The Mental Floss History of the World: An Irreverent Romp Through Civilization's Best Bits

by Erik Sass, Steve Wiegand Narrated by Johnny Heller

Overview

About 60,000 years ago, the first Homo sapiens were just beginning their move across the grasslands and up the ladder of civilization. Everything since then, as they say, is history. Just in case you were sleeping in class that day, the geniuses at mental_floss magazine have put together a hilarious (and historically accurate) primer on everything you need to know-and that means the good stuff.



Twelve core chapters of world history tackle everything from civilization's baby steps in the Fertile Crescent to the Not-Really-That-Dark-Unless-You-Lived-in-Europe Ages to A World United by Terror and TV. From the Golden Haemorhoids of the Philistines (punishment from above) to the likely namesake of the cartoon elephant Babar (a Mongol prince) to the most pressing language translation issues facing the menus of today ("carp" vs. "crap"), all of history's most interesting bits have finally been handpicked and roasted to perfection.

Editorial Reviews

AudioFile

Heller and the boys from Mental Floss just know that it’s easier to listen to history when it’s presented as fun instead of a chore.”

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170897988
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	11/11/2008
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

The Mental Floss History of the World

Chapter One

Africa and After
(60,000 BCE-1500 BCE)

In a nutshell

If there's one thing you can say about human beings, it's that we're always hungry. When modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) left Africa to conquer the globe more than sixty thousand years ago, they settled near sources of food, and those areas that produced more food became more populated. Some groups found forests with game to hunt, while others wandered grasslands, tending herds of cows. In Stone Age Mexico, coastal peoples subsisted on shellfish for thousands of years, leaving a huge heap of clam shells 240 feet long, 90 feet wide, and 21 feet tall.

Another thing about us: we don't like to share. Tribes constantly battled for territory, and some were pushed into less friendly environments—but nomads made the best use of limited resources. Arabs conquered the vast Arabian Peninsula by taming the camel, a hardy desert animal that carried them between lush oases. Central Asians took to horse- and sheepherding, ranging across thousands of miles in search of rare good pastures. Inuit learned to build homes out of ice.

But in terms of calories per acre, grain cultivation feeds many more people than fishing, hunting, or raising domestic animals. Grain cultivation began around 9000 BCE and soon spread around the world, and places that grew grain experienced a population explosion (oh yeah, apparently we also like to have sex . . . a lot). Soon, there was so much food that some people could stop working in the fields and specialize incrafts. Expert potters, weavers, and masons were soon followed by tailors, leather tanners, miners, and other trades. Yes, that includes "the world's oldest profession."

Around 8000 BCE, the world's first civilizations—defined as people living in cities—began appearing. The craftspeople lived together in encampments for safety against rival groups and for convenience of trade. Cities also became centers of government—in most cases, likely a hereditary monarchy descended from old tribal authority. Little is known about the world's first governments, but they were probably dominated by a single family or clan passing authority from generation to generation, with a dominant man becoming ruler each time. In prehistory, governments along matriarchal (woman-centered) or communal (leaderless) lines may have existed, but by the beginning of recorded history, these had been snuffed out. Each of the world's first civilizations was ruled by one man, a king. Men have hogged the remote ever since.

The king's job was simple: to protect his followers. In general, the people believed that the king's authority came from the immortal gods, so kings were closely associated with religion from the get-go. In some places the king was also the high priest, in charge of sacrificial offerings and ceremonies intended to bring good harvests. In other places, the king worked closely with the high priest or employed soothsayers to help divine the future.

While rival kings could cause trouble, the biggest enemy facing early civilizations was nature itself, which operated at the will of invisible gods. Droughts, floods, and other natural disasters could destroy crops, bringing starvation and misery. Translation: If everyone had enough to eat, the gods were happy with the leader; if there wasn't enough to eat, well . . . It's no surprise that across the "civilized" world, each ruler's first act was to store grain against hard times.

To make this food-insurance system work, kings ordered their subjects to turn over some grain during good times, which could be distributed again in an emergency. Grain was stored in huge stone or mud-brick silos, called granaries. Priests were in charge of keeping track of which grain had come from which landowner.

To help remember the grainy details, priests invented writing. Recording quantities, names, and dates on clay tablets in turn led to accounting and banking. Soon regular people began quantifying goods such as livestock, tools, and luxury items. As writing spread to society at large, merchants, bankers, and scribes joined the other craftsmen who lived in cities. Writing led to the first commercial contracts (e.g., "for these four pigs, you bring me two cows in three days"—we're not saying it was glamorous).

However, not every culture chose to settle down and farm. The differences between cities and nomadic groups created a lot of friction. For one thing the cities' accumulation of wealth, in the form of surplus grain and other goods, naturally attracted attention from people living a more marginal existence outside the cities. Nomads often enjoyed a tactical advantage over city folk, and men from the wilds, skilled in horse-mounted warfare, have long terrified the simple farmer on the outskirts of town. The nomadic threat still exists today—but by 1500 BCE, the power of settled societies based on farming was already uncontestable. The history of civilization is their story.

What Happened When

2,500,000 BCE
Homo habilis, earliest protohuman ancestor, uses stone tools in Africa.

2,000,000 BCE
Various protohuman ancestors spread out across the planet.

1,500,000 BCE
Hominids master fire.

300,000 BCE
Neanderthals live in Europe.

150,000 BCE
The Sahara is a lush grassland.

130,000 BCE
Modern humans, Homo sapiens sapiens, appear in Africa.

60,000 BCE
Homo sapiens sapiens spread out over the planet.

10,000 BCE
Polar ice caps begin to melt, raising sea levels four hundred feet.

9000 BCE
The Natufian culture domesticates wheat, inventing agriculture.

7500 BCE
The world's first cities emerge at Catal Huyuk and Jericho.

5,300 BCE
The Sahara has become a desert.

5000 BCE
Catal Huyuk and Jericho are mysteriously abandoned.

4500 BCE
The first Sumerian cities, Eridu and Ur, are founded.

4000 BCE
The first cities are founded in Egypt.

3100 BCE
Egypt is united by the pharaohs and becomes the world's first state.

3000 BCE
China's first civilization begins (Longshan culture).

2600 BCE
Harappan civilization flourishes in the Indus River Valley.

2530 BCE
Egyptians complete the Great Pyramid of Cheops.

2200 BCE
Babylon is founded by the Amorites.

1900 BCE
China's first royal family, the Xia dynasty, rules.

1750 BCE
Abraham leaves Ur for Canaan.

1700 BCE
Harappan civilization disappears.

1600 BCE
Indo-Europeans establish Hittite and Mitanni kingdoms in Mesopotamia.

The Mental Floss History of the World. Copyright © by Erik Sass. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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