A Short History of the World in 50 Failures

by Ben Gazur

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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Book Club, Historical, Short Stories

288 pages, Paperback

Published December 5, 2024

About the author

Ben Gazur holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Edinburgh. Giving up the glitz and glamour of the lab he became a freelance writer who has written widely on history and science for the likes of the BBC, All About History, and the Guardian newspaper. His first book was a biography of the philosopher Epicurus.

Reviews

[Julian Worker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book to read, dealing as it does with the opposite of what most people are interested in most of the time.

I'd never heard of some of these failures - for example the Wanggongchang explosion in Beijing in 1626 and the negative effect it had on the power of the Ming dynasty.

Also, I'd never heard of the scientist Thomas Midgley Junior. He did some impressive work on the vulcanisation of rubber and extracting bromine from seawater. However, he also found that adding tetraethyl lead to petroleum gasoline did away with the 'knocking' problem in motors and that Freon, a chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), worked well as a chemical refrigerant for fridges and air-conditioning systems. As I'm sure you're aware, both Freon and Tetraethyl Lead had 'side effects'.

[Benjamin Uke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ben Gazur writes history through a lens of failure and “what-ifs,” brings fifty bite-sized, narratives of historical follies and missed opportunities—from attempts to concoct life‑extending elixirs that resulted only in gunpowder, to Charles Darwin failing as a med student before going on to reshape biology, and even a missile detection system malfunction that nearly triggered a nuclear war.

A fun playful tidbit of a book.

[Paul Weiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Once you see how terribly some people have messed things up, you will understand that things can always be worse.”

History can turn on a dime – happenstance, good luck, bad luck, brilliance or stupidity, bravery or cowardice, and, of course, success – for whatever reason – and the depressing tail to success’ head, failure, of course.

“In some ways, failure is fundamental to life itself. Evolution only occurs because of accidental mutations that create diversity in a population and what is a mutation except the failure of a cell to exactly copy its DNA? Without those fundamental failures, there would be no life more complex than single-celled organisms. Humans are a triumph of failure, and we are still here.”

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE WORLD is an entertaining anthology of brief bite-sized tales of those fateful dimes on which the story of the world turned, where a left turn constituted success, and the other turn constituted failure. Whether that turn was literally or figuratively the “right” turn, or simply a different path for a complicated world to follow, is a matter for deeper historical discussion.

Your choice ... read it straight through novel-style or treat it like a bathroom reader to be spread over 50 visits. Either way, you won’t find it particularly complex, analytical, or gripping, but I’m certain you’ll find it entertaining.

Paul Weiss

[David Mamdouh · Rating 3 out of 5]

nice audio book 📖😄

[Francis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gezien ik dit boek in het Nederlands las, geef ik ook een Nederlandstalige recensie.

Ik hou ervan om de geschiedenis steeds vanuit een ander perspectief te zien. Een van de veelgebruikte perspectieven is succes: dankzij successen in de medische wereld of uitvindingen staan wij waar we vandaag de dag staan. Maar misschien is onze wereld ook wat hij is, precies vanwege onze mislukkingen.

Gezien ik geschiedenisboeken verslind als een alcoholist pintjes, had ik al van de meeste mislukkingen gehoord. Romeinen in het Teutoburgerwoud, de Tulpenmanie, de mislukte veldtocht van Napoleon in Rusland, en Alexander Fleming en penicilline (hij noemde dit schimmelsap!)

Zo gaat het ook over Darién. De Schotten waren jaloers op de Britten hun overzeese gebieden en wilden ook een winstgevende kolonie voor henzelf. Ze kwamen uit op de landengte in Panama. Als je weet welke miserie de Fransen en Amerikanen er zoveel jaren later hadden om het Panama-kanaal te graven, kun je jou inbeelden hoe rampzalig dit is afgelopen voor de Schotse expedities! Ja, ze stuurden er twee! De tweede vertrok net voordat er enkele overledenen van de eerste haveloos terug naar Schotland terugkeerden. De mislukking van het Dariénplan kan rechtstreeks in verband worden gebracht met het einde van Schotland als soevereine mogendheid.

Wat ik niet wist, is dat veel nieuwe zoetstoffen zoals sucralose en aspartaam ontdekt werden doordat wetenschappers hiermee domweg perongeluk in contact kwamen met hun vingers en vervolgens hun eten of zelfs sigaret opeens zeer zoet smaakte. Idem voor LSD. Albert Hoffman raakte zijn gezicht aan na het synthethiseren van lysergeenzuurdi-ethylamide en begon te hallucineren na dit kortstondig contact.

Ook Rusland komt hier weer heel bekaaid vanaf, met een dictator als Stalin die massale collectivatie afdwong en miljoenen Russen en Oekraïners (holodomor!) de hongerdood injaagde.

Dit boek lijkt overigens sterk op het boek van Tom Phillips: "De mens – Een kleine geschiedenis van onze allergrootste fuck-ups". Voor iedereen die geïnteresseerd is in geschiedenis en onze menselijke tekortkomingen.

[chloe · Rating 3 out of 5]

(bought at a wh smith during exchange)

as someone who has always been interested in history but never had the chance to study it beyond my junior years of secondary school, so many things make much more sense now that i have the context of what happened (and failed) throughout many years of human experience.

loved how easy to understand this was, and the occasional clever comment/ fun fact from the author! also happy to see hong kong somewhat mentioned, as it seems to be rarely ever discussed in the grand scheme of things history-wise (at least that's what my german flatmate told me - the only "asian history" she knows is the vietnam war -_-)

however i felt that the author missed the chance to really reflect on how each historical blunder could be related back to our world today - the typical comment he would give is something along the lines of "if this had never happened, who knows what could have been" which i thought was way too vague and a bit underwhelming.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title is pretty self-explanatory. Using 50 examples and told in an abbreviated format, the author explains people and events that didn't quite work out but often changed history. It's a good book to dip in and out of.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dit is een heel tof boekje. Het is klein van formaat en niet dik - nog geen 300 blz. - dus dit lees je op een paar uur tijd uit. En je kunt het in korte stukken hakken als je wilt, want de hoofdstukken zijn telkens zo'n vijf à zeven bladzijdes lang. Perfect om snel-snel of tussendoor weg te lezen, dus.

Er worden vijftig momenten in de menselijke geschiedenis uitgepikt waarin op z'n minst één iemand een of andere flater beging die de loop der historie veranderde, of dat nu positief of negatief was. Geschiedenisfanaten zullen het merendeel van die momenten wel kennen, en ook mensen die niet bijster geïnteresseerd zijn in dit deel van de menselijke cultuur zullen er wel wat van weten. Maar daarnaast presenteert Gazur ook een aantal onverwachte stukjes en komt hij op gezette tijden met toffe weetjes op de proppen. Voordeel is ook dat er geen echte rode draad aanwezig is: het gaat allemaal om losse gebeurtenissen, waardoor het enorm goed te volgen - want erg gemakkelijk - is.

Het gaat ook echt over de wereldgeschiedenis, van Afrika tot Australië, van duizenden jaren geleden tot nu, van boeren tot pausen. Heel volledig dus en erg afwisselend.

De vertaling - ik weet niet meer van wie ze is, sorry - mag er ook zijn. Er valt niks op aan te merken, alle namen lijken goed vertaald te zijn - geen sinecure in een boek waar allerlei culturen dooreengemixt zijn - en de tekst leest erg vlot.

Net zoals de auteur zelf kun je het soms niet laten om jezelf vragen te gaan stellen van 'Stel nu dat...' Want soms scheelde het echt maar een haartje of er was allicht iets totaal anders gebeurd en de wereld had er nu totaal anders uitgezien. Soms is het maar goed dat het gelopen is zoals het is gelopen, maar soms... Wie weet was het soms wel beter geweest. Dit boek zet je aan het denken, en dat is toch wel erg goed.

8,3/10

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

AD-PR - thank you to the publisher for a copy of this book.

I really enjoyed this short history of the world. It was so interesting. As history is told by the victors, lots of these "failures" I knew absolutely nothing about. Due to the nature of the book, we were only given a short summary for each and there are certainly some I want to read more about! This is a really accessible look at history from the ancient world to modern. It is somehow hopeful despite its focus, and will make me look at failure in a new way. 

[R · Rating 1 out of 5]

As always - books with catchy titles often disappoint.

A very average book with only a handful of useful antidotes.
1. In the 19th century, the UK had taken control of India and Afghanistan and needed a market to sell poppy opium. The British aggressively sold opium illegally into China who tried to ban it and destroy supplies. They destroyed so much that the opium war started resulting in China having to give up Hong Kong to pay for the opium. China refers to the century of humiliation.
2. Alexandra the Great was truly great - but left no heir. When asked by his deathbed having survived multiple wars, he was asked by his generals who should succeed him. He respond saying “the strongest”. Wars subsequently ensued.
3. Hannibal could have captured Rome having slaughtered a large number of Romans at Carthage. His response when his generals said he could capture Rome was he needed time to plan leading one of his generals to say “you know how to gain victory, but you do not know the how to use it.
4. Judge societies on how they deal with their sewage.
5. Holland became home to one of the world’s first futures markets through tulips. Because tulips are seasonal and of limited supply and frequently ran out. This forced traders to start buying tulip futures ahead of the seasons to guarantee a supply. A bubble formed and eventually burst.
6. Napoleons desire to invade Russia cost him his position in French society and he was eventually exiled from France. Having reached Moscow, the Russian winter closed in. He decided to try and fight out the winter but his men froze to death, so many in fact that it cost large parts of France’s empire.
7. Darwin dropped out of both Edinburgh and Cambridge university through lack of enjoyment in science. Thanks to a friend inviting him onto HMS Beagle, he discovered his love of animals and biology.
8. Russia selling off Alaska to America to save it from financial collapse. America quickly discovered gold in Alaska and would make significant profits as a result.
9. Franz Ferdinand on his trip to Sarajevo actually survived one assignation attempt on his way to the cathedral through a misplaced grenade. It was on his way back, having decided to continue his tour that the driver took a wrong turn and allowed the third of the eight black hand assassins to kill him and his wife.
World history has been moulded as much by failure as it has success.

[Wan Shoo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoy this book's light-hearted presentation of fascinating failures, but heed its deeper message: human error, particularly when fueled by unchecked pride, paves the way for disaster. It's a compelling reminder to view failure with compassion, knowing that triumph often grows from missteps. The author effectively punctuates each cautionary tale with intriguing facts, driving the moral home. The cyclical nature of history lends these stories profound weight in our current era of global unrest and potential conflict, urging humility. Recognizing the world's fluidity and our own inherent lack of invincibility fosters essential open-mindedness. Discover the valuable wisdom embedded within these recounted flaws.

[Harry Moate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intriguing stuff

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title of this book was an interesting premise but I’m not sure if it lived up to expectation.

Here are the good parts: Each failure is succinctly written in relatively easy language. There failures picked are also ones that are less well known so you learn something.

Which brings me on to the less good bits. I’m not actually sure if the examples chosen were the most interesting ones. I don’t know why but I just really struggled to find them engaging and it was hard to keep on reading.

I can’t pinpoint why I wasn’t into this book but I just wasn’t. Maybe I’m just weird. 🤣I’ve marked as a 3 but it was more like a 2.5 for me.

Thanks to the author, publishers & NetGalley for access to this arc in return for a review.

[Steve G · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5*

A History of the World in 50 Failures is a lovely little read, and well worth picking up for the casual history reader.

The book is relatively brief, being small in size and less than 300 pages long. Fitting 50 chapters into such a short read makes each chapter only 5-7 pages long, and therefore the book only superficially outlines each of its little stories.

Some of the choices of "failures" are also, admittedly, a bit odd. For example, the Wanggongchang explosions seems more an industrial accident to me than an example of a historical "failure".

Nevertheless, the reason I loved this book is because how easy and pleasant a read it turned out to be. The language is totally accessible, the stories only take 2-3m to read each, and the book has a cosy and heartwarming message throughout that failure is a part of human nature, and even some of the greatest achievers in history had to go through a lot of failure to get to where they did.

This book is therefore the epitome of being easy to pick up and put down, and I found myself regularly taking just 5m out of my busy day to de-stress and read a short story about a subject I hadn't heard about before.

I think the book therefore definetely deserves the 3.5* I am awarding it - readers just need to be aware that it is more a short comfort read designed to make you google things yourself as opposed to an in-depth comprehensive breakdown of important moments in history.

I'd definetely recommend this book for any casual readers, young adults with an interest in history, or those who prefer to pick up and put down books in short intervals. It's an interesting little read that I ultimately really enjoyed.

I'm also looking forward to picking up the other books in the series to use as short easy reads for when my work schedule gets more tricky and I struggle to get through the more "heavy going" books I'm normally more accustomed to.

[Theediscerning · Rating 4 out of 5]

A parade of goofs from times past, whether they be mistaking the country you've just landed in after sailing across the Atlantic, to lesser-known ones. Constantinople fell when it was attacked with a mahoosive weapon whose creator had offered to work for them, before he was turned down and ended up on the opposing side. Here are errors that altered the state of whole countries – taxing the wrong people, invading the wrong folk – and just one person, to start with at least, such as Darwin not succeeding as a medical student at all. Too squeamish. And talking of animals, they're here too, as many introductions of them still rank as the blunders among us.

You have to accept this is a dry, straight, humourless history book, and not a parade of novelties as the small size might imply. But do that and it's fine – there is a lot that could well not have crossed your path, through no error of your own of course, and some that definitely did. It all wraps up with two more recent cases, being nicely chronological – the last entry is the mistaken opening of the Berlin Wall, and before that we have the world's best ever example of someone not doing their job to the letter. Succinct and yet detailed, this is probably four stars – unless I'm sorely mistaken...

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ben Gazur's A Short History of the World in 50 Failures does exactly what it says on the tin - presents selected episodes from world history characterised by failure, rather than success. For example, we learn about how gunpowder was created from the failure to find an elixir of eternal life, how Charles Darwin's extraordinary achievements as an evolutionary biologist stemmed from initial failures at medical school, how the course of world history changed following Napoleon's failures to conquer Russia, and many more (47, to be precise) besides. There's a good mix of events you might be familiar with already, and others which are more bizarre and quirky.

Each chapter is a bite-sized chunk, designed to be an entertaining quick read, rather than an exhaustive and detailed history, which might disappoint for the history buffs but keeps things accessible for the rest of us. You won't be a history expert by the end of it, but you'll have enjoyed the read and learned lots of interesting tid-bits about the past. 6/10

[James J · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable enough book which provided nice brief incidents throughout history. It was written in a friendly format which made for easy reading. I have previously read the '...in 50 Lies' book, and there was some crossover between the books.

I was not always convinced that there was a consistent definition of 'failures', and some 'failures' seemed to be because those involved weren't fortune tellers who could predict what could happen after they die, which (to me) is less a failure and more 'unexpected consequences'.

With that aside, some of the descriptions were very surface level. Whilst I am aware that each chapter is designed to be a quick dip in-out of an event, it meant that some details were a bit inaccurate to the truth, or provided over-simplified descriptions.

A good book to act as a springboard to further reading.

[Vicuña · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has proved to be a totally unexpected delight. I enjoy non fiction and over the years I’ve read about numerous people and events that have shaped our world. I’ve never considered the perspective of how failure too has affected developments. Ben Gazur takes the reader on a voyage of discovery as we travel through time from the Roman era to present day, well the 20th century. His exploration of people and events is totally unique and this feels more like an unravelling adventure story rather than a potted history of the world. He has a gift for making a pan academic subject accessible and enjoyable and cleverly links developments as the book progresses. Really enjoyed this insight and the fact that it proves how we learn as much, if not more, from failure than success.

[Karen Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

 
A Short History of The World in 50 Failures Ben Gazar

5 stars

A really interesting book

This book really appealed to me and I wasnt disappointed. I thought this was such an interesting concept and found it so easy to read as it was in bite sized chunks.

Starting from The Ancient World up until 1973 it describes events in history most of which I had heard of but in many cases had no idea how history could have been changed. Fascinating facts some of which were quite frightening. The one that stood out for me, was, when without the intervention of Stanislav Petrovl, none of us born before 1983 in this country would be here today! Terrifying stuff,

I thoroughly recommend this book, I really enjoyed it.

Karen Deborah
NetGalley

[Selena · Rating 2 out of 5]

"I hope this book makes you look at the failures in your own life a little more kindly. Nothing you do will probably ever earn you a place in the grand history of failure. And even if you mess up in a spectacular way, you can still try again. That's what humans have been doing for thousands of years - somehow, we are still muddling through."

My favorite little fun facts:

"It is said that Antony covered Brutus's corpse in a purple cloak as a mark of thanks for having spared him during the assassination."

"While in Edinburgh, Darwin studied the art of animal taxidermy under John Edmonstone, a freed slave. Edmonstone's techniques would later be used to preserve Darwin's specimens that he collected around the globe."

[Scott Mankowitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boring.

The author gathers 50 historical anecdotes and describes how things didn't go well for one side. By broadening the definition of failure, however, it seems that literally any historical event could be cast as a failure. As a result, there is hardly any connective tissue between stories, and the book lacks any overarching purpose.

For example, Columbus discovers America. Failure. He didn't discover India. Alexander the Great conquers the world. Failure. He didn't designate an heir. Jesus is crucified. Failure. He didn't actually die.

OK. I made the last one up, but you get the idea.

[carpechopsticks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the premise but unfortunately the execution leaves much to be desired. Although it is divided into 3 main time periods, each section comes across as very disorganised with an unclear sorting method, making the reading experience unpleasantly blundering. Each conclusion also feels very contrived to really hammer in the point of each failure, using rather unrelated comparisons. Also, the author does not come across as cosmopolitan enough to comment on failures on a worldwide scale - anything outside of Europe sounded like excerpts from secondary school textbooks (with overtones of classic stereotyping.)

[Jo-anne Atkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The history of the world is not always defined by success, sometimes failure can be just as powerful. In this book Gazur looks at a series of failures that impacts on the development of our civilisation. Sometimes these are the obvious - Napoleon's attempted invasion of Russia - sometimes the less obvious - the effect of Mansar Musa's Hajj expedition on the global economy- and sometimes the downright quirky - the attempt at diplomacy between Genghis Khan and an Arabic empire. What they all have in common is that they are treated as part of a bigger picture and an amusing one at that!

[Rachel N · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting little book on ‘failures’ in history that would have completely changed the world had they gone differently. The 50 instances go right through from ancient times to recent history and there’s an interesting mix of countries. Each section is fairly short and concise so it’s an excellent book to dip into and would make a lovely Christmas present for anyone with an interest in history.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in return for an honest review.

[Peter Willoughby · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent history of the world, choosing important events throughout whilst presenting them in a slightly different manner.
It can be read through and even if the reader hadn't read any history books before, they would have enough knowledge to start a conversation.
I had plenty of smiles while reading the book. I loved it.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has a quirky, funky title, but it just doesn’t deliver. It lacks cohesion, many of the failures seem randomly selected. There’s an attempt at an inspirational sermon in the afterward although it just feels low effort. It would have been nice to have had an inspirational thought at the end of each individual chapter. One thing I did appreciate was the bite sized chapters. I learned things about cultures that I previously lacked the interest in reading a full length book on.

[Kitty Pollock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love Love Love books like this!!! i find them so comforting, entertaining and amusing. This book lived up to all of that, i found history i knew and was happy to reread and history that i didn't and enjoyed learning about!

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for an E_ARC of this book in exchange for a an honest review, all opinions are my own.

[Joshua Mynard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great book for anyone who is interested in history. The myriad topics acts almost as a taste tester session, they entail snippets from the ancient world, Middle Ages, and the modern world. I would recommend reading this book to discover epochs or historical figures that may interest you, then find other books that provide a deeper delve into whatever you’re interested in.

[Cathy Moore · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little book of little essays on failures that have impacted world history, organised chronologically from the Bronze Age to the Cold War.
Some I knew about already and some were new to me. I don’t know why but I struggled to engage and stay focussed with the content. I struggle to summon up the effort to continue to read on.

[Rania Ioannou · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book delivers what it promises. A fun read. It's an interesting collection of historical missteps and miscalculations, told with wit and a light touch. It’s not a deep dive into any single event, but it does make you think about how failure has always been part of human progress.

I received an ARC copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.