How The World Made The West

By (author) Quinn, Josephine
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''One of the most fascinating and important works of global history to appear for many years'' (William Dalrymple), this epic debut from Josephine Quinn rewrites the story of the Western world.
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A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR: The Times/Sunday Times, Observer, Economist, Guardian, BBC History Magazine, i-paper and History Today

''One of the most fascinating and important works of global history to appear for many years'' William Dalrymple

''Quinn has done a lot more than reinvent the wheel. What we have here is a truly encyclopaedic and monumental account of the ancient world'' The Times

Ancient Greece and Rome are considered the parents of Western civilisation. But the ancient world was much more interconnected than we realise - a place of constant exchange, commerce and theft, sex, war and enslavement.

Journeying from the Levant of 2500 BC to the dawn of the Age of Exploration, Josephine Quinn argues that the roots of the West can be found in everything from Indian mathematics to the chariots of the Steppe, from Arabic poetry to the Phoenician art of sailing. The result is an epic and revelatory history of our shared past.

''Superb, refreshing and full of delights, this is world history at its best'' Simon Sebag-Montefiore
‘Full of little gem-like shifts of perspective’ Guardian
‘Scintillates with its focus on the unexpected’ Economist
‘A work of great confidence, empathy, learning and imagination’ Rory Stewart
‘This is, in every way, a big book’ TLS

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A revelatory account of how the ancient world was much wider and more interconnected than traditionally thought - and the lessons that holds for today
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Astounding . . . Both erudite and witty, sweeping and granular, this book is revisionist history at its best
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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
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One of the most fascinating and important works of global history to appear for many years
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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
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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
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An eye-popping, mind-blowing, ground-breaking juggernaut of an argument, from a writer ready to roar
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Erudite, inventive, playful – a work of great confidence, empathy, learning and imagination
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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
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A masterpiece that gives us a new lens to understand 4,000 years of history
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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