History isn't what happened. History is just what historians tell us. From the Titanic to the Amazon, the raft of the Medusa to an ecclesiastical court in medieval France where a bizarre case is about to begin, A History of the World in 10½ Chapters presents a surprising, subversive, fictional history of earth told from several kaleidoscopic perspectives. Ambitious yet accessible, witty and playfully serious, this is no ordinary history, but something stranger: a challenge and a delight for the reader's imagination. 'Funny, ironic, erudite, surprising, and not afraid to take a dive overboard into the depths of sorrow and loss' Nadime Gordimer.