"Most people's ideas of the history of the world is hazy and partial. We know
bits and pieces - battles in a tiny corner of Europe, kings' love affairs -
without ever knowing how they fit together. Here, in The No-nonsense Guide to
World History, are the hidden histories, the continents and communities left
out of the conventional textbooks: from the civilizations of Asia, Africa and
Latin America to the history of women, which have been submerged beneath the
flow of wars and politics. This book teases out the lessons that humanity needs
to take into the 21st century.

This concise (40,000 words), enjoyable account of world history is an excellent choice for readers who want to tackle the subject without getting bogged down in a thousand-page tome. Brazier's perspective is distinctly Leftist, but that shouldn't bother anyone except the most stubbornly wrongheaded proponents of Right-wing ideology. Occasionally his statements are in error: he says, for instance, that "the mass of people were behind" the Bolsheviks in post-revolution Russia. This is untrue--Lenin's administration did not enjoy a majority of popular support--but Brazier is correct in noting that the USSR was likely doomed from the outset because it was surrounded by countries so hostile to socialism that they did everything they could to sabotage it.

The book was first published in 2001, which makes the author's closing observation seem eerily prescient in 2017: "(W)e can no longer believe that humankind is spiraling ever onward and upward and must discard the idea of historical inevitability. Everything is now up for grabs. New, more equal and caring societies do not flow inevitably from the misshapen sluice gates of the old. The world is ours to change--and if we do not change it, then our descendants will reap a whirlwind that will make most of the events in history hitherto seem small." ( )