A Short History of the World in 50 Failures

Author: Gazur, Ben

General & world history

Published on 5 December 2024 by Michael O'Mara Books Ltd in the United Kingdom.

Hardback | 288 pages, B/w line drawings throughout
178 x 129 | 350g

Explore the failures, mistakes and missed opportunities that shaped history in this new entry in the bestselling series.

From the botched attempt to create a life-extending elixir that produced gunpowder, to the unsuccessful stint in medical school which led to a career in naturalism for Charles Darwin, to the missile detection system malfunction that almost sparked a nuclear war, the course of human history has so often been shaped by failures of all magnitudes.

In fifty bite-sized chapters spanning thousands of years, A Short History of the World in 50 Failures details how the world as we know it has been defined by plans gone awry, opportunities not seized upon and schemes that were always fated to end in catastrophe.

Whether it’s the pharaoh Akhenaten’s misplaced attempt to found a new religion or Napoleon’s doomed invasion of Russia, discover a fascinating collection of outsized tales and historical snafus that created the world as we know it today.