This book is definitely wrongly titled. In fact, BBC journalist and trained historian Michael Wood (b. 1948) pays very little attention to the earliest civilizations (Mesopotamia, India, China, Egypt, Central America). He does take them as a starting point, but after a few pages he jumps over to the further history of the regions where those first civilizations occurred. And his main thesis, then, is that the basic features of those early civilizations also returned later, down to the present day. Of course, there’s something to it, but in doing this in such an extremist way, Wood ignores all the findings that have been highlighted by movements such as Global History, Transnational History, Connected and Subaltern History in recent decades. And that is that all civilizations and cultures have continuously influenced each other, in a mutual cross-fertilization, with very different accents and constant evolutions and shifts. Michael Wood apparently deliberately chooses to close his eyes to this, perhaps a consequence of the simplification of the TV format on which this book is based. Though this certainly is an enjoyable read, it is definitely outdated. More on that in my History account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1384596423 ( )

Vague. Lacks focus. I preferred Ancient World by Richard Mills but that book doesn't cover any of the non-Western civilizations such as China, India or the America's. ( )