Author: Geoffrey Blainey
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2000
Language: English
Pages: 668
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0141005815
Description
A masterly account of the grand adventure of human history, this book reads like a grand epic of endeavor. For anyone interested in getting a grasp of world history, this book provides a marvelous companion.
From the time when early man thought the world ended at the horizon to an age when he has started to probe the mysteries of the universe has been a long journey. In ‘a short History of the World’, the well-known Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey sets out to provide an overview of the intervening period, taking the reader on a roller coaster ride that covers ideas, civilizations and the nitty gritty of human survival….
This is history that reads like a grand epic of endeavor. It has at its heart no individual hero but a succession of them — great, not so great, and mostly just ordinary people. Here are some of the stories of the human journey, which range from those of the Dolomite shepherds of 3000 BC and the life of the New Zealand Maoris, to the influence of the indigo plant on the color blue and the evening of the peace-signing in Tokyo Harbor in August 1945.
For anyone interested in getting a grasp of world history, this book provides a marvelous companion.
Contents
List of maps
Preface
PART ONE
From Africa
When the seas were rising
The first green revolution
The dome of night
Cities of the valleys
Amazing sea
Lord of the Yellow, King of the Ganges
The rise of Rome
Israel and the anointed one
After Christ
The sign of the crescent
The wild geese cross the mountains
Towards Polynesia
PART TWO
SIGNPOST
The Mongols
The perils of climate and disease
New messengers
Birdcage
The Inca and the Andes
Reformation
Voyage to India
The New World bears gifts
The glass eye of science
Dethroning the harvest
PART THREE
The fall of a pack of cards
Beyond the Sahara
Noble steam
Will all be equal?
A globe unwrapped
The world wars
The bomb and moon
No fruits, no birds
Epilogue
Selected sources
Index