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James

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Good Overview for the Long Period

Overall
4 out of 5 stars
Performance
4 out of 5 stars
Story
4 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 01-24-23

The book consists of 71 chapters which are organized into Parts I through XVI with between two and seven chapters being allocated to each Part. The parts themselves are unnamed and lack dates or regional designations while the chapters are often obscurely named: Zanj, The Black Guard, The Magnificent Cake, etc. With this deficiency, the author often loses the opportunity to help the reader mentally organize the material about to be described.

One could organize the large book’s content into three main groups:
Early Group: The first two parts (with 9 chapters) cover earliest time in Egypt to the mid-1400s.
Middle Group: The next twelve parts (with 48 chapters) cover earliest European contact in the 1400s until Independence (1940s). This large section is roughly chronological switching between northern, eastern, western, central and southern Africa's affairs.
Later Group: The final two parts (14 chapters) cover Independence and until time of writing.

One can observe that material in periods prior to 300AD is heavily focussed on the north and northeast of Africa – either from cultures with their own/nearby writing systems or cultures in contact with external sources (Roman, Greek) who wrote about them. Material in other parts of Africa is sparse and this is apparently due to the relative scarcity of archaeological research in these pre-literate regions of Africa.

As North Africa become Islamic and literate and traders from those regions started to trade with sub-Saharan regions and regions on coastal East Africa, more parts of Africa start to have available history. Descriptions of sub-Saharan regions are generally told from the point-of-view of literate outsiders who came to trade. This “outsider view” of African history continues with European contact as their ships landed on different parts of the African coast to trade goods and engage in slave trade. Presumably, through much of the period, there is little written material available produced by Africans native to the sub-Sahara.

The historical content becomes broader as the book progresses and there is presumably more source material to reference.

Overall, given the historical materials available to consult, the author does a good job describing the history over this continent over the long period.

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4 people found this helpful

Content is OK but the Writing is amateurish

Overall
3 out of 5 stars
Performance
3 out of 5 stars
Story
3 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 01-06-23

The book is OK for an introductory work. The book doesn’t explain why the kingdoms chosen before 300 were all well to the north (and mostly northeast) of the continent – one expects that it’s a matter of where written records are available to historians. Including the Ghana and Mali empires in a volume of ancient history is a stretch according the standard usage of “ancient history”. The book’s writing is OK but it should have been regularly improved by a more articulate editor. It would be hard to count the number of times I improved wording of a just finished sentence in my head.

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1 person found this helpful

Story from a pedophile's viewpoint

Overall
2 out of 5 stars
Performance
3 out of 5 stars
Story
2 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 01-02-23

The book centres around a scholar in his 30s who is obsessed with per-pubescent girls and his desire for them. After he marries a woman to open opportunities for her young daughter, the story continues to describe his efforts and "successes". The book is told from the perspective of this main character. Most of the narrative centres around the main character’s paedophilic obsession -- both with his step-daughter and for others “young nymphettes” that his step-daughter meets and brings into his proximity.

The work is variously praised for its ingenious wordplay and eloquence as well as its exploration of obsession, desire and lust on a topic rarely discussed in the mainstream. However for me: the book’s much-praised turn of phrase didn’t come close to overcoming my revulsion for the main character or most of the book’s narrative. Had the book not been so widely praised, I would have discontinued it after one or two chapters. I did stick it out to the very end and I despised the work.

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1 person found this helpful

Aimed at a pre-teen audience

Overall
1 out of 5 stars
Performance
1 out of 5 stars
Story
1 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 01-02-23

If you were a child, the humour in this book might be just your thing.

However, I have difficulty seeing how an adult would find the book entertaining. The story contents and the narrator's voice are what you'd expect for someone around the age of 5.

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Some interesting bits intermixed with dull content

Overall
2 out of 5 stars
Performance
3 out of 5 stars
Story
2 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 10-17-21

I found the author's personal accounts of swimming dull. And if you missed it from the dozens of time she repeated it: yes, we understand that she herself greatly enjoys swimming. I swim twice a week myself but just as one pastime among others.

I found that she went into way too much detail for many of her subjects -- generally swimmers that I didn't know or frankly gain much interest in from her telling. Perhaps a third of her subjects were interesting -- like the swim teacher in Baghdad who taught so many to swim at no charge.

Some of the content relates to the story title but not very much. The overall story lacks a coherent story line. It jumps back-and-forth on: a) the history and importance of swimming in human history, b) stories about her various swimmers from the present time or recent past and c) her own experience and love of swimming.

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1 person found this helpful

Simplistic Characters

Overall
3 out of 5 stars
Performance
3 out of 5 stars
Story
3 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 06-18-21

Follett can write a good plot but almost every character are either very good (generous, kind, thoughtful) or very bad (to a comic book degree). The author seems to lack ability to include a reasonable proportion of characters who aren't saints or devils.

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Whining and self-doubt

Overall
1 out of 5 stars
Performance
1 out of 5 stars
Story
2 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 03-01-21

I stuck with it for 8 chapters but there is 10% plot and 80% whining and self-doubt. And the narrator's breathy tone makes it even worse. Usually I try to get through more before giving up on a story but I had to stop my suffering.

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1 person found this helpful

This book could have been so much better

Overall
3 out of 5 stars
Performance
4 out of 5 stars
Story
3 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 05-12-20

The author presents so many interesting facts, behaviours and studies about a range of animals. The book had the potential to be an excellent book. However, the author would present the interesting facts and then go on to spend 2 or 3 times as long presenting differing or opposing views to his beliefs and then give reasons why he thought those views were incorrect (this annoying approach was more prevalent in the first half of the book). I am OK with presenting differing views but he shouldn't have spent SO MUCH time building up straw men and then knocking them down. The author often comes across as a disputatious academic rather than a learned teacher.

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1 person found this helpful

Great at Times, Too Preachy at Others

Overall
3 out of 5 stars
Performance
4 out of 5 stars
Story
3 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 03-27-20

The part of the story that describes the two main characters' childhood years was very well done. Even brilliant. But the other parts are not.

Throughout the book, it jumps forward into the 1980s. These are irrelevant page-filling sections which are also very preachy. OK, so the author despises Reagan and abhors the Iran-Contra affair. Save it for a current affairs columns and don't come back to it time-after-time-after-time in a book, especially when it has no relevance to the story or plot.

The 1960s section of the book is much less interesting than the childhood portion (which runs late '40s to late '50s). The author gets on his anti-Vietnam War horse (fine, I respect that view) but I don't want to hear about it from so many different characters and in so many different ways. There are far better documentaries on the topic so don't ruin a novel. Even the characters in the book are far less interesting as they reach their adult years in the 1960s. The author is so busy with his Vietnam War diatribes that good story-telling takes a back seat.

The book could have been outstanding with a firm editorial hand. But Irving is a big author by this time so he gets to drone on about his pet topics and it all goes through to publication. Too bad because with tough editing, it could have been a five star book.

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Three Main Problems with this Book

Overall
2 out of 5 stars
Performance
1 out of 5 stars
Story
2 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 12-31-19

1. His Words
As others have pointed out, the narration is poor, the author mispronounces many words and he uses many words incorrectly (e.g. you don't "dispose an emperor", painted armour is fancy not fanciful and so on).

2. His Analysis
All too many of his cases involved the losing side not adjusting to very new technology or new tactics as quickly as the opponent. To me, a blunder involves key mistake(s) by the losing side that lead to the loss. A brilliant tactical innovation (or rapid adoption of technology) by the winning side is more of a credit to the winner than an unforgivable mistake by the loser. Also: why select minor (almost inconsequential) incidents like Dieppe or convey PQ17 in WWII instead of battles that were key to the overall tide of events?

3. His Obsession with Singling out the British Errors
Every mention of the British (if we include the single Scottish case) was an examination of a British screwup. 60% of the stories from 1500 (when England became something of a power) were focussed on British blunders, including 5 of the 6 blunders that author thought worthy of analysis from 1899. Through this time-frame, the British amassed a large Empire, helped beat Revolutionary France and was on the winning side in two World Wars but the author selected British errors time and again through the period. The author should have broadened his outlook -- blunders abound from a range of nations.

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