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How about The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant? It's the 11-volume history of the West starting with Asian origins and ending with the Napoleon. It was highly popular at one point; people used to acquire them as the sign-on bonus to book clubs by mail. You'd see them proudly displayed on bookshelves in people's homes, presumably as a sign of their erudition or at aspirations along those lines, since I suspect they mostly went unread.
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