History of Humanity: recommendations No matter how much you search or read, not even in 100 lifetimes you will get "a really comprehensive history of humanity, from its earliest beginnings to modernity... with a lot more detail and depth" but, taken as a whole, that's a project worthwhile to undertake during the time you have on this planet. If you read everything, from Chinese classical poetry to tweets and anything in between, and you do it in the proper way, (thinking as best as possible every time) you will then have the book you are searching for.