Titans of History: The Giants Who Made Our World Paperback by Simon Sebag Montefiore ( W & N) (Weidenfeld & Nicolson))

What a load of gimmerish. Simon Sebag Montefiore clearly deserves an award for writing one of the worst history books of recent years.

In a way, he is merely keeping up with times, when the Twitter generations can only struggle with a couple of pages before their mind wonders off. Such is this book: a lazy Wikipedia paste and copy, with a few edits so we dont notice. In fact, Simon does deserve some applause as he has successfully shortneded Wikipedia entries into smaller units: Columbus gets one page, and crappy beyond belief, for instance.

The fact that so many readers gave it top stars in an illustration of the current attention span of a few too many, and the fact that other writers plastered a few appraisals on the cover just goes to show how much of a sell out these fake intellectuals can be.

The writing style makes your average wikipedia entry read like poetry, and his habit for consulting it in abundance is clear from the dislocated paragraphs where one thing rarely leads unto another. Then there is his wise selection.... How do two African dictators like Idi Amin and Macias Nguema get a place as Titans and other far more influential African leaders get no place at all? Perhaps it is because Simon has not a clue what he is dealing with.

I shall stay away from such junk plagiarisers who wish to pass off as historians...