World History for Dummies | 
| Author: Peter Haugen
Publisher: For Dummies
Category: Book
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $1.97
You Save: $18.02 (90%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  21 reviews
Sales Rank: 11787
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 408
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.2 x 1
ISBN: 0764552422
Dewey Decimal Number: 909
UPC: 785555026810
EAN: 9780764552427
ASIN: 0764552422
Publication Date: March 15, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: SHIPS TODAY!! BRAND NEW BOOK
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Product Description
If history scares you or bores you silly, that's probably because a teacher once required you to memorize a bunch of dates– when things like the Magna Carta and the Versailles Treaty were signed, for example. Admittedly, dates are a big part of history, but only because historical events happened in a certain order. If Columbus hadn't sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred and ninety-two, the Mayflower Pilgrims might not have looked west for a place to practice their Puritan religion almost 130 years later. The eventual outcome? No day-after-Thanksgiving mob scenes at the mall. So you may be asking, "How can a 330-page book cover the complete history of the world?" The short answer is that it can't. To cover thousands of years in one book would be impossible. What is possible is a skimming of the surface of world history, which is what you'll find in World History For Dummies. This book provides a fun and friendly overview of the history of the world, providing glimpses into the major players and events that have made the world what it is today. Because the history of the world is such a grand topic, a comprehensive list of what you'll find in World History For Dummies would be almost as long as the book itself. So here are a few highlights to pique your interest: - Discover how to look at history from the historian's perspective
- Becoming civilized: The invention of writing and art
- Scientific developments that revolutionized the world
- Building empires: From Rome to Russia
- War and peace (no, not the Tolstoy novel)
- The development of the world's religions
- Overviews of the essential historical documents that you must know– from the Bible to the Bill of Rights
Anyone with at least a passing interest in history can find value in World History For Dummies– whether you're a student or a teacher in need of a broad historical overview, a history buff looking for new fascinating areas of interest, or if you just want to be the best darned Trivial Pursuit player in your neighborhood!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 16 more reviews...
 This is not a computer/tech book May 1, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Amazon has listed "World History for Dummies" as a computer/tech book. This is obviously a mistake. It is a history book.
 Chaotic December 5, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I couldn't go past 100 pages. What I read was written in a very disorganized way. It keeps going back and forward in time which makes it very difficult to follow. Then it will go through hundreds of years in a paragraph while devoting a lot more text to explain random details. Overall, I found it pretty messy and hard to read.
 Good review..a little too PC November 13, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
As a lover of History, I got this book to help ensure that if I had any obvious holes in my general World History knowledge, that I could find them out and patch them up.
I'm still going through the book, but I feel I have enough information thus far to give a decent review. It looks to have most of the essentials of a nice little Western Civ/World History survey class. Which is pretty much what I was looking for. One must understand that cramming the HISTORY OF THE ENTIRE WORLD into a single volume book is daunting, and if the book is a "For Dummies" book, it's impossible. But, all things considered, the author did a fine job. I recommend this book, but I'd get it used and cheaper (I paid $5 for my like-new copy, shipping included, right here on Amazon).
My complaints? Not many. The only thing I can complain about is what is very common in, shall we say, Liberal Arts books these days. That, of course, is revisionist (the dreaded) "PC" history.
Look, I understand that decades ago Americans were taught a very rose-tinted version of American and World History. No one denies this. As a matter of fact, show me a society back then that gave an entirely unbiased historical account of their country and I'll eat my hat.
My problem, however, is that for the past decade or two there has been a movement to counter this in such a radical way that historians now present most European/Christian/(White people in general) very negatively, in relation to other peoples of the world. Again, I understand and sympathize that you are trying to counter earlier viewpoints. The problem is that children today are ONLY getting this radical backlash.
Ignore the PC rhetoric and just use the book for what it is: a survey.
Lots of help! August 5, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Since my knowledge of this subject is limited, it was nice to have a product that helped me while also being quite entertaining.
 Juvenile! March 17, 2007
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is a terrible book! The history parts are disjointed and badly arranged. The worst part of the book is the author's constantly referring to some movie on the historical topic at hand - and often the movies he mentions are junk movies. With so little space to cover world history, I can't believe he would waste so much on old Kirk Douglas movies, for instance!!
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