From the Stone Age to the Drone Age: A Guest Post From Simon Sebag Montefiore, Author of The World: A Family History of Humanity
Hardcover $45.00
The World: A Family History of Humanity
The World: A Family History of Humanity
In Stock Online
Hardcover $45.00
A sweeping and original history of humanity as seen through the families who shaped it. Spanning nearly one million years, across continents and cultures, in peace and war, Simon Sebag Montefiore’s The World is an epic tale, a stunning accomplishment. For the reader who loves a dive headlong into a big, rich, page-turner of a book, this one is for you. Keep reading to hear from Simon Sebag Montefiore about what inspired him to look at world history with a fresh perspctive.
A sweeping and original history of humanity as seen through the families who shaped it. Spanning nearly one million years, across continents and cultures, in peace and war, Simon Sebag Montefiore’s The World is an epic tale, a stunning accomplishment. For the reader who loves a dive headlong into a big, rich, page-turner of a book, this one is for you. Keep reading to hear from Simon Sebag Montefiore about what inspired him to look at world history with a fresh perspctive.
I have written a world history in a single narrative covering all continents, all peoples, all epochs, told through the lens of families. It has been a wildly exciting ride — a terrible challenge, a delicious satisfaction, a joy of reading, travelling, and researching here is why and how.
“When I want to read a book,” said Benjamin Disraeli, British prime minister, and bestselling novelist, “I write it.” I follow the same idea. I have always wanted to read a world history that combines the intimacy of biography with the span of global history. So often such histories are compendia of commodities, trade routes, steel production and pandemics that leave out the humans who also play the central role. Not only that but these histories are so often what I call victors’ histories that cover superpowers and empires but not small countries. Then there is the problem of Euro-Atlantic history that leaves out or diminishes the history of Africa, South America and Asia. Often modern histories trumpet their progressive credentials but then still introduce African or South American or Asian kingdoms as if they did not exist until Europeans or Americans arrived and ‘discovered’ them. Then there is the importance of women in history — and that the fact that so often women are missed out. I wondered how to solve all these challenges, and finally I realized the answer was a simple one. Family! All people have family in common.
There are many definitions of family. There is the biological nuclear family that we all have in some form. There is the socially contrived concept of family that passes through the eldest son. There is matriarchy — the power of women within families. There is the power family — the dynasty that can represent a state, a kingdom, an empire, a crime enterprise, a business project, a religion, a city and a democracy. My history covers all of these different versions of family. Some families are royal and titled; some are enslaved and repressed; some are emperors, some are gangsters, some are empresses, some are writers, doctors, bankers, executioners. Some are familiar to you — Kennedys, Romanovs, Caesars, Medici’s, some you may not know but hopefully readers will enjoy reading about them.
The families and individuals are central to the history but not always essential — often I use them as harnesses to tether the great movements, the convergences and divergences, ideologies, technologies, pandemics and medical advances that are as central to world history as the people. In the book I treat the Ming emperors or the obas of Benin or the emperors of Haiti or the Incas of Peru exactly as I would treat the Roosevelts, the Habsburgs, or Tudors. Women play a huge role of course — and you will see that women are no better no worse than male rulers. But amongst many other things this is a book about mothers. Many of these women you will know — Marie Antoinette, Cleopatra, Catherine the Great — but there are many you will meet here for the first time. Since this is about families, there is also lots of food and art and music — yes Josephine Baker and Mick Jagger and David Bowie and Frank Sinatra are all characters.
The book covers the rise and fall of empires without favor or bias: all empires, whether the British or the Afghan empire, are built partly on violence and this shows it all. Slavery was a part of human life since the first documents in ancient Sumer up until it was abolished in Brazil and Ethiopia: The Atlantic slave trade is hugely important for any world history but so are the east African slave trade, the trans Saharan slave trade, the east Mediterranean / Black Sea / Russo-Ukrainian slave trades. All these cruel atrocities are told in detail in a way that has not been done before. Here is a new template of how it all fits together — but it is also filled with eccentricity the poetry the passion the sex and art of real people, and it is written to be read and enjoyed.
The book starts in pre-history and covers from the Stone Age to the Drone Age, ending on the day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In the last fifty years, I was lucky to meet some of the leading characters in the book, and I have been able to use my own conversations with them. As a war correspondent, I witnessed some of the events too. I was lucky to start my career covering the wars of the fall of the Soviet Union — a war that is still going on. And there is no better training for any historian than to witness the fall of empires. Enjoy the book!