Erik SassRecensioni

This was like a 400 page history term paper from a couple of stoned teenagers, bristling with information accurate and otherwise, and told in a breathless, non-stop fashion that sucked all the air out of the room. Funny here and there, but a lot of history really doesn't lend itself to humor, or for that matter, quick summarization. The mind numbing repetitiveness of human aggression doesn't help either.

Audiobook version, read by Johnny Heller. I suspect this book would have been much better in a regular book format, rather than on audio. The boring and repetitive lists of events at each chapter (?) start are probably laid out visually in such a way as to allow you to refer back during the meat of each section. Aside from that, it was still a light and entertaining overview of historical events, presented in a way that I wish my dusty old history teachers could have taught it. I was even mightily impressed with the narrator's ability to make coherent sounding sentences using the tongue-twisting names of ancient civilizations and foreign languages. Until the book hit the 1940's and I had to endure hearing "nucular" spoken over and over again. I subtracted a star for that alone, and I'm afraid I had to abandon the audiobook while it was in the home stretch.

The authors bill this book as an irreverent romp through civilization's best bits. For the most part the irrevencey does make for an entertaining look through history. On the other hand, the history of the world has often been down right horrifying , and on occasion, that irrevencey is perhaps a tad bit inappropriate.

Í þessari bók er saga heimsins frá upphafi til 21. aldar sögð í knöppu formi og reynt er að hafa húmorinn og orðaleiki með til að létta upplýsingamagnið og til að gera bæði söguna áhugaverðari og léttmeltari.
Ritið fær plús fyrir mikla yfirferð og hve miklu magni upplýsinga Sass kemur að í knöppu formi. Hann leitast við að segja pólitíska, efnahagslega, matar, samfélagslega, tæknilega sögu heimsins auk alls hins. Þarna er óneitanlega margt sem kemur manni á óvart og er bæði forvitnilegt og skemmtilegt að læra.
Því miður verður Sass að hlaupa á hundavaði yfir alla heimssöguna og stundum gætir ónákvæmni og þá er óneitanlega ekki að finna þarna þætti sem mér finnst að væru ómissandi í svona söguyfirliti. Þá fundust mér orðaleikirnir og grínið mega missa sín stundum þegar það var orðið frekar leiðinlegt en fyndið.

I'd never heard of mental_floss before stumbling upon this book at a B&N in August. We were there so my husband could stock up on holiday reading, but since it's fundamentally impossible for me to walk out of a bookstore without a book in my hand, I added this to the pile thinking it would be perfect for those moments at night when I couldn't focus on more than a small bit of reading at a time.

History/geography are unarguably my two weakest areas on a trivial pursuit board. I can look back at all my schooling and say I've never had a geography lesson in my life - not even memorising the state capitals (or the states, for that matter). I remember every history class I took starting with the American Revolution and ending with the Civil War. This is embarrassing, although more for what it says about the educational system I was in than anything else. When I got to Uni and took a proper history class, it was a revelation - history could be interesting! But it can still be dry, boring and stultifying.

Not The Mental Floss History of the World! This is an entertaining romp through world history - the very highest level of overview - and I found myself driving the husband crazy between saying "you have to read this book!" and then reading stuff to him (let's face it, he probably won't read it anyway). Lots of stuff. This is a great read for those of us who want to know more about history but accept our limited attention spans because we don't find it that interesting. Broken up into eras (not official ones) it gives readers an overview of what happened, a timeline for that era, anecdotes/details about the major players and finally a list of big-number statistics. It's the kind of book where you can read a few pages, then put it down again without feeling like you've left off in the middle of something.

I wouldn't recommend this book for readers looking for anything academic, reverent or in-depth, but I'd highly recommend it for those out there who might be like myself: undereducated about history and wanting to know more, but preferring a breezy, slightly irreverent delivery. I'll definitely investigate their other titles, and be visiting their website regularly.½

Enjoyable, the title says it all. Highly recommend for those that like to find their knowledge gained thru odd facts. You'll end up saying... a lot... "you don't say...". Excellent narrator

This is a fun and entertaining book if you're looking for a brief history of the US. I found it indispensable while teaching for its humorous anecdotal stories of periods and personalities. History can be really dry, but this book will change your mind. Information includes pop culture references as well as more serious topics.

Not so good as a reference book, but a fun and surprisingly thorough overview of world history. There isn't as much about Africa as I would have liked, but they didn't have written records as early as the rest of the world, so it's kind of understandable that we know less about the ancient history of the people there. I liked the way the time periods had sections of bite-sized facts, like "who's up, who's down" and "so long, and thanks for all the...", to describe often vastly disparate topics and events. The world is a big place, after all. A lot of the larger events and movements I'd known about, but I picked up a whole bunch of great tidbits that I hadn't known.

I learned a lot from this brief overview of United States History from 23,000 BCE through 2010. The book is broken up into ten chapters each covering a range of years. In each chapter the author gives an overview of the time frame, a time line of notable events, a section on "lies your teacher told you," and a list of interesting statistics. The book is entertaining and humorous at times and it not only discussed the usual historical events, but it also covered pop culture. For example there were sections on the founding of Coca Cola and McDonalds, the development of American football, and the development and distribution of frozen food. Although the book is a quick summary of U. S. history, I learned something new in each chapter. I would recommend this book to anyone that feels like they need a refresher in U. S. history, it was interesting, entertaining, and informative.

THE MENTAL FLOSS HISTORY OF THE WORLD is chock-full of interesting nuggets of history that you probably never heard before. From 60,000 BCE to present day, Mental Floss brings you real history spiced with puns and sidebars of humorous character notes, origins of inventions, or quotes.
Each chapter covers a particular era. They begin with an overview, then a timeline, a description of what was happening in a few select places, a “Who’s Up, Who’s Down” score, a section on the good and bad inventions of the era, and finally a list of numbers, such as; 40: Average life expectancy, in years, of a citizen of the Roman Empire, and 93: Number of minutes it took to build a Model T in 1915.
Sometimes the ironies got to be a bit much, but I don’t think they detract from the overall satisfaction of this book. I learned some interesting facts such as how pretzels were invented. Any history fan will find this book enjoyable and I recommend it to all.

This was an entertaining, easy to read book about the history of the United States. It had all the basics that we learn in school, but added many facts in a fun way that the average person would not know. Not only was it a good review of our history but a way to learn a whole lot more!½

An interesting and fun overview of the history of our country. Mental floss approach brings up many interesting topics throughout the history it portrays as lies or maybe just misleading myths about what actually happened. It leaves you thinking, aha I knew that, or I thought so too. Both entertaining and thought provoking.

Audiobook version, read by Johnny Heller. I suspect this book would have been much better in a regular book format, rather than on audio. The boring and repetitive lists of events at each chapter (?) start are probably laid out visually in such a way as to allow you to refer back during the meat of each section. Aside from that, it was still a light and entertaining overview of historical events, presented in a way that I wish my dusty old history teachers could have taught it. I was even mightily impressed with the narrator's ability to make coherent sounding sentences using the tongue-twisting names of ancient civilizations and foreign languages. Until the book hit the 1940's and I had to endure hearing "nucular" spoken over and over again. I subtracted a star for that alone, and I'm afraid I had to abandon the audiobook while it was in the home stretch.

Full of interesting facts and very readable. My quibble? Doesn't give sources, which I would have liked.

I like the magazine and their website, the book was as good as I expected with fun facts and myth-busters thrown in. A fun read for even those who are averse to history.

Given to me by my son, I had no idea I would ever read this entire book....after all, it was history and history classes in school were SO boring. Although it took a while to read in bits & pieces, I did read the whole book and, for the most part, found Mental Floss' version of the history of the world to be very enjoyable. I learned a lot, probably more than I ever did in school.

The quick review. A lightly irreverent but interesting, fun, and fact-filled run through the entire history of humans on this planet (and a little bit off the planet – there is the moon after all.)

In brief snippets and various sidetracks, this book does as good a job as possible of providing the reader an entertaining look at everything that has happened everywhere. Each chapter represents a span of time (starting at 60,000 BCE – 1500 BCE and then reviewing progressively smaller periods of time until the last chapter is 1963-2007; still a rather large hunk of time for the history that occurred in that period, but what are you going to do when you’re limited to 420 pages). Each chapter then has a synopsis of the time period, a timeline, a focus on each of the areas of the globe (usually covering all the continents or sub-continents and, as an aside, this is a great example of how the book keeps from being too anything- [although usually Euro-] centric), “Who’s Up, Who’s Down” which hits a potpourri of stuff that occurred, good things that happened, bad things that happened, and some interesting stats about the time period.

There are things you already know in here. There are things you already know but didn’t know that much about. There are things you kind of remember. There are things you may have stumbled across in a college history class. There are things you never even thought about knowing. And all of it expressed in a way that, even when you knew it, is a refreshing way to refresh that knowledge.

I read it in bits and pieces whenever I had spare time. Would it work if you sat and read it from start to finish? I don’t know. The writing style might get a bit old over 420 solid pages. But I enjoyed it and will probably keep it handy for a reference on some things historical.

The Good Stuff

* American historical information written in an easy to read and understand format
* Funny as Hell, but also sensitively written at times
* You can see they have a love for their country, but at the same time admitting its faults and some of its less than stellar historical moments
* Wonderful explanation about "indentured service"
* The titles of the paragraphs are hilarious and often bang on!
* Really enjoyed the paragraph on the War of 1812, but would have liked more information but than again, it must be a little bit of a sensitive subject to the Americans. It reminded me of my favorite quote from Due South. And before I put this quote in, I love Americans, its just that Canadians usually think that we are the little brother and the US is our big brother so anytime we can get a shot in we do. "which makes the border between Canada and the United States the longest undefended border in the world. So that since their formation, our countries have found a peaceful way to coexist. Except for the War of 1812, where your country invaded ours and we sent you packing - but that's hardly worth mentioning - Due South January 2003)"
* This is a must have for every library
* Let me also say if every history teacher taught history a little more like this book, you would have a lot more students interested in it. History if fun and fascinating kids, but most of my history teachers bored the crap out of me and made me hate history class -- except for you Mr Shore and Mr Linton - u guys rocked!

The Not so Good Stuff

* lots of slagging of the Brits
* I know its a picky thing, but the font is seriously small -- but hey I'm a 40 yr old women, the eyesight ain't what it used to be

Favorite Quotes/Passages

"By the time they arrived in America, the English were masters at screwing their subjects (See: Ireland)"

"Even though the last American invasion of Canada during the Revolutionary War had been soundly defeated, the Americans decided to try again. They would liberate Canada from British rule, whether Canada liked it or not - and in fact, Canada did not like it, putting up a fierce resistance."

"People who maintain that the 1960's were groovy and mellow was either so addled with drugs they didn't notice what was going on, or so fried that they forgot about it later. The sixties brought violent upheaval, including assassinations, domestic terrorism by the KKK and crazy left-wing groups, clashes between anti-war protesters and police, and race riots that left hundreds dead. Not exactly "groovy."

What I Learned

* Way too much historical information about the US to list
* About a lot of misconceptions about certain historical events and figures -- interesting about the background to the Alamo

Who should/shouldn't read

* Not for "serious" history readers
* Great for Canadian's with a lack of knowledge and misconceptions about the US, its historical events and its historical figures
* A wonderful beginning history book for US students or those students who might find history boring -- this book is great at making it all sound interesting and exciting
* I'm pretty sure my British pals will not be huge fans
* A must have for every library -- think I might suggest purchase for Humber

4.5 Dewey's

I received this from HarperCollins in exchange for an honest review & they should not be held responsible for the quote I put in from Due South -- I love you guys in the U.S. and I know you will definitely save our asses in case of a killer asteroid, alien attack or massive blizzard : )

Mental Floss is a series of books (and I think magazines?) that provide executive summary - like distillations of otherwise heady topics. The description of this book on eMusic suggested it might be a little more humor-infused than it was (I was hoping for a lot of funny anecdotes). But it really did summarize the history of the world, hitting up on all of the major talking points. Scattered throughout are anecdotes and factoids, statics that are sometimes surprising, but they sometimes restate folk stories as fact when such things have been discredited otherwise. Not much of a use to me, but it could be of help to those who slept through World History in school.

Gaining and keeping the average reader's interest in history is a problem authors have faced for, well, probably most of history. One method is to try to liven things up with different takes or an unusual focus. That's the promise of The Mental Floss History of the World: An Irreverent Romp through Civilization's Best Bits. It's a promise not totally fulfilled.

The book approaches its subject like mental_floss magazine, trying to make gaining knowledge fun and accessible. Still, for the most part this 400+ page work is world history in a nutshell. In fact, each chapter starts with "In A Nutshell," a summary of the time period it covers

The 12 chapters use the same format throughout. The satellite's eye view of the nutshell is followed by a timeline of a dozen or so significant events. Additional detail is provided in four ensuing subsections. The first, "Spinning The Globe," takes a generally geographic approach to looking at countries, empires, peoples or events. The other three look at a variety of events, people and trends -- good, bad, silly or outrageous -- impacting subjects as wide ranging as food, weapons, religion, alcohol and sex. Each chapter concludes with statistical information relevant to the time period, such as average life expectancy, population or the length of time it took to build or the size of certain structures. Throughout, there are sidebars on various events, kingdoms or personalities as well as items of trivia.

The consistent style makes this a world history work in which one chapter is not necessarily dependent on having read a prior chapter and it is easy to find the quickest summary for a chapter's time period. Where the book falters, though, is in trying to live up to its subtitle.

Balance of review here.