Ratings1
Average rating4
Romans! Madrigals! The Dark Ages! Revolutions! Trumpets! The Oranges of The First World War! All of this (except trumpets) and more, is covered in this definitive, easy-clean history of all world history so far, written by the 21st Century's leading historian, philosopher and thinkerer Philomena Cunk. Focussing on the inventions, art, and brainboxes that made the modern world the unbearable place it is today, The World According To Cunk is the history book to end all history books: more unputdownable than Andrew Marr's History Of The World, less unpickupable than Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens, and noticeably less in ancient Greek than Herodotus' Histories. Philomena Cunk says: "About the world, written on the world, and available at all the world's remaining bookshops, The World According To Cunk is the definitive history of the world. There will never need be another history book. Unless something major happens. Even then they'll probably just put something up on TikTok about it. A word of warning: please don't buy it if you're expecting anything about trumpets in it. You will only be disappointed."
Reviews with the most likes.
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
---
There was a part of me that wanted to just do a light edit of my post about Cunk on Everything: The Encyclopedia Philomena and call it good. But that seemed like cheating. But there are giant parts of it that would work.
Still, I’m borrowing a little here and there from it, just so I don’t have to re-invent the wheel. I apologize in advance if you don’t appreciate that. Also, let this section serve as an all-purpose footnote so no one accuses me of plagiarism.
It’s a history of the world, as much of one as Cunk can fit into 50,000 words with minimal research, anyway. The point is to get it out in time for the holiday season—targeted toward the UK and the US, so it’ll predominantly be about the history of that/those cultures, while remaining the sort of history book that recognizes that things happen in parts of the world that aren’t dominated by Western Culture.
Also, we’re told, that she’s taking the innovative approach to history and will be writing chronologically, not alphabetically or by some other standard. Whodathunk it? History in order. I tell you, what this Philomena Cunk is a gutsy maverick.
If you’ve watched YouTube videos, Instagram reels, or any of the other quick ways we share videos online (with or without copyright infringement), or if you’ve seen any of the various series/specials on Netflix or
British TV networks that I can’t remember the names of, you know what you’re getting into with Philomena Cunk. If you haven’t, well, that’s trickier. It means you’re a reader or something rare like that—Cunk is a fictional documentarian (or at least the presenter of them). her approach to the documentary specials or the history in this book are a combination of naïveté, misunderstandings (especially in mispronunciation/misspellings), and cynicism.
Doing a deep dive on this would be difficult for two reasons—I read an ARC, so I don’t want to quote anything (also, it would be very hard to know when to stop. Ask my wife, after you read the end). The second, and primary reason, is that if I talk too much about things, it’ll ruin the jokes for you when you read this (and you really should)
In lieu of that, here are some miscellaneous observations:
The last chapter, “The Global Globe” started off strong, but as the history got more and more current, the humor changed. Maybe it’s that Cunk’s particular brand of absurdity requires some distance to really work. However you explain it, this just didn’t work for me.
Now, was it funny political humor? Satisfying satire? Yes—I truly appreciated almost all of it. It just didn’t feel very Cunk-like. I couldn’t “hear” Diane Morgan’s voice. If it’d been in another book, I’d have really liked the end of this last chapter. But here? It just felt out of place.
I didn’t see (but maybe overlooked) the writers behind this book listed anywhere—but whoever they were, they deserve a round of applause. Or two.
I chuckled and laughed out loud a lot while reading this. There’s really not much more to say—that’s what they were going for.
My wife doesn’t get the appeal of Philomena, I don’t know why, I think it’s undeniable and obvious. So I really annoyed her by reading lines or paragraphs to my daughter while the three of us were in the same room. Sometimes, I had a stockpile of parts my daughter would like from reading when we weren’t in the same room. My kid and I had a lot of fun laughing together at this while my wife just looked at us strangely. I don’t share this to give you more insight into our fun little family dynamic—but to say that at least once (maybe three times, but Mrs. Reader denies this) even she laughed.
Seriously, up to the end of the last chapter, this was about as fun as you could want. Since I discovered Dave Barry Slept Here decades ago, I’ve been a sucker for history comedy—and The World According to Cunk by Philomena Cunk is a great entry in that category. (you might want to skip most of what happens after 1980).
Disclaimer: I received this eARC from Grand Central Publishing via NetGalley in exchange for this post—thanks to both for this.
Originally posted at irresponsiblereader.com.