History of the World by Richard Overy

This book’s full title is “The Times” History of the World. I will be reviewing another History of the World type book next. The second one is much, much better than this bland, very politically correct one, with no passion and no enthusiasm for the subject matter. The book is not bad if you want an historical overview and you are not much concerned about details. The book seems to be written by a committee and it shows. It is also curious, that the only book reviews I can find are by book stores.

The introduction in this book is the most interesting part. Richard Overy makes an interesting point of how Greek Culture was diffused, but the Chinese Culture was not. He also talks about how obtaining food only got to be a problem with agriculture and civilization. However, these themes and other in the introduction never seem to be followed up in the book. From what I can gather from the book, this is the only part that was actually written by Richard Overy. The rest seem to be written by others, but it is not clear who wrote what.

I must admit, that I find that you get little from books that are so politically correct at all times. Perhaps more people might read history if more history book writers were more passionate about what they write. I do not mind ready history from points of view different from my own. I in fact often enjoy such books. However, I find the politically correct movement writers too insipid, too boring and very annoying and it makes for bad history. In other words, such books suck.

I note that that has a section on the Jewish Diaspora that occurred from 70AD to 1800 AD. However, he fails to mention that in the 12 century there were more Jews living in the Middle East than in Europe. Might the problem be that he might have to explore what might have happen to these people? I am sorry that I am so negative on this book.

I note this author has a nice write up in at Wikipedia. (This is another place that can be boringly politically correct.) Richard Overy is considered to be a WWII historian. He is on YouTube at talking about the Poles in 1939. He is also on YouTube talking about bombing in the WWII at The effects of WWII air-raids.

On my website is how to find this book on Amazon if you care to purchase it. See Overy. Also, this book review and other books I have reviewed are on my website at Book Reviews.

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