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    The Mental Floss History of the World: An Irreverent Romp Through Civilization's Best Bits
    Unavailable
    The Mental Floss History of the World: An Irreverent Romp Through Civilization's Best Bits
    Unavailable
    The Mental Floss History of the World: An Irreverent Romp Through Civilization's Best Bits
    Ebook636 pages11 hours

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

    By Erik Sass, Steve Wiegand and Editors of Mental Floss

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    “An irreverent romp through history’s best bits,” The Mental Floss History of the World is an amazingly entertaining joyride through 60,000 years of human civilization. As audacious as it is edifying, here is a hilarious and irreverent—yet always historically accurate—overview of the ascent (or descent) of humankind, courtesy of the same rebel geniuses who brought you Mental Floss presents Condensed Knowledge and Mental Floss Presents Forbidden Knowledge. Updated with all the hot topics and events of the past few years, The Mental Floss History of the World is proof positive that just because something’s true doesn’t mean it’s boring.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 6, 2009
    ISBN9780061980619
    Author

    Erik Sass

    Erik Sass holds a BA in history from Duke University and an MA in journalism from NYU. Since 2011 he has written a blog covering the causes of the First World War, as well as the events of the war itself, to commemorate the centennial of the conflict. He is also the author of The Mental Floss History of the United States and coauthor of The Mental Floss History of the World. He lives in Silver Spring, MD with his husband and daughter.

    Read more from Erik Sass

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    Reviews for The Mental Floss History of the World

    4.5/5

    20 ratings9 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Not so good as a reference book, but a fun and surprisingly thorough overview of world history. There isn't as much about Africa as I would have liked, but they didn't have written records as early as the rest of the world, so it's kind of understandable that we know less about the ancient history of the people there. I liked the way the time periods had sections of bite-sized facts, like "who's up, who's down" and "so long, and thanks for all the...", to describe often vastly disparate topics and events. The world is a big place, after all. A lot of the larger events and movements I'd known about, but I picked up a whole bunch of great tidbits that I hadn't known.
    • 3/5
      Audiobook version, read by Johnny Heller. I suspect this book would have been much better in a regular book format, rather than on audio. The boring and repetitive lists of events at each chapter (?) start are probably laid out visually in such a way as to allow you to refer back during the meat of each section. Aside from that, it was still a light and entertaining overview of historical events, presented in a way that I wish my dusty old history teachers could have taught it. I was even mightily impressed with the narrator's ability to make coherent sounding sentences using the tongue-twisting names of ancient civilizations and foreign languages. Until the book hit the 1940's and I had to endure hearing "nucular" spoken over and over again. I subtracted a star for that alone, and I'm afraid I had to abandon the audiobook while it was in the home stretch.
    • 2/5
      Mental Floss is a series of books (and I think magazines?) that provide executive summary - like distillations of otherwise heady topics. The description of this book on eMusic suggested it might be a little more humor-infused than it was (I was hoping for a lot of funny anecdotes). But it really did summarize the history of the world, hitting up on all of the major talking points. Scattered throughout are anecdotes and factoids, statics that are sometimes surprising, but they sometimes restate folk stories as fact when such things have been discredited otherwise. Not much of a use to me, but it could be of help to those who slept through World History in school.
    • 4/5
      Given to me by my son, I had no idea I would ever read this entire book....after all, it was history and history classes in school were SO boring. Although it took a while to read in bits & pieces, I did read the whole book and, for the most part, found Mental Floss' version of the history of the world to be very enjoyable. I learned a lot, probably more than I ever did in school.
    • 4/5
      Actually the entire book. It is a highly readable history of the world.
    • 4/5
      The quick review. A lightly irreverent but interesting, fun, and fact-filled run through the entire history of humans on this planet (and a little bit off the planet – there is the moon after all.)In brief snippets and various sidetracks, this book does as good a job as possible of providing the reader an entertaining look at everything that has happened everywhere. Each chapter represents a span of time (starting at 60,000 BCE – 1500 BCE and then reviewing progressively smaller periods of time until the last chapter is 1963-2007; still a rather large hunk of time for the history that occurred in that period, but what are you going to do when you’re limited to 420 pages). Each chapter then has a synopsis of the time period, a timeline, a focus on each of the areas of the globe (usually covering all the continents or sub-continents and, as an aside, this is a great example of how the book keeps from being too anything- [although usually Euro-] centric), “Who’s Up, Who’s Down” which hits a potpourri of stuff that occurred, good things that happened, bad things that happened, and some interesting stats about the time period.There are things you already know in here. There are things you already know but didn’t know that much about. There are things you kind of remember. There are things you may have stumbled across in a college history class. There are things you never even thought about knowing. And all of it expressed in a way that, even when you knew it, is a refreshing way to refresh that knowledge.I read it in bits and pieces whenever I had spare time. Would it work if you sat and read it from start to finish? I don’t know. The writing style might get a bit old over 420 solid pages. But I enjoyed it and will probably keep it handy for a reference on some things historical.
    • 4/5
      THE MENTAL FLOSS HISTORY OF THE WORLD is chock-full of interesting nuggets of history that you probably never heard before. From 60,000 BCE to present day, Mental Floss brings you real history spiced with puns and sidebars of humorous character notes, origins of inventions, or quotes.
      Each chapter covers a particular era. They begin with an overview, then a timeline, a description of what was happening in a few select places, a “Who’s Up, Who’s Down” score, a section on the good and bad inventions of the era, and finally a list of numbers, such as; 40: Average life expectancy, in years, of a citizen of the Roman Empire, and 93: Number of minutes it took to build a Model T in 1915.
      Sometimes the ironies got to be a bit much, but I don’t think they detract from the overall satisfaction of this book. I learned some interesting facts such as how pretzels were invented. Any history fan will find this book enjoyable and I recommend it to all.
    • 5/5
      I'd never heard of mental_floss before stumbling upon this book at a B&N in August. We were there so my husband could stock up on holiday reading, but since it's fundamentally impossible for me to walk out of a bookstore without a book in my hand, I added this to the pile thinking it would be perfect for those moments at night when I couldn't focus on more than a small bit of reading at a time. History/geography are unarguably my two weakest areas on a trivial pursuit board. I can look back at all my schooling and say I've never had a geography lesson in my life - not even memorising the state capitals (or the states, for that matter). I remember every history class I took starting with the American Revolution and ending with the Civil War. This is embarrassing, although more for what it says about the educational system I was in than anything else. When I got to Uni and took a proper history class, it was a revelation - history could be interesting! But it can still be dry, boring and stultifying. Not The Mental Floss History of the World! This is an entertaining romp through world history - the very highest level of overview - and I found myself driving the husband crazy between saying "you have to read this book!" and then reading stuff to him (let's face it, he probably won't read it anyway). Lots of stuff. This is a great read for those of us who want to know more about history but accept our limited attention spans because we don't find it that interesting. Broken up into eras (not official ones) it gives readers an overview of what happened, a timeline for that era, anecdotes/details about the major players and finally a list of big-number statistics. It's the kind of book where you can read a few pages, then put it down again without feeling like you've left off in the middle of something. I wouldn't recommend this book for readers looking for anything academic, reverent or in-depth, but I'd highly recommend it for those out there who might be like myself: undereducated about history and wanting to know more, but preferring a breezy, slightly irreverent delivery. I'll definitely investigate their other titles, and be visiting their website regularly.
    • 4/5
      Enjoyable, the title says it all. Highly recommend for those that like to find their knowledge gained thru odd facts. You'll end up saying... a lot... "you don't say...". Excellent narrator