The New Penguin History of the World: Fifth Edition
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Stars:
- Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
- Since: 2007-12-18
- Media: Paperback
- ISBN-10: 0141030429
Users who read this book
1 books read
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akky 11 months ago |
0141030429 @ivread I used to learn Chinese history in Japanese so it was hard but interesting to know how to tell them in English |
1 books read
Reviews on Amazon
(11people)- There are two ways to write history, one as a tapestry that follows the threads of social themes continuously through the ages, the other as a mosaic that jumps from major event and personality to major event and personality. The New Penguin History of the World is solidly in the first camp, more a social history tracing such things as economics, politics, and religion than a compendium of the events that resonate most loudly in our past. Each approach has its pros and cons. The mosaic can oversimplify as the author attempts to crystallize long term and continuous trends into discrete events but it also provides clear milestones of major changes and their consequences. The tapestry can weave a more continuous story of important topics one at a time but can veil as much as it reveals. Sadly this book veils and clouds a lot more than I think it has to.
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>For the positive I cannot give the book anything less than four stars because it is simply a breathtaking achievement, literally a history of the world from "cave-man" times (obviously analysis of anthropological evidence and not "events") to around 2007 (updated by a second author for the more recent years after Mr. Roberts' passing.) It also does an excellent job of filtering out the most important aspects of such a giant topic, and even at 1188 pages of densely packed text can only scratch the surface. In the end you will be put on an excellent footing for further reading on nearly any subject of history and to be able understand it in its comprehensive context by reading this book. It is thus eminently worth it. (Even though, it can literally take months to read.) <
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>However some negatives did detract. Although a "tapestry" as explained above it doesn't really draw any sweeping conclusions of convincing or profound nature (it does make a small few attempts), something of a lost opportunity given its amazing scope. As a matter of fact he is rather open about tending to avoid such conclusions. Any judgement from history would be non-final and arguably biased but I would rather hear the author's best and most insightful stab at it and then think over whether I agree or disagree than be left with nothing to mull over. However this is not to say that he doesn't provide any attempts at explanation, he does sometimes, and it's a sad disappointment that the whole world appears a nail. Mr. Roberts wields the hammer of "overpopulation" and this becomes the reason for every ill almost any society throughout history has encountered. Demography is certainly one of the most powerful forces driving history on a scale such as this, but the author seems to lack any imagination or will to attempt other perhaps more plausible explanations for many world events. Near the more recent part of the book you can see more clearly that the author also brings a progressive bias. Although there were many small cases (far more praise for Democratic US presidents, backhanded compliments for the Republican ones, reform always being described as necessary and change always described as good, etc.) the thing that struck me most egregiously was that in his page or two on Mao Tze-Tung he spent more time on the fact that Mao wrote poetry than he did on the fact that Mao has the blood of more people on his hands than any other person who has lived in history. Mao is ultimately presented as a great modernizer who made some missteps along the way. A small example, but one that for some reason I felt particularly telling. <
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>Nonetheless the drawbacks do not approach undoing the value of reading the book. A great, solid foundation for learning world history, one that I am glad to have read and makes me interested in further detail reading. - This book was in great shape and received in a timely manner. Would by from this seller again! Thanks.
- I've been a reading a lot of history in the last few years, each book an in-depth study of a particular period or country or a recurring theme. Quite often I realized that I didn't understand the offstage action, so I went looking for a broad-brush world history to provide some context for my *other* reading. If that's what you are looking for, this book is ideal.
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>It is Euro-centric. But if you are interested in how events in one part of the world affected another, for long stretches of world history what happened in, say, Japan had no bearing on anyone but the Japanese. - Roberts is a master of the broad brush, managing to make world history a page-turner and 1200 pages seem like 300 (or so). Because the subject's so large, it always feels like you're moving at high speed and observing from high above. There's little room for detail, but that's the nature of world history. The beauty of it is that Roberts makes connections and observations of patterns, and we're able to do the same, which wouldn't be possible in a history of smaller scope with more detail (of course, we need both).
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>One particularly valuable example is the context in which he places the American Revolution and subsequent US expansion. At the time, the revolution was a relatively small matter and Europe was focused on more important things. After the war, Britain controlled the seas and also controlled the territory north of the new nation. With a weak power (Spain) controlling much of the areas south and west, and with France checked by Britain in North America, the US was able to expand in an essentially invisible bubble of protection created by Britain. It was in Britain's interests to let this weak little English-speaking upstart expand rather than allowing another European power to fill the relative void of North America (it doesn't make it right, but one of the European powers would have done it if the US hadn't). A little deflating for our national mythology, but isn't that one of the purposes of history done well? <
> - The book is helping me reviewing my knowledge on world history, with vivid approaches in simple language. It is specially advisable to people whose mother-tongue is not english as is my case.
