Synopses & Reviews
An ambitious and highly entertaining novel of revisionist history from the author of the international bestseller HHhH
Freydis is a woman warrior and leader of a band of Viking explorers setting out to the south. They meet local tribes, exchange skills, are taken prisoner, and get as far as Panama. But nobody ultimately knows what became of them.
Over five hundred years later, Atahualpa, the last Inca emperor, arrives in Europe in the ships stolen from Columbus. He finds a continent divided by religious and dynastic quarrels, the Spanish Inquisition, Luther's Reformation, capitalism, the miracle of the printing press, endless warmongering between the ruling monarchies, and constant threat from the Turks. But most of all he finds downtrodden populations ready for revolution. Fortunately, he has a recent bestseller as a guidebook to acquiring power — Machiavelli's The Prince. The stage is set for a Europe ruled by Incas and Aztecs, and for a great war that will change history forever.
Laurent Binet's Civilizations is nothing less than a strangely believable counterfactual history of the modern world, fizzing with ideas about colonization, empire-building, and the eternal human quest for domination. It is an electrifying novel by one of Europe's most exciting writers.
About the Author
Laurent Binet was born in Paris, France, in 1972. He is the author of the novels The Seventh Function of Language and HHhH, which was named one of the fifty best books of 2015 by The New York Times and received the Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman. He is a professor at the University of Paris III, where he lectures on French literature.
Sam Taylor has written for The Guardian, the Financial Times, Vogue, and Esquire, and has translated such works as Laurent Binet’s The Seventh Function of Language, HHhH, and the international bestseller The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair, by Joël Dicker.