Read Of The Week (Nov 27 to Dec 3)

From the master storyteller and internationally bestselling author, Simon Sebag Montefiore comes the story of humanity from prehistory to the present day, told through the one thing all humans have in common: family. As spellbinding as fiction, The World captures the story of humankind in all its joy, sorrow, romance, ingenuity and cruelty in a ground-breaking, single narrative that will forever shift the boundaries of what history can achieve.

We begin with the footsteps of a family walking along a beach 950,000 years ago. From here, Montefiore takes us on an exhilarating epic journey through the families that have shaped our world: the Caesars, Medicis and Incas, Ottomans and Mughals, Bonapartes, Habsburgs and Zulus, Rothschilds, Rockefellers and Krupps, Churchills, Kennedys, Castros, Nehrus, Pahlavis and Kenyattas, Saudis, Kims and Assads.

A rich cast of complex characters forms the beating heart of the story. This is world history on the grandest and most intimate scale — spanning centuries, continents and cultures, and linking grand themes of war, migration, plague, religion, medicine and technology to the people at the centre of the human drama.

Simon Sebag Montefiore is the internationally bestselling author of prize-winning books that have been published in 48 languages.