A Short History of the World in 50 Places

Discover the most impactful and incredible episodes from human history, from the prehistoric era to the early twenty-first century, through fifty of the most surprising and often less well-known places in the world.



From the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, where remains of some of our earliest tool-using ancestors were found, to the CERN laboratory, where revolutionary technologies such as the World Wide Web were developed, each entry shows its influence on not just politics, but on the economy, culture, religion and society, as well as their links to great historical figures such as Alexander the Great, Buddha and Nelson Mandela. The size of the places ranges from small geographical features like a cave in Saudi Arabia where Islam began, to larger areas or regions, like Hollywood. Many entries are cities, such Jerusalem, Amritsar, and Rome, some others are buildings, like Anne Frank’s House in the Netherlands or the Confucius Temple in China, and there are even some that are rooms, such as the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles Palace. No place is too big or too small to be included, as long as it has had a significant impact on history.