From the beginning of the world, when God created Audrey Hepburn, the guilt complex and worker ants, to the end, broadcast live on a TV chat show, this book whips through our tortuous past with the deftness of a surgeon's scalpel.

From the beginning of the world, when God created Audrey Hepburn, the guilt complex and worker ants, to the end, broadcast live on a TV chat show, "A History" whips through our tortuous past with the deftness of a surgeon's scalpel. Jonah confronts a ship of Norwegian whalers; a medieval pilgrim points out the London Eye to his bored son on their way to Canterbury; Little Red Riding Hood gets drunk on cherry brandy with the wolf, and Bob Dylan loses his shadow. Death and destruction, cruelty to animals, boredom, overpopulation: enough is enough. A crowd gathers at the Vatican to protest against mortality, only to be distracted by the latest football scores ...A history unlike any other - at once sinister, alarming and breathlessly funny.