Finest condensed historical past works?
Whats up, I am doing a piece about human cultures from the beginings of its historical past to right this moment, and I am at present utilizing Ollie Bye’s “Historical past of the world yearly” video and occasions listing and contrasting it with Geacron. I have been studying about each this works and there are at all times individuals saying that each of this sources are inaccurate in lots of issues. Are you aware any condensed work that covers the complete or not less than a really massive chunk of the entire human historical past that you already know is correct? Or perhaps not less than a 3rd supply I can distinction the opposite two with? Thanks a bunch! ✨️✨️
Comments ( 19 )
Susan Wise Baur attempted to do this in a trilogy; *The History of the World*. It has three volumes, and while it is a world history it’s coverage of east Asia, Africa, and the Americas is lacking. It is however, probably the most condensed work to really try and tackle the entire world and tackle it without completely botching the effort.
Understand that many books cover a few hundred years of 1 place.
Covering the entire history of the entire planet is… It’s a *tall* order. You won’t find any work that does it excellently. Most of those that do exist suffer in fully accounting for Africa and the pre-Columbian Americas, which aren’t helped by the lack of historical records for these places.
Historians unfortunately don’t talk to archeologists as often as we should.
Norman Davies, Europe: A History is a good read. Good overview to give you your bearings and context to more in depth works.
Not necessarily the right category but this brought to mind bill brysons ‘a short history of almost everything’ and its a great read anyway.
Condensed…no I do not…however I have been reading “The Story of Civilization” series by Will Durant for like 30 years…
As a younger man seeking a comprehensive global history to begin to frame what I was learning, I got a lot out of Isaac Asimov’s Chronology of the World. I am just a civilian….I don’t have any clue what historians and historiographers think of this work.
I enjoyed my required reading for World History: ‘the Human Web’ by McNeill and McNeill. It lays the focus on connections between groups of people. This gives an interesting perspective on world history and should contrast greatly from the deterministic ‘year-by-year’ approach to writing history.
The best I’ve seen is The Peguin History of The World (Roberts). It covers everything and is written like an essay.
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If you want a really condensed but relatively accurate, funny, and easy to read solution, might I suggest Larry Gonick’s work:
*The Cartoon History of the Universe – From the Big Bang to Alexander the Great (Volumes 1-7)*
*The Cartoon History of the Universe II – From the Springtime of China to the Fall of Rome (Volumes 8-13)*
*The Cartoon History of the Universe III – From the Rise of Arabia to the Renaissance (Volumes 14-19)*
He also has a 2 volume *History of the Modern World.*
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/698736.A_Short_History_of_the_World
Think I’ll get scoffed at for this… but Yuval Noah Harri’s Sapiens is, imho, GREAT (and a bestseller, so 🤷)
Mel Brook’s “History of the World, Part 1”.
James Burke’s The Day the Universe Changed. It’s an amazing television series from the 80’s that still holds up today. He also wrote a book by the same name, which is also very good.
He does a very good job of condensing human history into specific bits.
The staple video series on PBS for my generation (1989) was [The Western Tradition by Eugen Weber](https://www.openculture.com/2007/12/the_western_tradition_on_video.html).
All 52 30-minute episodes are available on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYbocufkwRFAS80nLFShkXSblfcFTXwRH).
More info on [Eugen Weber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugen_Weber) here.
Gordon Childs–What Happened in History. It’s an oldie but a goodie.
For a more entertaining take, try Larry Gonick’s ‘The Cartoon History of the Universe’ and ‘The Cartoon History of the World’.
For the Roman Empire I recommend Chris Scarre’s Chronicle of the Roman emperors.
Will Durant’s ‘The Story of Civilization’. Multi-volume. Begins with ‘Our Oriental Heritage’ and ends (I believe) with ‘The Age of Voltaire’. Four different volumes cover just the 17th and 18th centuries.
John Green’s [Crash Course History](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBDA2E52FB1EF80C9) series