Fifty Days That Changed The World by Hywel Williams

Fifty Days That Changed The World Reviews

• 
  Colin

  Possibly the most boring book I have ever finished. My excuse is that I bought this lovely looking Folio volume in pristine condition for £3 from our local charity shop, and thought I might expand my mind somewhat. The early years went straight over my head - I've never been a student of history as such, but over the years my mind has collected facts which help me to put things into context - but I persevered hoping to learn something. I guess almost all that I read was instantly forgotten, or I already knew it, and was just re-reading old stories - nothing seemed to provide any great depth of understanding, despite all the details presented.
  As the chronology arrived at the second half of the 20th century, it told of events that I had lived through, and as such were unimpressive records of such significant events, told in five or six pages. To read about the release of Mandela and the context to that, in six pages, was nothing to having seen the whole world watching this event ( I was actually listening on the radio.)
  It was only those things of which I have a deeper knowledge, such as MLK, that I realised there was no way of ascertaining truth from what was written. The story about MLK was factually wrong - there is so much known of this one wonders how the author got it wrong, but then one realises that the history writer fits things to their own narrative. So by the time I reached the end of the book I was quite grumpy!
• 
  Douglas

  This was a pretty decent book for the most part. The history is in bite-size formats. The author attempts to give a bit of background of each event discussed as well as just how a particular event changed the course of history in each example.
  
  I found the ancient-to-early 1900's discussions to be for the most part fascinating. The ancient events certainly seem far more world-shaping. The modern examples were good, but perhaps less impressive. That may just be because we're living these things. I also found a bit of a left-wing bent in the writing for the later work that wasn't overwhelming, but still could use a bit of better analysis for some of the conclusions made.
  
  Good diversion.
  
  One downside: This is a 'book club' exclusive. Folio society does produce lovely volume, but this I believe was a bonus book for signing up for a year, and it's not on open market. If you really want to read this, you'll have to join or borrow from someone who has in the past.