Do you want to learn about history but find it boring, tedious, or simply not fun? Then, I have a book for you. History of the World: An Irreverent Romp Through Civilization’s Best Bits by Erik Sass and Steve Wiegand is a rambunctious, engrossing book depicting everything from the world’s most important events to the weird, but entirely accurate, fun facts of history, some so outrageous that it sounds like they came right from the realm of fiction. Best of all, facts and the world’s story is presented in a fun and interesting way.

The book reads like one big, fantastic, debunking masterpiece, as the authors have loaded up their language with jokes, puns, and tons of useless pieces of information that makes history actually fun. The author’s start from the very beginning, covering all of the 60,000 years of human history, and they manage to do surprisingly well. Although it may never reach the depth of analysis that can be found in books dedicated to studying certain people, culture, and events, the authors of History of the World manages to touch on almost every single major culture, maintaining a wide approach in a very broad subject.

Structure wise, the book reads like a massive series of excerpts, giving status reports of the major nations and time passes, ensuring the reader never grows bored of one single place and one single time. In addition to the explanation of events and how they occurred, the book often gives explanations as to why the events occurred and why they are so important for us. What is so clever about how the authors manage this particular writing style, is that while the book is interesting, it is also informative, giving you a very brief, but quite concise, overview of history, which can be invaluable knowledge in today’s society. 

Overall, History of the World is a fine book to read if you want to brush up on your history, or just want to learn new facts about the world and the people that live in it, giving the reader a global picture of history through the ages, with a healthy dollop of sarcasm.