New York Times Bestseller! A magisterial world history unlike any other that tells the story of humanity through the one thing we all have in common- families From the author of The Romanovs, Succession meets Game of Thrones. The Spectator, The author brings his cast of dynastic titans, rogues and psychopaths to life. . . An epic that both entertains and informs. The Economist, Best Books of the Year Around 950,000 years ago, a family of five walked along the beach and left behind the oldest family footprints ever discovered. For award-winning historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, these poignant, familiar fossils serve as an inspiration for a new kind of world history, one that is genuinely global, spans all eras and all continents, and focuses on the family ties that connect every one of us. In this epic, ever-surprising book, Montefiore chronicles the world's great dynasties across human history through palace intrigues, love affairs, and family lives, linking grand themes of war, migration, plague, religion, and technology to the people at the heart of the human drama. It features a cast of extraordinary diversity- in addition to rulers and conquerors, there are priests, charlatans, artists, scientists, tycoons, gangsters, lovers, husbands, wives, and children.