World History: The Human Experience

Rating:
Summary: Not as wonderful as expected
Review: I am a grade nine student and I feel like this book could be better. It is mainly centered on Europe and the order of the book makes it more confusing than it needs to be. For example, in one paragraph, the book will talk about a ruler that died in 645 B.C. In the next chapter, it will continue to talk about the already deceased ruler, and what he did 20 years prior. If you can handle this, order away. If just that confuses you, I'd stay away from this one.

Rating:
Summary: This book is an excelent guide to learning world history
Review: I am a ninth grade history teacher and I have used Farah's book for three years now. I find it useful as it minimizes political and military history in favor of social and cultural topics. My students find it useful.

Rating:
Summary: Lesser Quality for the Average Reader
Review: I THOUGHT THIS BOOK WAS A STEP ABOVE THE REST OF THE BOOKS THAT WE'VE READ IN WORLD HISTORY OVER THE YEARS, AND I FIND THIS BOOK THE BEST HISTORY BOOK EVER! I LIKE HOW INTERESTING IT CAN BE. SOMETIMES I READ PARTS OF IT JUST FOR FUN. BRAVO!

Rating:
Summary: GREAT BOOK ABOUT HISTORY
Review: I THOUGHT THIS BOOK WAS A STEP ABOVE THE REST OF THE BOOKS THAT WE'VE READ IN WORLD HISTORY OVER THE YEARS, AND I FIND THIS BOOK THE BEST HISTORY BOOK EVER! I LIKE HOW INTERESTING IT CAN BE. SOMETIMES I READ PARTS OF IT JUST FOR FUN. BRAVO!

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book for Learning World History
Review: I ussually a student from ninth grade. I like this book because it focuses in all cultures of the world and is a very interesting. It taughts you how to be a better human being by talking of the decissions of all the leaders and rulers. I recomend it for all schools, teachers and students.

Rating:
Summary: Lesser Quality for the Average Reader
Review: The Human Experience is an experience on how a text can totally lack depth and new ideas. Firstly, the book is good for a standard World History class with a concentration on Europe. The text is also accompanied by a wonderful array of technology from laserdiscs to CD-ROMs that can be implemented as reinforcement for teaching the basic concepts. It's blatantly obvious that where the text is week, the immense multimedia activities were planned to compensate. More time should have been allocated to perfecting the text, rather than tackling the latest technological advance.

This current edition contains text that has not been significantly altered since the 1992 edition, if not earlier. If you are looking for a text with easy to follow chronological format--move on. This book provides the reader with diluted and out of order history which does nothing except grace a classroom with twenty-five confused faces. For students to easily grasp the events of the past and the time periods between them, chronological order is vital. For example, Farah and Karls have created units that overlap significant periods of time where the "Royal Power and Conflict" chapter covers 1500-1750 and then the next chapter "Empires of Asia" covers 1350-1850. The subjects are completely different, yet they cannot be easily compared as being in the same time period because of the arrangement of the text.

Asides from giving a total Eurocentric view (this book is really a basic Western Civilization text that was made for the standard high school student), what is mentioned about Asia is minor with major points of history being left out. If the history of Africa, Asia, or Latin American is part of your lesson plan, I would recommend an outside source.

Finally, this text lacks the depth that I have encountered with others (i.e. West Educational Publishing's World History: The Human Odyssey). It is truly a sad day when students complain about the heaviness of the book and the teacher responds it's all the pictures. When comparing the past editions, one can see that the book was obviously enlarged to have more pictures and the "extra stuff" mentioned above.

Overall, for the average reader, World History: The Human Experience's reading experience is a bearable one. But, if you're looking for depth or enrichment--go elsewhere. I give the work 2 of 5 because it meets the expectations for a standard reader, yet falls far short of its potential.