I teach history classes for homeschool junior high students and use this book as the spine of our program. The paperback’s font is way too small– I recommend the hardcover. n
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The book is divided into 4 sections: prehistoric, ancient, medieval, and modern. The Ancient and Medieval sections are available as stand-alone volumes from Usborne. But, you have to purchase this thick encyclopedia if you want the first and fourth sections. For my kids, we purchased the large hardcover and had our local Kinkos slice the spine off the book and spiral-bind the four sections into 4 different books that were much smaller and more manageable.n
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I give it only 4 stars. It’s the best history encyclopedia available, but I hope something better will someday be available.n
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PROS: great review of ancient and medieval history, great illustrations, good readability. Internet links are fun and easier than googling.n
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CONS: Insufficient coverage of 20th century and *WAY* too much time spent on prehistoric life. I’m not anti-evolution (I haven’t yet made my decision on this topic). I simply feel the the information would be better suited to an earth science book rather than a history book. It’s simply a waste of money for parents to pay for 1/4 of a book not even used in the majority of history studies. I suppose Usborne wrote the book from the perspective of “Earth’s History” rather than the history of just humans on the earth.

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I bought this book at the request of my homeschooling sister. She says that she and her almost 5 year old read a few pages a day and are already halfway done with the book. She says each section is brief, but would help to build a broad basic knowledge. It is a good starting point for deeper research. I looked it over before I gave it to her and it is a very appealing book. It is full of illustrations that look like they would be hours of educational entertainment.

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This is a beautifully illustrated history of the world. It’s a bit dry, but if you can make it through, it gives one a good sense of perspective.

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This book is fantastic for our homeschooling ventures. I gave it four stars because I wish the text had a little more informtation on some topics. The websites are a great extra. This is almost the only history text we have to use.

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I’m a high school social studies teacher and encountered USBorne books at a teacher workshop. They are very informative and vibrant texts. The internet-linked versions are wonderful. They include numerous links that accessed through the USBorne website, not the book. This allows for dead links to be eliminated and new links to be added (even more than are mentioned in the book). The pictures are wonderful, colorful, and some illustrations can even be downloaded for classroom use. I’m very happy with this book and use it in the classroom.

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