BIG IDEAS FROM HISTORY

A broad overview of history, with an eye to lessons it can teach.

Though initially framing their account broadly chronologically as a march of progress beginning with the Big Bang, by the time the modern era swims into view, the authors shift to topical segments ranging in scope from the invention of central heating and an interesting notion that belief in God was replaced by reverence for art to an oversimplified account of the legacy of colonization on newly independent African states. The overall approach is exemplified by an explanation that the Roman Empire fell because the Romans “lost confidence in themselves” and “gave up trying to be better”: “Rome needed psychotherapy.” Many segments feature open-ended questions or reflections, but along with plenty of factual errors (no, the heliocentric solar system wasn’t Galileo’s discovery, and Edward Jenner used cowpox, not smallpox, to immunize his subjects), dubious claims, such as that women didn’t earn but were given the vote in Great Britain because the government “just believed that this was the right and fair thing to do,” point to an optimism that goes beyond determined to blinkered coupled with, in many instances, a superficial level of detail that omits critical context. Amid stock images, Doherty’s racially diverse cartoon scenes are charming but appear directed at a much younger audience than the level of the text. Ultimately, there is little to redeem the narrative’s hand-wavy dismissal of accuracy in the name of personal self-realization.

Big ideas, yes, but given poor service.