Will I love A Little History of the World?

While rushing to get ready for a long flight, I grabbed “A Little History of the World” from the bottom shelf of my bookcase and headed out. I had bought the book years ago because any competent telling of thousands of years of history in under 300 pages appealed to me.

It didn’t matter that it was written for younger readers. It covers the basics most of us learned in school, and then some. Its perspective is largely European and light on its treatment of Central Asia and China. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth wasn’t even mentioned, but I attribute this… show more.

Read this book to get a glorious sweep of human history told like a fireplace story. Beginning with prehistoric man and progressing through to the fall of the Soviet Union, this book is the definitive “narrative of the human race” (as told by Booklist).

Ben Schott from The Observer said it best: “One feels as if Gombrich is guiding one through time with a grandfatherly gleam in his eyes.”

Gombrich’s iconic little volume, initially written for his children, and published posthumously in English (Hitler had banned it in the author’s native Austria), simplifies Zinn’s larger thematic style but, like Zinn, forms an intelligent coherent whole.

Ostensibly written for children, the book possesses a universality that transcends any age group. Unlike Zinn, Gombrich lacks an ideological "edge," but he shares a vision of a common history of humanity that complements Zinn’s approach.