A very good book, but...

books:


	• National Geographic Concise History of the World: An Illustrated Time Line (Timeline) Neil Kagan National Geographic, 2006 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

birds-eye view

This is an excellent source for obtaining a quick, clear, and coherent context for an event or a period. For example, if you want to know what the rest of the world was doing when the Conquistadors sailed onto the shores of South America, this book is the best first step in your research. The entries are concise and the layout is attractive.

Outstanding work!

This reference book is precisely what its title says it is, in that it is a concise view of history. Very concise. If you want detail, this is certainly not the book to get, as this book covers thousands of years. Sidebars give more a little detail on specified subjects, but even these do not delve too deeply into the subject matter.

That being said, National Geographic has done an admirable job of putting together history on a visual time line which makes the book very accessible, and easy to pick up for any casual reader. Optimally, this book would be used in conjunction with a more detailed book on history or archaeology, or something such as The Encyclopedia of World History or The Oxford Companion to Archaeology.

Admittedly, it is not perfect, as the (re)discovering of Machu Piccu in Peru in 1911 by Hiram Bingham is not on the timeline of the Americas. And it mentions the first year for cartoons in newspapers, but mentions neither the newspaper or the city in which they were published. Even given these provisos, this is a remarkable and highly visual book which is a great reference and should have a place on your bookshelf.

**** 1/2 stars.

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A very good book, but...

A very good book but inadequate packaging from Amazon resulted in me having to give my father a damaged book on Father's Day.

reviews: page 1, 2

From the dawn of humankind to today's global complexities, this monumental volume presents world history from an original perspective that provides fresh insights with every colorful spread. Few references are as invaluable, all-inclusive, and satisfying to browse. For readers of all ages, world history is easily accessible, depicted as never before?so that events occurring simultaneously around the world can be viewed at-a-glance together. For example, Texas Instruments launched the pocket calculator the same year the Soviet Union launched the first manned space station, in 1971. Columbus sailed from Spain the year Martin Behaim constructed a terrestrial globe in Nuremberg. The California Gold Rush followed the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s, and the Greek dictatorship of Papadopoulos is overthrown the same year Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia is deposed and U.S. president Nixon resigns, in 1974. The book's innovative time line truly sets it apart, allowing readers to scan across a spread and explore a single area or compare contemporary societies across the globe.

This remarkable resource also contains dozens of maps; scores of sidebars; hundreds of illustrations; and thousands of events, milestones, personalities, ideas, and inventions. Throughout, vivid illustrations depict artworks, artifacts, portraits and dramatic scenes, while sidebar topics range from local customs and lifestyles to the effect of climate change on human migration. Drawing on National Geographic's vast resources, this concise yet comprehensive, one-of-a-kind work is as rewarding as it is compulsively readable.

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