THE WORLD A Family History of Humanity

This ambitious audiobook by the author of THE ROMANOVS offers a comprehensive global history in the tradition of Toynbee and Wells. It's a polished, richly detailed narrative that any one of the half dozen best members of this unwieldy ensemble, or a compatible three or four, could have made memorable. Instead, the listener encounters a bewildering variety of voices and accents, presumably reflecting the global scope of the narrative but that are highly uneven in talent and experience. Adding to the difficulty, narrators change frequently, often in the middle of episodes and following no apparent purpose or design. These constant arbitrary shifts in accent, pace, and aptitude shatter the narrative and tire the ear. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE 2023]