History: From the Dawn of Civilization to the Present Day

by Adam Hart-Davis

Book Overview

This comprehensive and compelling visual encyclopedia tells the story of our world in true depth and detail, from the origins of life on Earth right up until the 21st century.

Human endeavor and achievement are charted and celebrated from every angle, alongside key events, groundbreaking ideas, political forces, and technological advances that have shaped our planet's progress.



More than 600 pages chronicle global...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1465437975
• ISBN13: 9781465437976
• Release Date: September 2015
• Publisher: DK Publishing (Dorling Kindersley)
• Length: 620 Pages
• Weight: 6.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 10.3" x 11.9"

Customer Reviews

A great reference

The book is nicely laid out with lots of color pictures, captions, inserts, graphs, maps, etc. It is in chronological order which makes finding things easy and also allows one to see the time line across the world at any specific era.

Meet my new best friend!

This book is visually stunning, endlessly entertaining and educational, and explores history through every imaginable angle, holding it up to the clear light of academic exploration. You can read it from cover to cover, flip through it for quick, factual insights, or explore some area for specialized focus. It is so well done, that it will (I guarantee) hold inexhaustable fascination for you and everyone in your household. Where did we come from and where are we going? Find your answers here. Perfection! I adore it.

Awesome Book

This book is very well organized, well written, and has great pictures to go with the text. The book is more then I expected. Would buy again.

Beautiful book, useful resource, fun for the whole family

DK does for history what it has previously done for the universe, the earth, animals, and humans in gorgeously-illustrated large-format "visual guides" entitled, logically enough, "Universe," "Earth," "Animal," and "Human." Each book in the series is as comprehensive as possible, though of course none of these books can be as endlessly expansive as the enormous subjects they tackle. But they do a wonderful job of categorizing knowledge and related fields, including copious detail, and inspiring curiosity and wonder. "History" will not replace standard textbooks on specific historical eras or regions of the world, but it serves as an excellent general introduction, particularly for those who might otherwise be turned off by the subject of history.

A must have book for anyone fascinated by History

I love this book. It starts with a chapter titled Our Remote Ancestors about how humans evolved and ends with a chapter titled Shrinking World about developments in communication and technology and how they have changed the world. The book is big. 12 x 10.5 x 1.75. It is full of pictures. This book reminds me of the wonderful travel guide books that DK publishes. History is a guidebook to the history of the human race. There are hundreds of wonderful pictures, maps, timelines and charts. This is a book that viscerally appeals to me. Since it arrived I have enjoyed opening it and browsing at every opportunity. The other thing that I love about this book is that it allows me to find answers to the random historical questions that often come up when I am traveling, reading the newspaper or watching historical fiction on TV. I have three examples of this. A recent visit to the ancient bristle cone pines made me want to understand more about ancient civilizations and human migrations. History: The Definitive Visual Guide allowed me to satisfy my curiosity. History: The Definitive Visual Guide helps me to understand the historical backgrounds of the presidential biographies I have been reading. A waitress recently told us she was from Moldova. I knew almost nothing about Moldova. One of the nice features of History: The Definitive Visual Guide is that it has a 110 page section that traces the individual histories of the world's 193 countries. When we got home I read up on the history of Moldova. In my opinion History: The Definitive Visual Guide is a must have for anyone who is fascinated by history. I highly recommend this book. It would make a great Christmas present!