A Short History of the World

Rating:
Summary: Worst World History I've Ever Come Across
Review: Blainey once held a chair at Harvard, so claims the blurb. After some web research, it turns out he was a visiting professor of Australian history, and then only for a year! Much as I love the land and people down under, this advert is disingenuous and misleading.

Blainey has the impudence and effrontery to say that the Romans at the height of their power could have controlled - if only briefly - India and even China. One does not have to be an expert in ancient history to know that this is absolute nonsense.

The Romans could not even conquer their smaller neighbouring empire to the east, the Parthians. In the last years of the Republic Crassus attempted what Caesar had planned, with fatal results. Mark Anthony lost troops by the legions, a main cause of his downfall. Augustus was wise enough to be satisfied with the mere return of the standards lost by Crassus - i.e., peace with the Parthians. Trajan tried aggression again, but Hadrian wisely stopped further imperial Roman overstretch.

If the Romans could not subjugate their smaller neighbour, how they could have controlled China, even partially, and however briefly, is a mystery to me. Rome's contemporary in China was the Han empire, a huge and unified military state that was much wealthier than the Roman Empire even at its height, with a larger population and an expansionist foreign policy. Han China was a good deal more secure than Rome, and how a weaker state could have taken on a stronger one is beyond me.

As a matter of fact, around 35 B.C., some Roman legionaries under Mark Anthony went as far as Sogdiana (now in Kazakhstan) and encountered Chinese soldiers. As Sogdiana soon came under Chinese control, I can only guess that the Romans were defeated. This would also make sense as we know that Mark Anthony had little luck in his eastern adventures.

Blainey probably has the anachronistic thinking, fatal in historians, that what the British were able to do in the nineteenth century, the Romans must have been able to do as well. He knows little of Roman history, and none of Chinese.

Can I condemn the whole book because of one error of judgment? I think it depends on the seriousness of the error. This one is pretty serious, for two reasons. Firstly, it shows a poor understanding of world history's basic facts. I can be forgiving if he makes a mistake about when Genghis Khan was born, for example, because this is relatively unimportant. But if he says something like "the Mongols made many campaigns, including some into South America," then this is serious, because it betrays a poor understanding of very basic facts about the Mongols. The other reason why I find his error unbearable is that I feel you don't have to be an expert in world history, indeed you don't have to be knowledgeable about history at all, to know that this claim of his is absurd. How much value can we then attach to anything else he has to say? It's almost like saying Hitler allied himself with the Chinese during World War Two. You don't have to be a historian to know this never happened.

The worst part of this affront is that it occurs in the concluding remarks of the book.

For a good book on world history, I'd recommend instead William H. McNeill's The Rise of the West or J.M. Roberts's Penguin History of the World. These historians, one American and the other British, show great erudition, accurate facts, and most important, good judgment.

Rating:
Summary: A panoramic analysis of the world's people
Review: Geoffrey Blainey's SHORT HISTORY OF THE WORLD provides a panoramic analysis of the world's people during the last four million years; from before the human race moved out of Africa to explore other continents to modern times. Getting this lengthy history into a single volume and making it accessible to ordinary readers is no mean fete: Blainey's title provides plenty of intriguing insights into not just historical facts, but the sentiments and perceptions of those who lived the times.

Rating:
Summary: A gallop through history
Review: Short History Of the World is anything but short, despite its title: well over four hundred pages covers world history for the last four million years, from pre-African roots to modern times. Considering the expanse of time covered, however, Short History Of the World could well be an abbreviated modern history, highlighting the major moments in human events and providing a lively coverage of facts.

Rating:
Summary: Facts or Fantasy?
Review: The reader of a history book looks for a fresh perspective on history, as well as factual accuracy. Unfortunately, this award winning book fails on both accounts.

Its historical outlook is too similar to "Guns, Germs and Steel", written by Jared Diamond in 1998, but without the depth of analytical insight and original concepts. Regarding factual accuracy, there are several mistakes.

When in Mr. Blainey's book I read Teohtihuacan and Cholula described as Mayan cities I became extremely wary. Teohtihuacan and Cholula were cities belonging to completely different cultures,each to a different one. Furthermore,Teohtihuacan is 2000 miles away from the tropical jungles of the Mayas. Not only Mr. Blainey's facts are incorrect, but his geographical accuracy is misguided.

I am not a history expert, and the least I expect in a history book are the facts to be correct. The other possible merits of the book are overshadowed by this issue. One is left wondering how many more inaccuracies are in the book.

Rating:
Summary: History at 30,000 Feet
Review: This book takes one from that shadowy time after the formation of the human species in Africa and its spread into Eurasia, through its worldwide migrations during the ice ages, and clear up to the late 20th century. It covers lots of ground in its 400-odd pages of text, in short. Perhaps I learned some new things, perhaps not. The problem is that this God's-eye view leaves out almost all the detail that connects us to particular times and places, although Blainey takes care to come down to earth periodically and talk about actual events and people.

I found the writing pedestrian, and was occasionally frustrated at the way the author passed over periods and points that would have been interesting. Of course, that's the way it goes: a history is selective, but a history of the world must be very selective. However, it is perhaps the very general level of facts that kept them from making much of an impression on me. I assume much was said, but most of it seemed so reasonable and high-level that I felt like I knew it already. (Whether I did or not: making a high-level statement is a risky business, and it looks as though Blainey has done his homework.)

The latter part of the twentieth century gets far more than its share of space, of course. But perhaps it deserves it: in some ways, more is happening to the human community each decade these days than happened during each millenium at the dawn of civilization. I'm afraid we do live in interesting times.

Rating:
Summary: not engrossing but interesting enough
Review: This is an odd one volume history book. Usually the best of the genre are compelling reads where the author is polemical, interested in convincing you that his new theory about why history moves in a certain direction is true. This is not such a book. The writing is best described as mediocre, predestrian, trying for variety in word order but failing. Then why did i finish it, i asked myself.

First it was an online book discussion group choice. But there was a interest that the author evoked that keep me reading, it was his choice of what to discuss. And for this reason alone it is an acceptable book to read as a small group. These things that he chooses to discuss, the topics of the sections of a few pages, these objects of interest in the overall view of history. These are what make it a readable, 3 star book and not a miss, a skip it, a bland textbook for high schoolers.

His choices are governed by 3 streams of thought. The first and most minor is geography. Physical geography plays an important role in history that DECREASES as time goes along. Earlier civilizations and cultures are more dependent on the local area for the resources that they need, likewise the rise of the river bases irrigated civilizations are by necessity and history located there. (idea of irrigation giving rise to empires due to requirement of cooperative effort to build and maintain water works). As the physical geography matters less, technology matters more, this is his second and major stream of ideas. The problem is that his linking and explanation is like a machine gun, stattaco, quick firing, without the big picture that something like _connections_ by burke is so very good at. It is as if he sees technology as the major driving force in world history but presents it as a disunifying force popping up in the world like prairie dogs popping up their heads, rather than making us aware of all the tunnels underground and out of view. This piecemeal, this disunity is noticable and greatly detracts for the overall character of the book.

The second stream is religious consciousness, not unrelated to the previous two, but he makes no real effort to unify the 3 ideas in any substantial way. More like he has a high interest level in religious consciousness and introduces it whenever appropriate in the discussion.

So i am back to my initial question of why did i finish a less than perfect book? Because it is an acceptable intro to history with enough continuity to be interesting, with an above average choice of what particulars to discuss. So now i am able to engage in the specifics of the discussion in the book club, to see how other people liked his choice of detail to illustrate the broader movement of human history. The only other recommendation would be to a interested sub-high school student who needed an easier text to be introduced to western history.