1,000 Years, 1,000 People: Ranking the Men and Women Who Shaped the Millennium

by Brent Bowers, Barbara Bowers, Henry Gottlieb, et al.

Book Overview

This text presents a list of 1000 of the most important, influential and intriguing figures of the past millennium. Among the figures profiled are philosophers and artists, statesmen and warlords,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1568362536
• ISBN13: 9781568362533
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Kodansha
• Length: 331 Pages
• Weight: 1.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 7.5" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Shame we had to wait 1000 years for the next book!

With the coming of the new millennium, every one is writing a book about the top 100 or 1000 in just about every category. This book is no exception to that rule. What makes this book different is that fact that this book doesn't bore the reader to sleep with endless pages of nothing.There is just enough written about the 1000 people, in this book to make the reader want to find out more. You will pleasantly surprised by the list of people in the book. The authors explain, in detail, how they determined the list rankings.The book is well written and researched by all authors. They break down the listing in groups of 100, which I found to be extremely helpful. I found each short bio, on the person, to be easy top follow.This book makes a great gift for those hard to buy for people. The price is in the range for those on a budget. Overal this book is a good buy for the money.

Simply a great book!

Most books I read I put down, earmark, and come back to. Not this one.The humor in most of these short bios humanize them and the sheer number of people in the book make it the kind you want to re-read.

this book is ABSOLUTELY OUTSTANDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This book is perfect for even lazy people like me. It ranks the people based on a point system and it gives one phrase summaries and 2 paragraph summaries. you can learn a helluva lot in 5 minutes. excellent for people of all ages. Also, the authors have an EXCELLENT SENSE OF HUMOR. You should definitely buy this book!!!

a fun and informative book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

getting my 14-year-old daughter to appreciate world history has proved darn near impossible. at least that was the case before we picked up "1,000 years, 1,000 people." over several evenings, we have played a game: one of us picks a number between 1 and 1,000 and the other reads aloud the name of the historical figure ranked in the book. the person selecting the number then attempts to explain the importance of the individual within one minute. quite often, frankly, it's a shot in the dark, but the exercise has evolved into a game that we call "millennium minute." and somewhere along the way it has helped to engender in her a budding interest in history. though it is easy to quibble with the listed ranking and, inevitably, some readers will protest on the exclusion of some notable, to me this is one of the book's fundamental strengths. indeed, the authors have devised a clever way for us to debate the last 1,000 years and celebrate in an intellectually engaging way the new millennium. unfortunately, however, the publisher and the book distributors are not making easy for us. this book can be difficult to find! if you are lucky enough to locate a copy, share it with your family and friends. and if you have a teenager whose idea of history is what he did yesterday, challenge him to a "millennium minute."

Weighty Ideas

1,000 Years, 1,000 People provokes something more than arguments as to who should be listed among the thousand most significant people to have lived in the last millenium. Other readers of this book whom I know argue about who should have made the list, and in what order. Likewise press accounts on the book take up the debate. Everybody seems to have an opinion. Sharing and comparing these opinions reveals a lot about how we weigh achievement in our civilization. Few subjects can more important, as we try to make sense of the present. So the book deserves great credit for stirring people to think about an academic discipline that most left behind in school. The biographies themselves are a great refresher course, and to be honest, I had not heard of some of these people. But indeed they do seem important. We have enjoyed this book as a starting point for discussions with our five children and recommend it heartily to other families.