" A good book to get a high level overview of important phases of history, or the entire history of man, if you so choose. But to read the whole thing would be dizzing. i just read the chapters on the "classical mediterranean," which includes Greece, Alexander the Great, Rome, and the fall of the empire to the barbarians. I also read the beginning chapters on how man evolved from apes to humans who build civilizations and the first civilizations, such as Sumer. I enjoy reading about the passage of vast swaths of time, like how it took hundreds of thousands of years for man to evolve, or how agriculture shows up in 10000 BC and it takes 7000 years for a real civilization to organize. If the US were to crumble in a hundred years, a future author writing a similarly expansive history book would barely devote a paragraph to the 300 years we've been around. "
— Dan, 11/20/2013