A review of “The History Of The World In Bite-Sized Chunks” by Emma Marriott
In terms of ‘punch per page’, this is a winner: nearly 5,000 years of world history in less than 200 pages with every sentence offering information. Yet, for all its conciseness, it covers a great deal in an accessible manner, so that it can be read from beginning to end and/or used as a reference work. Also it is a balanced account, totally avoiding the Euro-centric bias of many early world histories, each of the six chapters being structured in the order: Middle East and Africa, Far East, Europe, The Americas and Oceania with sub-headings on almost page .
If there is a theme. it is that so much history has been about empire: creating, sustaining, and losing it. Maybe we are entering a new era in which geographical empires are literally history.
Of course, all empires are temporary and, as one reads this book, one learns of a succession of empires which at the time were the greatest or largest in history up to then: Sumeria in 5,000 BC, the Indus civilisation of around 2,500 BC, Assyria in the seventh century BC, the Achaemenian empire of around 560-530 BC, the Chinese Han dynasty of 206 BC – 220 AD, the brief but large empire of Alexander the Great, the mighty Roman Empire of 509 BC – 476 AD, the huge and cruel Mongol empire of the early 13th century, and of course the European colonial empires of Portugal, Spain, The Netherlands, France and most especially Britain.
Not all empires or civilisations were ended or broken by conquest; so often collapse was the result of climate change or disease: the transition of the Sahara from farming societies to desert, the destruction of Minoan civilisation by a tidal wave, the Black Death of the 14th century which devastated Asia, the Middle East and Europe, the decimation of the population of the Americas by diseases such as smallpox and influenza brought by Spanish settlers and conquistadors, the deaths of so many Aborigines from infectious diseases such as smallpox, and – worst of all – the so-called Spanish flu of 1918 which killed approximately 3% of the entire world population.
Sadly the story of humankind involves so much misery – not just war and disease but slavery. The slave trade between Africa and the Americas in the 18th and 19th century is described as “the largest forced migration in history” with the transport of 9.5 million slaves and the deaths in transit of around two million.
I read this book during the coronavirus global pandemic, the most dramatic reminder in a century that we are ultimately one world with one fate. A vital part of working together is to understand each other’s history and Emma Marriott’s book is an excellent primer.
June 6th, 2021 at 12:45 pm
Just ordered it, Roger! Thanks for telling us about it.
June 6th, 2021 at 2:33 pm
Hope you find it interesting, Janelle.