"Brooks casts his comedic eye at humanity's past and... seems to view our story as one of big guys keeping little guys down. To quote the film's most famous line: "It's good to be the king." ...King Louis XVI (Brooks) goes clay pigeon shooting with peasants, where a man is thrown in prison for saying the lower classes "ain't so bad" and where the Roman Senate angrily shouts "F**k the poor!" Brooks doesn't merely lampoon economic injustices. Sexism, racism, anti-Semitism and human cruelty in general are all satirized... If there is a running theme in Brooks' view of major historical events..., it is that people with money and power have great lives. For people without those things — or who belong to marginalized groups in general — life stinks. ..the genius of "History of the World" is that it manages to subtly convey Brooks' social critiques in the packaging of a zany Borscht Belt comedy. If climate change and pollution destroy the human race, and an alien civilization was to find just one work of art to understand the human condition, I can't think of anything better than "History of the World." This is not being said in jest. "History of the World" captures one of the greatest joys of human existence — the ability to laugh — even as it recounts some of the most important events in our collective story. Perhaps most significantly, it chronicles the stupidity and selfishness that will have led to our downfall."