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

by Erik Sass

Hardcover, 2008

Status

Available

Call number

D23 .S28

Series

Mental Floss

Genres

Publication

Harper (2008), Edition: First Edition, 432 pages

Description

About 60,000 years ago, the first Homo sapiens were just beginning their move across the grasslands and up the ladder of civilization. Everything since then, as they say, is history. Just in case you were sleeping in class that day, the geniuses at mental_floss magazine have put together a hilarious (and historically accurate) primer on everything you need to know-and that means the good stuff.Twelve core chapters of world history tackle everything from civilization's baby steps in the Fertile Crescent to the Not-Really-That-Dark-Unless-You-Lived-in-Europe Ages to A World United by Terror and TV. From the Golden Haemorhoids of the Philistines (punishment from above) to the likely namesake of the cartoon elephant Babar (a Mongol prince) to the most pressing language translation issues facing the menus of today ("carp" vs. "crap"), all of history's most interesting bits have finally been handpicked and roasted to perfection.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member figre

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.

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LibraryThing member JeffV

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.

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LibraryThing member PeggyK49

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.

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LibraryThing member PortM

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.

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LibraryThing member BooksOn23rd

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.

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LibraryThing member melydia

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.

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LibraryThing member marshapetry

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

LibraryThing member murderbydeath

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.

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LibraryThing member unclebob53703

This was like a 400 page history term paper from a couple of stoned teenagers, bristling with information accurate and otherwise, and told in a breathless, non-stop fashion that sucked all the air out of the room. Funny here and there, but a lot of history really doesn't lend itself to humor, or

for that matter, quick summarization. The mind numbing repetitiveness of human aggression doesn't help either.

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