I loved this from start to finish. The examples chosen to illustrate how modern consciousness has changed over the last century were each fascinating and flowed well from one to the next. I listened to the audiobook version of this — it happens to be a rare instance of an audiobook narrated by its own author with a compelling and excellent performance.

A really incredible book. I'm not sure I agree with the premise that the 19th century was necessarily simple to understand -- I suspect this is more the case for Brits, as the 19th century was pretty much their century, and thus must seem like a much simpler time in retrospect -- nor am I totally convinced by his conclusions about the millennial generation (my generation), which strike me as maybe a bit optimistic (he mentioned having a kid who's a millennial in the beginning, so that might explain that), but none of that matters. Everything in between is fantastic. His explanation of relativity actually makes sense, and his run throughs of nihilism, sci-fi, modernism, individualism, capitalism, and everything else are entertaining at worst, and deeply insightful at best.

What's probably most important is that he manages to tie all of these diverse concepts together without straining too hard, and manages to show a general pattern in the ideas of the 20th century. It's also kind of perfect for Alan Moore fanboys like myself, with all of its talk about the fringes of society, Aleister Crowley, comics, and concepts like Solve et Coagula.

Is it perfect? No. Is it the most rewarding book I've read in a long while? God, yes.

Una estimulante interpretación del pasado siglo. Hilado desde la concatenación de nuevas teorías físicas, movimientos artísticos, y de conceptos filosóficos, psicológicos y socioeconómicos, el autor lanza constantemente ideas y referencias que se van sedimentando en un corpus basado en el individualismo, la contracultura y la posmodernidad, erradicados finalmente por la llegada de Internet.

Higgs expande ideas vistas en obras como Century of the Self, del documentalista Adam Curtis, a quien el autor menciona desde la admiración. A sabiendas de esto, es de esperar la conveniente elección y manipulación de datos con el fin de conducir el mensaje.

Podría resultar engañoso, pero quizás lo más inteligente de “Historia alternativa...” sea que incluye, en su propio análisis de la diversificación de perspectivas, las contramedidas para justificar su propia subjetividad.

Τι κοινό έχουν η Ayn Rand και ο Aleister Crowley; Ποιός ήταν ο αυτοκράτορας των Ηνωμένων Πολιτειών της Αμερικής; Τι είναι ο μεταμοντερνισμός; Γιατί η Marie Stopes έγραψε το "married love";
Αυτό το βιβλίο είναι ένας περίεργος καμβάς από φιλοσοφικές θεωρίες, επιστημονικές ανακαλύψεις και αμφιλεγόμενες προσωπικότητες. Μια ευχάριστη ανάγνωση.

Στα bonus, η καταπληκτική ιδέα για επεισόιο στο Doctor Who με τον Bertnard Russell να χρησιμοποιεί το T.A.R.D.I.S. για τις μελέτες του!

A very distinct take on the 20th Century, focusing on how philosophical ideas have changed rather than the usual political-economics narrative. In particular, by touching on so many areas of societal life, I felt its explanation for current Western disillusionment is much richer than the "everything changed in the 70s with neoliberalism" account.

Reminiscent of an Adam Curtis documentary, it drew many connections between seemingly unrelated events to form a grand, somewhat trippy narrative. Even if at times I was sceptical of some of the arguments made, they never ceased to be interesting and entertaining.

The only notable drawbacks for me were that (1) it is very Western-centric for what is meant to be a global history and (2) the premise that "before 1900 history seemed to make sense" is quite dubious to me and somewhat detracts from the conclusions.

4.5 stars rounded up. Very funny and very serious at the same time.

I believe that this is going to end up being one of the truly important books of my life.