Civilizations, Exploration & Conquest: The Illustrated History Encyclopedia

by Philip Wilkinson, John Farndon, Will Fowler

Divided into four sections, the encyclopedia covers Prehistoric Peoples, Ancient Civilizations, Ancient Weapons and Warfare, and Exploration and Discovery.

Genres: History

256 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2000

About the author

Philip Wilkinson (born 1955) is the author of non-fiction books for children and adults. He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He worked as an editor prior to becoming an author.

He specializes in works on history, the arts, religion, and architecture and has written over forty titles.

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

If children reference books are a proxy for measuring our progress as a civilization, books like this would mark the peak, and the demise thereof since the early 2000s (thanks Internet!) is surely a sign of regression. I've said this before, they surely don't make them like they used to, with immaculately hand drawn illustrations and cut out cross sections abundant throughout the book. What we have today are instead tedious, not quite up to the mark photographs that don't quite do the job as well as drawings.

This lovely gem of a book was divided into three parts. The first covered a little of prehistory (i.e. Stone Age) and the usual ancient civilizations like Romans, Chinese, Persians etc. This was followed by a section on ancient warfare, which was least interesting for me, mainly describing medieval weapons and fortifications. The third part was about the history of exploration, how various regions of the world were uncovered, undoubtedly the most fascinating. The book isn't perfect alas, as I found the maps and routes charted on them too tiny and difficult to discern. But small flaws for sure, and did not take much from my enjoyment as a whole.

Best part is I found this among a pile of donated books. Why anyone would discard such treasure is beyond comprehension and a tad sad come to think of it.