Reviews (9)

Not comprehensive, but a beautiful overview
DK makes gorgeous books, and this is no exception. Other books are more comprehensive, but there's a different reason for adding this one to your collection. It has an embarrassing wealth of visuals, the timelines let you see what was happening simultaneously in different parts of the world, and the concordance provides a quick look-up for any topic (person, place, thing, concept). In the concordance, China, for example, has a brief geographic & political overview, a chronology (all in one place rather than spaced throughout time as in the first section), and lists of rulers. Page references are given to lead the reader to additional information.

This book would make an excellent resource for world history teachers and students.

I Rate and Compare World History Atlas Books
As a reader I like to have quick reference books at my finger tips including a new version of the Oxford English Dictionary about 3500 pages long - that I use almost daily. So I decided to add a "history atlas". In the process of doing my research I read the other amazon.com reviewers and then made three trips to two large book stores to actually look at the books and get a better feel for which was the best. I ended up buying the Oxford Atlas of World History. Here are my picks and rankings.

Listed by My ranking, #1 is the best, #2 is a creative alternative but no substitute.

1.Atlas of World History, Oxford University Press 2002, 368 pages, $57.80, 13.5" x 10.3" x 1.62" ranked 46,632 on Amazon.com. Hands down winner - professional - good text descriptions, outstanding maps and drawings, covers most things from the cave man forward. Negatives: Big and heavy. If you want to save a few dollars buy the "concise" version.

2.Creative alternative: The Penguin Atlas of World History, Penguin Books 2004, $11.20, just a paperback sized, just published, 304 pages. Surprisingly impressive, lots of text and pictures mixed together and it is easy to carry around. A nice quick alternative but it will be printed in two volumes.
.
3.Timelines of World History, DK Publishing 2002, 666 pages, $27.20. 10.0" x 1.6" ranked 25,800 on Amazon.com. Second with lots of value but in some ways not as comprehensive.

4. National Geographic Almanac of World History, National Geographic 2003, 384 pages, $28.00, 9.6" x 7.8" x 1.17" ranked 24,426 on Amazon.com. Similar to but less impressive than Oxford books. More text, narrower coverage, fewer maps and drawings.

5.DK Atlas of World History, DK Publishing, 352 pages, $35.00, 10.96" x 14.66" x 1.28" ranked 10,716 on Amazon.com. My last place book seems like a giant comic book. I love the DK travel books but this seems like one step beyond DK's area of expertise. Superficially it is similar to the Oxford book and it is cheap, and some might like it but it tries to be politically correct and fails.

6.Oxford Dictionary of World History, Oxford University Press, 704 pages, $7,66, pocketbook sized, sales rank 330,000. Mainly terms, people, and dates but has a few maps also. Limited use but an alternative. I prefer the new Penguin book but this is the best history dictionary to buy.

Jack in Toronto

Reviews (6)

Russell Ash deservesto die
If genocide was legal, Russell Ash would be the first man eliminated on top ten people I hate list.It might be true that Russell Ash uses quite a few resources for his books, but i've looked at every book he's made and the simple fact is that these are terrible lists, the only way I have found his books useful/interesting is while under the influence of pain killers. For someone to say this is book is fun/interesting, in my mind is the same as saying I represent everything the world hates about America.Russell Ash has made a career of wasting America's time with his books and if you have the money to waste on this book, go buy your kid a new toy, or your spouse/mother something that proves you've been thinking about them instead of this nonsense.

#1 Book For Your Coffee Table
You don't care that Secretariat in 1973 had the fastest ever winning time of 1:59.2 in a Kentucky Derby, but you like movies?Indulge yourself with 30 pages of movie trivia, where you'll find that Jack Nicholson has had the most Oscar nominations with 13.Don't care if "Cats" had the longest run for a Broadway musical with 7,485 shows, but you're a criminology nut?China performs the most executions with 1,067.

If you don't like one page, just pick another.You won't go far before you will be enthralled.The book lists the top 10 in each arbitrary category, usually with units of selection provided.

Most strikes in 2000 - Denmark

Greatest military losses in WWII - USSR with 13.6 million

Lowest divorce rate - Libya .24/1000/year

Interestingly illustrated - information in the introduction as to methods of compilation - great for a home coffee table - wouldn't last long in your public waiting room.

I highly recommend this trivial book!

Reviews (2)

A Visual Learning Experience
I've been a fan of the DK Oxford Illustrated American Dictionary for a few years now. The DK Ultimate Visual Dictionary is the next step. It is not a dictionary in which the words are organized with pictures in alphabetical order. However, you can look up the words and find the corresponding page numbers, so finding words is relatively easy.

This is a book in which 14 sections explain everything from The Universe to Calligraphy. This book doesn't include individual sentences using the words. "It shows you what each word means!" There are detailed illustrations and gorgeous photographs in rich color. Annotations surround the pictures.

In the introduction, they explain how if you wanted to know what the bone at the end of your little finger was called, a normal dictionary would leave you still wondering. With this dictionary, all you have to do is look up "hand" and you find your way to page 211. This is the section on the human body. Turn a few pages and you start to see amazingly detailed information. By page 230, you will see the hand in full detail and find a picture with the annotation reading: "Distal phalanx." The "Visual Dictionary" gives you access to thousands of words used by architects, musicians, doctors, scientists, sportspeople, astronomers and mechanics.

The 14 Sections include:

The Universe - This book explains why the Milky Way appears brighter in the southern sky than in the northern sky. There are pictures of everything from the solar system to the individual planets, stars and black holes.

Prehistoric Earth - Kids will love the pictures of the dinosaurs and the constant movement of the earth's crustal plates shows how the continents have moved across the earth's surface.

Plants - This book contains perhaps the most interesting explanation of photosynthesis and pollination I've seen yet. Kids will enjoy reading about the Venus Flytrap or how a seed germinates.

Animals -The skeletal structures and internal organs (mostly drawings) of a wide variety of animals are all shown in pictures. I loved the part where they show the hatching of a quail's egg. The rabbits and rodents section will be of interest to anyone who has these cute animals as pets.

The Human Body - If you want to know where the organs in your body are located or are even just trying to name various parts of a body, this section is essential for writing, research and home study projects. You can grab this book and see what an instructor is talking about when she says "deltoid" or "external oblique." The section on the development of jaw and teeth was very helpful in understanding how you eventually get your set of 32 permanent teeth. You see it all in a series of pictures. The Development of a baby will fascinate children.

Geology, Geography, and Meteorology - There is a section devoted to minerals. Kids will also enjoy the section on volcanoes and fossils. I always wondered how caves form.

Physics and Chemistry - A full periodic table and visual explanation of chemical reactions, light, electricity, atoms and force and motion are given here.

Rail and Road -A Volkswagen Beetle is disassembled, modern engines are shown in sectioned view and the mechanical components of a typical car are shown with all the parts spread out across the page. The section on "Bicycle Anatomy" will be of use to anyone who loves to ride and fix their own bikes.

Sea and Air - Everything from Viking Ships to the anatomy of an iron ship, jet engines and helicopters.

The Visual Arts - Finally an explanation on how mosaics are created. The budding artist will also enjoy the section on painting.

Architecture - I was fascinated by the Medieval castles and churches. Someone spent a lot of time tracking down the models for buildings from Ancient Rome to modern times. What a collection!

Music - Trying to learn how to read notes or interested in the names of all the instruments in an orchestra? They even take a guitar apart and sow you a variety of acoustic guitars.

Sports - An extremely detailed section on every main sport you can think of. The playing field, rules, equipment, everything is shown. They even have pictures of each type of swimming stroke. I'm impressed! The authors thought of everything.

The Modern World -Ever wonder what the internal components of your Cell phone, PDA, or even vacuum cleaner looks like? The section describing the Internet was in itself worth the price of this book. Information on cloning technology, political maps of the world, time zones and metric-imperial conversions makes this very useful.

Each sections starts with a table of contents and then every entry has introductions that explain the purpose of the illustrations and annotations.

Since I am presently reading a book about health and the function of our cells, page 216-217 was very helpful. I first looked up "Mitochondrion" and was sent to page 217 and 239. There before my eyes was a cell in full detail. There is also a series of microscopic pictures of a wide variety of cells on the right hand side. The actual cell takes up most of the two pages.

In fact, this dictionary has more than 31,500 terms and 6,000 color photographs and illustrations. This is the dictionary I would have loved to have had as a teenager. It would have made all my classes at school much more interesting.

Highly recommended for teachers, libraries and families with inquiring minds.

One of the most useful and beautiful books I've ever read. Put a copy on your coffee table and enter the world of knowledge once a day. Soon, the world will just be far more interesting. You will feel that X-ray vision when you look at normal objects in your home and environment. ...