As Editorial Director at Usborne, Jane oversees books about absolutely everything. She grew up in Moscow, Singapore, and in a forest in Sussex, building treehouses and pretending to be one of the Famous Five. Before university she was a social worker in Botswana and camped under the stars in the Kalahari Desert.
A good review for me of world history, it's aimed at young adult readers and it's well-illustrated with plenty of maps ( I like that!). What made it most interesting for me is that events are divided into categories- events in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, India, "the Far East," the Americas, and Oceania. We go from c. 9000BC ( the Middle East)--Agriculture is underway in the Fertile Crescent to 1986 ( Northern and Eastern Europe)--Nuclear reactor disaster at Chernobyl, USSR. What's the MOST IMPORTANT event of all? My vote goes to this event--1445--Johann Gutenberg (1397-1468), a German, publishes the Gutenberg Bible, the first printed book in Europe.
An ok book, would be especially good for primary school children or as a reference for middle school kids. Did spot a mistake in this book but other than that it’s fine.
This is definitely a reference book. Each 2-page spread shows world events over a time period (hundreds or tens of years in ancient history, a decade in more modern times). There are also 2-page spreads devoted to particular events, like the French Revolution. I find it fascinating to compare what was going on in one part of the world to what was going on in the other. We usually study Western Civilization without checking in with the East. There were entire African civilizations that I'm sure you've never heard of. Thorough, for kids or adults, great little illustrations throughout.