How the World Made the West

Reviews / Votes

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 * An eye-popping, mind-blowing, ground-breaking juggernaut of an argument, from a writer ready to roar -- LUCY WORSLEY Erudite, inventive, playful - a work of great confidence, empathy, learning and imagination -- RORY STEWART No one but Josephine Quinn could have written a book like this - a book of enormous erudition and curiosity; a book that teaches you something new on almost every page. With a sense of growing political urgency, How the World Made the West reveals the folly of civilisational thinking. In its place, Quinn traces the many entangled paths of art, commerce, religion, and language, forging a deeper and truer understanding of our common world -- MERVE EMRE A masterpiece that gives us a new lens to understand 4,000 years of history -- OLIVETTE OTELE This book - full of memorable stories - is nothing less than a reorientation of the history of "the West." Josephine Quinn persuasively shows that the mingling of cultures through trade and migration is as old as civilisation itself, breaking down the hackneyed idea of the uniqueness of the Greco-Roman world . . . This is a book to unite us in divided times -- SIR JONATHAN BATE Josephine Quinn is one of the few scholars writing today who could possibly present such a masterful sweeping overview as an accessible and compelling story . . . A marvelous, majestic book. This will be an instant classic -- ERIC CLINE Jo Quinn gives us a fascinating insight into the entanglements that have driven change in our collective past: the journeys, meetings, relationships and exchanges that, more than anything else, have helped shape our world today. It is a brilliant reminder that our human story is - and always will be - empty if we don't acknowledge the ways in which we have constantly interacted with, and depended on, one another -- MICHAEL SCOTT