I’ve given this book 3 stars but I’m really conflicted about it.

This short book is amazingly researched and fascinating at times. It covers 5000 years of world history and is a summary of the Durants’ eleven-volume epic masterpiece called The Story of Civilization. So, as you can imagine, at 119 pages, the book was pretty dense. And I just wasn’t in the mood for it.

It wasn’t hard to follow. There was just a lot of information in each and every sentence. This is definitely the type of book I would pick up again in a year or two to see if I can assimilate more of it.

If you’re in a clear headspace and want to have a sense of all the trends in history across these topics — geography, biology, race, character, morals, religion, economics, socialism, government, war, growth and decay, and progress — and not spend the rest of your life reading all about it, then this is an absolutely excellent choice for you.