Well ive read my share of book on american history, but i have never read nor taken a class on world history or european history. Everything that I know about world history, comes from common sense, and books which made short allusions to it. I would prefer the most unbiased book possible, but if the author must lean any way, it must be left. Im pretty much looking for something like Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the US. What i mean, is that it must give me tons of facts, but it also must be readable because i plan on reading it like a novel. Id like to stay within the 500 page range, but a deviation of a couple hundred pages is fine.
I think you’ll have to be more specific, but if by ‘history’ you’d like a summary of why the modern world is the way it is, I’d recommend Jared Diamond’s Guns Germs and Steel. It’s readable, but it’s nothing like a novel with little twists and turns. Rather, he starts each chapter with a premise (i.e. a lack of domesticatable animals doomed the native Americans to death by smallpox), then supplies well-reasoned support for the premise.
Believe it or not, this was the first book that popped to my mind as well. But I don’t think this is what the author wants. He doesn’t want to know right now how the history came about, but what the history is.
“Cook: The Extraordinary Voyages of Captain James Cook” by Nicolaus Thomas.
I just ordered it myself and can’t wait to read it. I saw the author talk about his new “Cook” book on cspan one night. If he writes as well as he speaks it will be a great read. And full of facts.
Millennium * by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto is a great treatment of the millenium, and covers a lot of non standard history. Also very readable, and he does have some intresting ideas.
Rise and Fall of the British Empire by Lawrence James is a good history of what the title says it covers, and according to my history teachers can be considered a very accurate treatment of the subject. James again is good at writing for readability and good with the anecdotes as well.
Freedom at Midnight * is a very riveting account of Indian Independence and of Gandhi placed in his historical context. Can’t remember the authors but i think its the same people who wrote City of Joy. It might be a little short for your specifications though.
Look for The Handy History Answer Book-it’s basically a must have in my view, for history buffs. It’s not a very in-depth look, it’s more a handy guide to keep around.
I gotta recommend Millennium too. Fascinating, and comes a bit close of “People’s History of the United States”, in that it discusses the often less-well-covered parts of the history.
There is an excellent history series by Will and Ariel Durant.
I believe there are 12 or 14 (or 16?) volumes total, each book covering a separate period of history, chronilogically arranged, so if you are interested in a particular time period you can use just one or two books.
They are very well done, and in far more detail than the average all encompasing history book.
I’ve got good experiences with the Penguin histories.
So you could try the Penguin History of the World, except that it is 1151 pages. The fact that they think they need this many pages, however, does suggest that you simply cannot do the job in less. In other words, what dutchboy208 said.
BTW, browsing through Barnes and Noble they do in fact list A Short History of the World by the same author (J. M. Roberts), which is listed as only 539 pages.