The World: A Family History (Paperback)

'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, The Times

'A delightful world history, told through influential families. A moreish chronicle. The device of weaving together the past using the most enduring and essential unit of human relations is inspired. It lets readers empathise with people who helped shape historical events and were shaped by them... the method also allows the author to cover every continent and era, and to give women and even children a voice and presence that they tend to be denied in more conventional histories. Despite the book's formidable length, there is never a dull moment. The story moves at pace across terrible battles, court intrigues, personal triumphs and disasters, lurid sexual practices and hideous tortures. Almost every page offers what used to be known in Fleet Street as a "marmalade dropper"... the author tells these stories with verve and palpable relish for the unbridled sex and inventive violence that run through them. His character sketches are pithy and witty... the footnotes, often short essays in themselves, have the acid drollery of Edward Gibbon... overall this book is a triumph and a delight, an epic that entertains, informs and appals in enjoyably equal measure' - The Economist

'A magnificent new book by Montefiore. [A] magisterial tome... determined to...make some sense of the chaos of world history, he has done so magnificently and meticulously by choosing as his framework all the dynasties we know of that ever held power or made a name for themselves. This 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... Montefiore compiled this during Covid lockdown and wove it into a compelling narrative... a massive effort of researching moulding and turning it into storytelling - often sassy, always entertaining - of the first order... to my mind what it gives above all is perspective from which comes understanding and not a little wisdom' - Tony Rennell, Daily Mail

'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... Europe would more than catch up... but it is that other world that this book brings most vividly, almost feverishly, to life. There is hardly a dull paragraph' - David Crane, The Spectator

'To tell a history of the world through its most influential families is a clever way to marshal thousands of years of humanity... an incredible undertaking. Montefiore finds enduring resonances and offers new perspectives... because these are family stories, he adeptly eschews traditionally male histories to find greater texture and diversity. A remarkable achievement' - Observer

'A history of pretty much everything everywhere from the evolution of Homo sapiens to Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Dip into any page and you'll find history rushing by in prose that combines clarity, liveliness and even deadpan humour with intriguing asides a speciality... a staggering achievement' - James Walton, Daily Telegraph

'Succeeds in scintillating fashion... an epic rich in detail... on each page, you'll find an interesting idea, a witty observation or a footnote containing an anecdote emblematic of a wider point. Montefiore pays attention to the lives of women and children and to places slighted by Western historians. This is an extraordinary work of wisdom and vivid storytelling' - Victor Sebestyen, Literary Review