1688: A Global History Book

Two things strike you most about John E Wills remarkable history book: that no one has done it before, and that it has been done so well, so seamlessly. Like other bestselling historians of recent years, Norman Davies Europe: A History or Felipe Fernandez-Armesto Millennium, Wills' scope is vast, but in only in space, not in time. He surveys the entire globe, but confines his time-scale to the single year 1688. This year is crucial to the history of the West as it is the year of Great Britain's Glorious (because bloodless) Revolution, a seismic political shift that would ultimately prove far more significant than the French Revolution. In Japan, meanwhile, the Shogun is very anxious about cruelty to dogs; in North America, a Jesuit priest and a tribe of Pima Indian converts are about to discover that California is part of the mainland; and in Australia, William Dampier records the first Western impressions of aborigines: "The inhabitants of this country are the most miserable people in the world...." Dampier's gentlemanly wealth, of course, derived from buccaneering on the high seas. With such material to work with, 1688 was bound to be fascinating, but it could easily have become a ragbag as well. In fact, it is beautifully fashioned, a fine example of "compare and contrast". The date itself, for instance--1688--was only a European construct. For Muslims the year was 1099, and for the Chinese, it was the 26th year of the Kangxi reign. This is, all said, a lucid global history for our confusing global age. --Christopher HartRead More