Reading : A history of the World by Andrew Marr

"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 readable, this is popular history at its very best."

How can anyone dare to do this in one single volume? Yes its weighty but super fascinating. And to be honest I like this book more because it is not written from a British or European centric viewpoint. Andrew Marr truly has done his best to focus on the great game-changers of world history - people such as Cleopatra, Mao, Genghis Khan and Galileo. I like his words

"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."