John Robert McNeill

Another entry into my Read Your Library series, continuing in the World History section of the library, this particular book takes a look at the spread of humanity throughout the course of history, picturing it like a series of webs that form and grow, eventually connecting or being overtaken by other, stronger webs.

Starting with the earliest forms of gathered humanity, the McNeills trace the growth and expansion of the human race from the early hunter-gatherer societies, to the shift to agrarian tribes, to the formation of the first major civilization in Mesopotamia. From there they explain the rise and fall of the first empires, the spread of technology, food, and illness across the globe, and the eventual combination of various webs to form a vast, interconnected web that covers most of the globe.

One thing I enjoyed about this book, as it is designed as a textbook, is that the information is presented in the barest factual form. The authors try to avoid their own bias and simply present the history as it happened, giving a full account of why things happened the way they did, never taking sides on a single issue.

I will say this fully factual presentation did make the reading a bit dry on occasion, but again, being a textbook that aspect was expected. I did not account for how much time that meant it would take me to get through it, however.… (mehr)