World Famous Comics: National Geographic Visual History of the World
National Geographic Visual History of the World
By: National Geographic Publisher: National Geographic Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: National Geographic Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 656 Publication Date: November 01, 2005 Release Date: November 01, 2005
Product Description: The world history book to define all others, National Geographic Visual History of the World is a classic in the making. No other volume offers such a comprehensive and richly illustrated chronicle of world events, from the construction of the Pyramids to the overthrow of the Taliban. Readers see how momentous happenings, personalities, catastrophes, discoveries, and inventions unfold in a visually stimulating layout. Four eight-page gatefolds bring to life major events of world history and thousands of paintings, photographs and illustrations depict subjects ranging from the Roman Empire to the Reformation, World War II, to the war in Afghanistan. A timeline at the bottom of every page highlights the most important events, names, and dates of the era, and color-coded cross-referencing helps point readers to other applicable sections. Ideal for people who prefer to flip through books at random, this highly accessible resource contains sidebars on the great religions, influential ideologies, and other topics, as well as biographies of world leaders and notable personalities in the arts and humanities.
National Geographic Visual History of the World is an indispensable, impressive, and extravagantly illustrated reference of social, cultural, and military history in one volume. It is a must-have for all families, armchair historians, and serious scholars alike.
Cheap and easy to follow but no maps National Geographic Visual History of the World, or NGH for short, is an extensive, well-illustrated, up-to-date book covering the history of humankind from the appearance of the first hominids to about 2005. It's concise, accessible to non-scholarly readers and can be a great fun just to browse through the illustrations, but it doesn't contain any meaningful maps!
With illustrations being its main selling point NGH presents us mostly with a treasure trove of images of historic figures and buildings, and of other artefacts like art, tools and weapons. They are numbered and linked to the corresponding text, even if they relate to it only vaguely. On the other hand, with often a dozen pictures per spread it's easy to forget they should be useful as well as numerous.
Surprisingly there are hardly any maps making a historical atlas a required companion. This is the biggest minus for NGH. It would be much better to read about an empire and see its extent at the same time, or follow the route of the first voyages while reading on how new lands were discovered.
NGH has an easy to follow format. The world history is divided into eight periods, from pre-history to the modern times, each color-coded for easy search. Each period is divided into much smaller sections. With about 120 sections in total a typical section focuses on one subject like a country or an event, with one page being a section introduction, for example "The Kingdom of Franks" and another one or a few pages more specific - "The Rise of Carolingians", "Charlemagne's Wars", and "The Empire of Charlemagne" for example. At the bottom of each age there is a timeline of the period concerned, but naturally they often overlap. This is a clear layout of data that is both easy to follow and easy to search - the NGH's biggest plus.
National Geographic is a very trustworthy publisher, but a book of this scope is bound to contain some errors or bones of contention. For example, on page 20 it states that 'around 40,000 years ago, modern Homo sapiens, in the form of the Cro-Magnon man, finally migrated out of Africa to Europe.' This is an over-simplification at best. Homo sapiens had made a long detour in Middle Asia before populating Europe. Also, for the earliest history it follows the middle chronology (reign of Hammurabi 1792 1750 BCE), instead of recently more supported short chronology (1728 1686 BCE). By the way, Hammurabi is spelt Hammurapi in NGH. While it's not a mistake, NGH doesn't specify which chronology it chose to follow, which makes it more confusing if you want to consult other sources.
For a world history book it's slightly too concerned with the Western hemisphere, but other regions are fairly and consistently covered as well.
NGH's main competitor in books is DK History: The Definitive Visual Guide : From the Dawn of Civilization to the Present Day (Hardcover) or DKH for short.
They are quite similar, both are about the same size, are fairly recent and up to date and of course come with a wealth of illustrations. The main difference is the price - NGH is much cheaper, which is also the reason why I chose it. However, DKH contains maps, graphs, etc, making it worth paying a few bucks extra. But on the whole they present history in different ways and focus on other details, but it's a matter of personal preference which book does it better.
I also believe it still competes well against online sources like Wikipedia, especially thanks to the illustrations and conciseness, but if you want to read about anything in more detail, Wikipedia wins hands down.
To sum up, NGH is well worth the price, but it would be more informative with maps.
Just what he wanted I bought this book as a gift for my son-in-law. It is a beautiful book and he has really enjoyed it.
few maps for a history book In my opinion the book has a major flow, which is it contains very few maps. Unless the reader has a good idea about ancient and modern world history, it is quite hard to figure out where everyhing is where. The book is very superficial in this respect.
Excellent narrative (oh, but where are the maps?) This book provides a wonderful way of learning history -- interestingly written and great pictures and photographs. The only thing lacking (and a major omission) is maps. In covering world history over its complete span, the reader cannot be expected to know the exact location of the Asian Steppes or Bithynia. Please include adequate maps for the next edition.
Too simplistic I wish I could agree with most of the other reviewers but I did not find this to be a remarkable work. I instead found it simplistic, often insultingly so. Its coverage, for instance of the 'Second World War' is absolutely disgraceful. It is almost as if Churchill were just another ordinary politico, who happened to be leader of Great Britain at the time. Nowhere is there any indication of the great role he played in turning the tide towards Allied Victory. Simplicity reigns everywhere. And it is of course possible to say that this is only for high- schoolers, only meant to provide material at a certain level. But by being so simplistic one does not really provide even a basis in understanding. I remember the History Text Books used in American schools five decades ago. They were more detailed and my guess is as well or better written than what we have here. I do not like to down books especially ones which are aimed to being educational tools, and better informing the general public. But I just believe that the coverage given here to the subjects I know something about, and examined is really not adequate.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
