A Shite History of Nearly Everything

by Antal Parody

The questions to many befuddling moments of history are answered in this extensive compendium, from the Romans who put perfume on their pet dogs and horses to the ancient Egyptians who walked for miles barefoot, carrying their sandals, only to put them on when they reached their destination. In a laughable review of the past, it asks how the human race has gotten to where we are today, and, more importantly, whether it was worth the trouble. What have we achieved since the dawn of time, and what have we managed to screw up?  With the same charm as the rest of the Shite series, this tome is guaranteed to amuse, entertain, and—who knows?—inform in equal measure.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Humor

160 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2005

Reviews

[Gautam Kamath · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining book loaded with fun facts. A firmly tongue in cheek narrative style keeps it light and funny. But perhaps it should’ve been named Shite history of everything concerning the US/UK. The continents of Africa and S.America might as well not exist. And a few cursory passing references to Asia.

[John Naylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another book I would describe as a "toilet book".

It has a lot of bite-sized "facts", jokes and quotes. There are many, many inaccuracies in the facts but there is also a disclaimer about these at the start of the book.

A perfectly fine book to dip into and to read a few pages at a time.

[Tiit Sepp · Rating 4 out of 5]

A easy to read really randomly assembeled summary of Earth and Earthlings history. It probably is a great source for local pub quiz questions. Early on some fact given in book gave me distress and went to Wikipedia-info-mining, but as these turned out to state the same I kept more on the book and less on the Wikipedia. As a side note it would be worth to mentio that this book is very British as relatively many British references are given.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but as the title suggests, quite "shite". A lot of aspects are briefly visited and can be a good launching point to further research; a lot of the rest is badly written, boring, or strewn with pointless quotes.

[David Mundy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprised me by being informative as well as amusing. Excellent layout and a great selection of quotes. "The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity" G. B. Shaw, just one sample.

[F.K. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Has a few interesting facts & ok to dip into but overall not as funny as I thought it would be.

[Miles · Rating 4 out of 5]

TMI. Lovely. Random infos about science, philosophy, history & invention.

[Tempo de Ler · Rating 1 out of 5]

{Blog} http://tempodler.blogspot.pt/2012/07/...

A única coisa que gostei neste livro foi do título...

Além de ser um livro confuso, as explicações do autor são vagas, desinteressantes e mal construídas. De qualquer das formas, é difícil tornar as justificações interessantes quando a maior parte dos temas não o é!

Apesar de pequeno, achei o livro difícil de ler porque é aborrecido e monótono - nada daquilo que esperamos quando adquirimos um livro deste género...com este título...

Sobressaem diversas tentativas de humor por parte do autor, mas estas tendem a falhar redondamente.

[Jerry Diakiw]

An amazing read about the history of science. Reads like a mystery novel If I was a science teacher I would use this book to excite and inerest students in the subject

[Khalid · Rating 5 out of 5]

A clever way to write about history and provide information on historical events that you didn’t learn in your history classes.

[Avin · Rating 4 out of 5]

u will laugh ur balls off

[Asha Mohan]

Two hours of....... hmmmmnnnn!?

[Mrugesh · Rating 4 out of 5]

What's not to like? You turn any page, there's a nice historical trivia, or a funny anecdote.

[Pedram · Rating 3 out of 5]

It a historical work which forgot more or less some important and existing facts. I used that as my toilet book. The book can amuse you and make you happier many times.

[Nick Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic little book full of bite size snippets of history, politics and science., along with a handful of famous quotes. It’ll make you roll your eyes but you’ll laugh out loud at the same time.

[VC Gan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book somewhat disappointing. Most of the facts are short and lack of details. By and large it contains mostly quotes and throws up a number of names and dates that most of us won't have read before. Overall if you're a trivia reader this book is for you. Otherwise this book could be a good bathroom read.