From the master storyteller and internationally bestselling author - the story of humanity from prehistory to the present day is told through the one thing all humans have in common: family.

We begin with the footsteps of a family walking along a beach 950,000 years ago. From here, Montefiore takes us on an exhilarating epic journey through the families that have shaped our world: the Caesars, Medicis and Incas, Ottomans and Mughals, Bonapartes, Habsburgs and Zulus, Rothschilds, Rockefellers and Krupps, Churchills, Kennedys, Castros, Nehrus, Pahlavis and Kenyattas, Saudis, Kims, and Assads.

A rich cast of complex characters forms the beating heart of the story. Some are well-known leaders, from Alexander the Great, Attila, Ivan the Terrible, and Genghis Khan to Hitler, Thatcher, Obama, Putin, and Zelensky. Some are creative, from Socrates, Michelangelo, and Shakespeare to Newton, Mozart, Balzac, Freud, Bowie, and Tim Berners-Lee.

Others are lesser-known: Hongwu, who began life as a beggar and founded the Ming dynasty; Kamehameha, conqueror of Hawaii; Zenobia, Arab empress who defied Rome; King Henry of Haiti; Lady Murasaki, first female novelist; Sayyida al-Hurra, Moroccan pirate-queen. Here are not just conquerors and queens but prophets, charlatans, actors, gangsters, artists, scientists, doctors, tycoons, lovers, wives, husbands, and children.
This is world history on the most grand and intimate scale - spanning centuries, continents, and cultures, and linking grand themes of war, migration, plague, religion, medicine, and technology to the people at the centre of the human drama.

As spellbinding as fiction, The World captures the story of humankind in all its joy, sorrow, romance, ingenuity, and cruelty in a ground-breaking, single narrative that will forever shift the boundaries of what history can achieve.