How the World Made the West: : Josephine Quinn: Bloomsbury Publishing

How the World Made the West

Description

A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR: The Times/Sunday Times, Observer, Economist, Guardian, BBC History Magazine, i-paper, Novara Media and History Today

'Quinn has done a lot more than reinvent the wheel. What we have here is a truly encyclopaedic and monumental account of the ancient world' THE TIMES

'One of the most fascinating and important works of global history to appear for many years' WILLIAM DALRYMPLE

The West, the story goes, was built on the ideas and values of Ancient Greece and Rome, which disappeared from Europe during the Dark Ages and were then rediscovered by the Renaissance. But what if that isn't true?

In a bold and magisterial work of immense scope, Josephine Quinn argues that the real story of the West is much bigger than this established paradigm leads us to believe. So much of our shared history has been lost, drowned out by the concept – developed in the Victorian era – of separate 'civilisations'.

Moving from the Bronze Age to the Age of Exploration, How the World Made the West reveals a new narrative: one that traces the millennia of global encounters and exchange that built what is now called the West, as societies met, tangled and sometimes grew apart. From the creation of the alphabet by Levantine workers in Egypt, who in a foreign land were prompted to write things down in their own language for the first time, to the arrival of Indian numbers in Europe via the Arab world, Quinn makes the case that understanding societies in isolation is both out-of-date and wrong. It is contact and connections, rather than solitary civilisations, that drive historical change. It is not peoples that make history – people do.

'A work of great confidence, empathy, learning and imagination' RORY STEWART
'Bold, beautifully written and filled with insights . . . Extraordinary' PETER FRANKOPAN

Product details

Published	29 Feb 2024
Format	Ebook (PDF)
Edition	1st
Extent	576
ISBN	9781526665164
Imprint	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing

Author

Josephine Quinn

Josephine Quinn is Professor of Ancient History at…

A revelatory account of how the ancient world was much wider and more interconnected than traditionally thought - and the lessons that holds for today

What to Read in 2024, Financial Times
Astounding . . . Both erudite and witty, sweeping and granular, this book is revisionist history at its best

i-news
Quinn keeps the revelations coming at a fair lick . . . In 400 crisp pages, 30 societies are paraded before us with comparative reflection and world-weary wit. Better still, Quinn's book is polemical

Pratinav Anil, The Times
One of the most fascinating and important works of global history to appear for many years

WILLIAM DALRYMPLE
Bold, beautifully written and filled with insights, How the World Made the West demands that we challenge traditional views of the past. An extraordinary achievement

PETER FRANKOPAN
How the World Made the West has plenty of myths about the ancient world to dispel . . . The vicissitudes in each centre's fortunes make for a dynamic narrative, as cities that were once great are swept away, and new ones spring up in their wake

Daisy Dunn, Telegraph