The World

By: Simon Sebag Montefiore

Narrated by: Ajjaz Awad, Ako Mitchell, Anna Cordell, Ayesha Dharker, Damian Lynch, Gunnar Cauthery, Jonathan Aris, Kevin Shen, Lara Sawalha, Leighton Pugh, Lucian Msamati, Nabiha Akkari, Nneka Okoye, Rachel Handshaw, Raj Ghatak

Length: 68 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

THE TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR

ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR

From the master storyteller and internationally bestselling author - the story of humanity from prehistory to the present day, told through the one thing all humans have in common: family.

We begin with the footsteps of a family walking along a beach 950,000 years ago. From here, Montefiore takes us on an exhilarating epic journey through the families that have shaped our world: the Caesars, Medicis and Incas, Ottomans and Mughals, Bonapartes, Habsburgs and Zulus, Rothschilds, Rockefellers and Krupps, Churchills, Kennedys, Castros, Nehrus, Pahlavis and Kenyattas, Saudis, Kims and Assads.

A rich cast of complex characters form the beating heart of the story. Some are well-known leaders, from Alexander the Great, Attila, Ivan the Terrible and Genghis Khan to Hitler, Thatcher, Obama, Putin and Zelensky. Some are creative, from Socrates, Michelangelo and Shakespeare to Newton, Mozart, Balzac, Freud, Bowie and Tim Berners-Lee.

Others are lesser-known: Hongwu, who began life as a beggar and founded the Ming dynasty; Kamehameha, conqueror of Hawaii; Zenobia, Arab empress who defied Rome; King Henry of Haiti; Lady Murasaki, first female novelist; Sayyida al-Hurra, Moroccan pirate-queen. Here are not just conquerors and queens but prophets, charlatans, actors, gangsters, artists, scientists, doctors, tycoons, lovers, wives, husbands and children.

This is world history on the most grand and intimate scale - spanning centuries, continents and cultures, and linking grand themes of war, migration, plague, religion, medicine and technology to the people at the centre of the human drama. As spellbinding as fiction, The World captures the story of humankind in all its joy, sorrow, romance, ingenuity and cruelty in a ground-breaking, single narrative that will forever shift the boundaries of what history can achieve.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2021 Simon Sebag Montefiore (P)2021 Orion Publishing Group

Critic reviews

A history of the world from the Neanderthals to Trump. It's a rollicking tale, a kaleidoscope of savagery, sex, cruelty and chaos. By focusing on family, Montefiore provides an intimacy usually lacking in global histories. [It] has personality and a soul. It's also outrageously funny . . . an enormously entertaining book (Gerard DeGroot)

Magnificent . . . magisterial . . . [a] real-life Game of Thrones. Dip into this book anywhere and the minutiae of history leap off the page . . . Dip too into the author's copious footnotes and there are gems to be mined. Often sassy, always entertaining . . . To my mind what it gives above all is perspective from which comes understanding and not a little wisdom (Tony Rennell)

For any reader with the stomach for bloodshed and megalomaniac ambition, for anyone with a taste for Ptolemaic depravities or who would simply like to spend some quality time with China's imperial eunuchs, Montefiore's 'World' . . . will deliver it and more in spades. The author's major achievement is to make us see the world through a different lens - to make the unfamiliar familiar and, more important, the familiar unfamiliar. There is hardly a dull paragraph (David Crane)

Breathtaking in scope

I loved this. A massively ambitious task to write the history of the world and I loved the lens he has taken; has shaped my thinking about the world for sure. A lot of critiques are directed towards the voice artists which I think is unfair- the point is not about Oxford grammar and pronunciation, but in reflecting a story through the diverse voices that make up our history, and that history has multiple perspectives; not just a single perfectly narrated voice. Definitely worth the buy!

Longest book by Montefiore

All is well except that some chapters are better to be updated, there’re certain narrators with a dry throat.
Plus the early Han chapters narrator is good but the kid can’t tell between Mandarin ZH CHI SHI vs ZI CI SI.

Good book, bad narration.

The book itself is awesome but the narration makes it a struggle. Switching between multiple amateur narrators that have a completely different pronounciation of names and places was a poor choice. Some of them are plain boring to listen to. I lost it at sennacherib’s name.

But the narration…

If you’re going to break up the narration duties, why not ensure that there’s a pronunciation guide to ensure some continuity? Every narrator has a different take on significant names (like Herodotus) and it’s distracting and annoying.

Also, while I appreciate the ideology behind using more authentic voices on the narration, some narrators don’t seem like professional voice artists. This is problematic.

I’m persisting because it’s a great book, but sometimes I feel like giving up.

Amazing book spoiled by some terrible narration

This book is incredible. It's massive, immersive, and fascinating. However, some of the narrators are infuriatingly terrible. Chronic vocal fry, shocking mispronunciations, 1950's style schlock horror delivery, reading without comprehension of the text, and many other auditory crimes. But they're all in short doses, so you only have to grit your teeth for five minutes or so until the voice changes. I'm going to get a hard copy or ebook and read it again without the distraction. It's a great book to remind you how little one knows about history, with countless rabbit-hole opportunities to learn more.

Interesting perspective on the history of humankind

The book gives a great overview of the history of the world. The family/cabal perspective is an excellent way to offer a new perspective on history of humankind. I bought the Kindle version next to this audiobook, because it’s impossible to remember all the details covered by this massive book. Highly recommended.

Excellent book but hasty audiobook production.

A very good book but a hasty production with several non native English speakers as narrators. Being a non native speaker myself, I sometimes found the book difficult to follow, especially since the variation in pronunciation of names - and there are some names in the book- was somewhat confusing.

Terrible narration ruins this book.

The terrible narrating lead to me being unable to finish this book. Really disappointing. I hope that Audible takes note of this and gets it re-recorded