read, thoroughly engaging, well paced, totally fascinating and entertaining without dumbing down. I would recommend this to absolutely anyone. It is the best audio book I have tried so far. The narrator pitched it perfectly. I couldn't wait to listen to it. The only downside is that sometimes it's a bit hard to remember facts etc without being able to turn back a page and check back, so occasionally I missed bits. But aside from that it was great.

12 of 13 people found this review helpful

Mesmerising!

This audio book is an epic and enchanting journey through the history of our world. Andrew Marr has done a fantastic job of turning events and dramas of the past in to a story easily accessible to all. It really is all encompassing, with all parts of the world given appropriate airtime and the interconnected nature of the whole human race really comes through. I particularly like the impartial nature of the narrative, which isn't afraid of debunking commonly held historical myths. I can't get enough of this audio book, it can be listened to over and over, each time you pick up on a snippet you may have previously missed. Perpetually fascinating. Thank you Andrew Marr!

11 of 12 people found this review helpful

A History of the World

Beautifully written. And beautifully read. I highly recommend this book. Fabulous and not at all heavy going. Some really interesting takes on the events that made history. A wonderful listen. Thank you.

14 of 16 people found this review helpful