Bokelskere.no

Oj oj oj - for en bok og her går det fort! Verdenshistorien sett gjennom mennesker og familedynastier med stor detaljrikdom. Aldri kjedelig eller tungt. Alle vil finne noe nytt, uansett hvor mye historie du har lest, for denne boken likner ingen andre historiebøker. Du vil bli fasinert og frastøtt, og du vil bli overrasket. Dette må være høydepunktet i Simon Sebag Montefiores forfatterskap.

Jeg jukser litt og kopierer inn anmeldelse av boken fra Publishers Weekly:

“Violence, treachery, and sex are the motors of history in this sweeping chronicle. Historian and novelist Montefiore (The Romanovs) surveys wars, massacres, revolutions, plagues, famine, and socioeconomic transformations from the rise of the Mesopotamian city states to the Biden administration, giving China, India, Africa, central Asia, and pre-Columbian America as much space as the West. . . . Montefiore makes women central to the story, as queens and regents or as mothers and mistresses manipulating feckless kings. (They also hold their own in mayhem: the seventh-century Chinese royal concubine Miss Wu allegedly broke up Emperor Gaozong’s marriage by killing her own infant daughter and framing the Empress for murder.) And there’s plenty of sex, with the orgies of Rodrigo Borgia—aka Pope Alexander VI—perhaps taking the prize for debauchery. Setting a whirlwind pace, Montefiore skillfully guides readers through the tumult with elegant prose and evocative character sketches. It’s a bravura performance.”