Laurent Binet’s Civilisations takes us on quite an entertaining passage through history. We embark on a journey through a frame where Binet turns the world upside down, and explores alternate endings to the Viking’s Icelandic sagas, a parody of Columbus’s journal, and a fascinating reimagining of the Inca’s led by Prince Atahualpa's expedition to, and conquering of, Spain and other parts of Europe. Binet also navigates alternate biographies of Cervantes and Luther, with fascinating considerations of Martin Luther’s Reformation, the Spanish Inquisition, capitalism, the miracle of the printing press, and the Copernican Revolution as he reimagines the Inca takeover of much of western Europe. It is a thought-provoking and clever adventure.
Perhaps the journey truly begins with Binet’s debut, bestselling novel, HHhH (Himmlers Hirn heißt Heydrich). It is here that he commences his exploration of fictionalization as a possible explanation for the behavior of central characters in the chronicling of historical events. HHhH was awarded the 2010 Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman.
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