World History Atlas

Difficult book to find. Delivered in good shape and on time. A great price.

I purchased this "atlas" for my thirteen year old boy who has become fascinated by maps and history. This atlas is much more than an atlas, definitively covering most of world history in a way that is illustrative yet also detailed and continues to provide many hours of study and inspiration. It is highly recommended.

DK hits another home run. Measuring 15 x 11 inches, his is one of the most beautiful Atlas books ever printed. DK, of course, produces books that are beautiful to look at, and read, and enjoy over and over again. This Atlas is no exception. It is academically correct, with beautiful photos, maps, and drawings, and makes the "dull study of human history" come alive in a fun and relatively easy way. If students in schools had this book, it would enliven their minds and make them understand world development and history. It would help them connect to the world as it is today, and help them understand why it got this way. It is too bad most students will not have access to this book, thereby making school another dull place to sit around and get bored with. This book is worth buying, no matter what grade, or age bracket, you are in. DK does it again with a great book for all of us.

This is probably the most beautifully laid out and graphically designed of the big 5 or 6 atlases out there. I had a few miscellaneous comments to make, and then I thought I would compare it with the Hammond Atlas, which is the other "big gun" out there.First, a few minor nitpicks. In the article on prehistoric man, they don't mention the age of Lucy of 3.6 million years. They do mention the species name, Australopithecus afarensis, but then although they mention the first genus homo was H. erectus in the main article, you have to read the other smaller print articles around the page to get the age figure. Also, there is no mention of ardipithecus ramidus, the oldest known pre-Homonid fossil, at 4.5 million years, or that we know of two different Australopithecines, africanus and robustus, representing a gracile versus a more robust species.One characteristic of the DK atlas is it is more topically oriented than some of the others. In the ancient history section, for example (my main interest), it has essays on "Growth of the City," "Trade and the First Cities," and the "Earliest Writing, Counting, and Calendars."But the biggest difference between the DK and the others is that it's divided up into two main sections--Eras of History, and the Regional Histories. The eras section contains essays such as "The World 1250-750 BCE" or "The World in 250-500 CE."The regional history section has the histories of the main geographic areas of the world, such as Europe, West Asia, North Asia, East Asia, Africa, South America, Australasia, North America, and so on. Within those sections you'll find specific articles such as "Europe After the Fall of Rome," or "Early Empires of West Asia, or "North America, 1865-1920."The DK atlas has 470 maps, 420 timelines, over 1000 photos, and a 20,000 entry index/gazetteer which is much more than an index since the entries include capsule biographies and histories of important events--a unique feature of all the atlases, and similarly there is a subject/index glossary that does the same thing.The Hammond atlas is the other major offering in this area. Compared to the DK, the Hammond reads more like a typical history book, with articles that go on for several parallel columns of unequal depth and accompanied by maps and various illustrations. The DK text is much more broken up into smaller paragraphs with different sizes of type, often relating to a photo or smaller map or other graphic. Although visually more striking than the Hammond, its approach is more disjointed as a result and I think harder to use and learn from. The articles also are somewhat more superficial as a result compared to the the competing atlases, especially the Atlas of World History by John Haywood and the Hammond and Oxford historical atlases.The DK has nicer, glossier paper than the others, which makes their maps and photos more attractive. Also the map colors of the DK are aften more pastel-like, whereas the Hammond often uses the traditional four-

I got this for my son's birthday because he is interested in history, but his Dad and I have spent many enjoyable hours pouring through its pages. The book has DK's typically graphic-intense design, with its maps augmented by timelines, photos, drawings, etc. I notice one other reviewer did not like this feature but for us the added graphics made the history more understandable and enjoyable.I would also call the book geographically comprehensive rather than "politically correct." I don't notice any right-or-left political skew to the text, for example. The book has even-handed coverage of all continents, so it is not for those looking PRIMARILY for European history (although this is reasonably well covered). After all, you can get that sort of thing elsewhere. Where the DK book is irreplacable is its coverage of Asia, Africa, etc. - things we wouldn't know about if we didn't have this book.