"Empire: A New History of the World: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Civilizations" written by author Paul Strathern is an audiobook narrated by Elliot Fitzpatrick published by Tantor Audio originally published by Hodder & Stoughton in a hardcover edition under the title "Rise and Fall: A History of the World in Ten Empires" is a brisk overview of human civilizations across 5,000 years. Somehow author Paul Strathern is able to clearly distill each empire he examines down to their individual cycles of growth, success, and decline. A key insight he brings out is that although the overall lifecycles of each civilization is inevitable the ones with the briefest limited success are controlling and repressive while the ones that allow for a degree of freedom of individuality and religious' worship have greater and more enduring success. Elliot Fitzpatrick matches the briskness and clarity of Strathern's prose with his lucid narration. An excellent snapshot of human civilization through the lens of empire. ( )

I listened to this on a cross-country trip. It was an adequate review of the civilizations it highlighted. ( )

Amazing information density. The author managed to condense a multi volume topic into a very short book. Probably not the perfect book if you're completely ignorant of the subject but a valuable recap to organise your knowledge and some interesting observations. ( )

Covering the entirety of civilization in a (relatively) short book is problematic, regardless of the author's grasp on the subject. Strathern is not an unknown quantity to me; however, after more than two decades in bookselling, I cannot reliably place his name to any other single title. This was certainly not unenjoyable, but most probably because I had a familiarity with the topic, and was not relying on the author for his perspective. I may have been less tolerant if reading the book, but the audiobook was pleasant enough to get me through to his survey of the twentieth century, which was outright embarassing, and should be excised from the book altogether. ( )

A very brief and generalized look at the similarities in the rise and fall of ten empires. Strathern looks at empires from across the globe and many different periods of time, but there isn't a strong unifying theme to make this book much more than mildly interesting. ( )