The Usborne Book of World History (Guided Discovery Program)

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I absolutely love Usborne books! I homeschool my K and 2nd graders with several Usborne books and even my husband can't put them down. HOWEVER, I have found this book to be inaccurate in reference to Christian and Jewish history. This has not proven to be a problem because I simply use the inaccuracies to teach my children about truth and inaccuracies.

Rating:
Summary: The Usbourne Book of World History (Guided Discovery Program
Review: I purchased this book on the recommendation of Jesse Wise and Susan Wise Bauer, authors of "The Well Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home." I am using it as the basic history text for my 1st and 2nd grader covering the beginnings of civilization all the way to the beginning of the 1900's.

The book is well organized into 1-2 page spreads that cover a brief time period or subject relating to a time period, which makes nice divisions for daily or weekly history lessons. For larger subject areas such as the Egyptian, Greek and Roman civilizations, there are several 2-page spreads covering more detailed areas of life and culture. The book begins with a 2-page spread called "Digging up History" then continues with early settlers, earliest cities, then major civilizations and empires. The page layouts are "Usbourne style," meaning there are many illustrations per page with captions about a paragraph long accompanying them. The illustrations are well done in that they give a good idea of what life was probably like during each time of history.

Each spread usually has a caption entitled "How We Know," which tells specific archeological evidences for the specific cultures. There are also small time charts on several spreads giving key dates for that specific culture. There are two large time charts in the book, the first covers First Civilizations to the Fall of Rome, the second continues on from there to 1914. Each chart covers 9 major geographical areas and gives a basic overview of what was happening in each.

This book is an excellent general overview. It is a good starting point, but for a more in-depth study needs to be supplemented with additional books that go into more detail.

Rating:
Summary: Good Introduction to History
Review: I use this book to homeschool my daughter, and I've found it to be a good introduction to history for young children. It's not the only resource you will need, but it provides a good framework.

It does jump around a bit, because of the commitment to chronological presentation of *world* history. It's difficult to get the right mix on this, because one wants to see the continuous development of a particular region, but one also wants to see events in the greater context of World history. If the mix given in the book doesn't suit, though, it's possible to simply skip over parts and come back to them later. We use the book to provide a frame of reference, and a jumping off place for further study. In that respect, I think this book is better organized than The Kingfisher History Encyclopedia. The latter has far more text, but, in my opinion, it's too dense for young children.

Some reviewers have mentioned the nudity in the pictures. I'm not sure what to make of that. Presumably they don't allow their children to view works of art that contain nudity either, since the Usborne nudity is far less graphic than a classical or renaissance statue. I don't know what harm a child could suffer from viewing Michelangelo's David, or Botticelli's Birth of Venus, though. The pictures in the Usborne book are harmless.

Other reviewers have claimed that there are inaccuracies in the Usborne book, particularly in how the catholic church is portrayed. I've looked at the examples that they've provided, and don't find them convincing. For example, one mentions the conflict between Pope Gregory VII and the Emperor, Henry IV. The claim that the pope made Henry stand in the snow for three days is one that I've seen in adult history texts. To call it "voluntary" penance is stretching things a bit, since Henry had been excommunicated, was in danger of losing his crown, and later reverted to his original opinion.

It's also claimed that the text doesn't present both sides of the Protestant/Catholic wars equally. Yet, on p.135 it says, "priests on both sides were tortured and even hanged. Both Protestants and Catholics believed they were saving their opponents from hell by doing this."

Another objection concerned the book's statement that "people decided [Joan of Arc] was a saint." There's nothing false about that statement. Of course, a saint must be cannonized by the church, but the pope doesn't make someone a saint out of the blue. Her sainthood was acclaimed by the people first, and then confirmed by the pope. It seems trivial to take issue with this.

I could go on about the other alleged inaccuracies, but I will just urge people to take these claims with a grain of salt. Read through all of the reviews of this book, and make your own decision.

The book is sketchy on detail, but that's to be expected. It's aimed at elementary school age children, it is heavily illustrated and it is wide-ranging. It skims the surface of history, and the parent/teacher is expected to provide greater detail through other sources. The book contains a list of additional resources on the inside of the back cover. If you use the book in that manner, it's a valuable resource. There are few texts that fill the niche of teaching history to children in the 6-10 age group, and none that I know of do it as well as Usborne.

Rating:
Summary: A Sesame-Street approach to history
Review: I usually love Usborne books and our family owns many of them. But The Usborne Book of World History has left me disappointed.

The title page reads, "This book is an introduction to world history from the first civilisations to the early 20th century... This book does not attempt to be a comprehensive account... A vast amount of detail has been omitted..."

This is true. What remains is a very sparse overview of world history, presented in tiny two-or-three sentence snippets, interspersed among a plethora of colorful and often confusing images covering each and every page.

To me, as a homeschool teacher, this is disconcerting. This type of presentation would seem to stifle the student's need to develop concentration and focus as they study history. Any child able to read this book (which is written at (at least) a 3rd-grade level) should NOT be learning history in "tidbits" like this. He or she should be making connections-- between the invention of the printing press and the spread of Protestantism or the sudden surge in exploration of far-away lands, for example. This book simply doesn't provide those connections.

For that reason, I call it a "Sesame-Street approach". Too many small, attention-grabbing images and too little "meat". It seems more like entertainment than education to me. I would have preferred that the authors spend less time on the graphic images and more time developing a coherent continuum of history that a young child could follow.

Rating:
Summary: A Sesame-Street approach to history
Review: I usually love Usborne books and our family owns many of them. But The Usborne Book of World History has left me disappointed.

The title page reads, "This book is an introduction to world history from the first civilisations to the early 20th century... This book does not attempt to be a comprehensive account... A vast amount of detail has been omitted..."

This is true. What remains is a very sparse overview of world history, presented in tiny two-or-three sentence snippets, interspersed among a plethora of colorful and often confusing images covering each and every page.

To me, as a homeschool teacher, this is disconcerting. This type of presentation would seem to stifle the student's need to develop concentration and focus as they study history. Any child able to read this book (which is written at (at least) a 3rd-grade level) should NOT be learning history in "tidbits" like this. He or she should be making connections-- between the invention of the printing press and the spread of Protestantism or the sudden surge in exploration of far-away lands, for example. This book simply doesn't provide those connections.

For that reason, I call it a "Sesame-Street approach". Too many small, attention-grabbing images and too little "meat". It seems more like entertainment than education to me. I would have preferred that the authors spend less time on the graphic images and more time developing a coherent continuum of history that a young child could follow.

Rating:
Summary: Catholics -- use this book with discretion
Review: I'm impressed by the amount of information and the number of topics they packed into this book, but visually it is a bit too "busy" for my adult taste. This is an Usborne trademark, though, and the kids enjoy it, so I won't criticize the book on that point.

The editors' choice to present world history in a purely chronological layout forces the reader to make too many mental jumps: the book is literally all over the map. There's no foundational civilization or idea from which the book proceeds, so the presentation of history using this format ends up being a chaotic hodge-podge rather than a coherent study. I prefer studying the history of the major civilizations in large chunks. The Usborne book is an excellent reference, though, which I still refer to even though I no longer use it as my "core" history text.

Like the anonymous reviewer of July 12, 2000, I too purchased this book for my home school after reading Wise and Bauer's "The Well-Trained Mind" and I was also disappointed by the many inaccuracies concerning the Catholic Church. I'll mention another one that the 7/12/2000 reviewer didn't: the book claims that after one of the many quarrels between Pope Gregory VII and Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, the Pope "kept Henry IV waiting in the snow outside Canossa Castle for three days before he would forgive him." Henry was, in fact, doing voluntary penance in the snow, but the book's interpretation makes the Pope look bad, and for no good reason that I can see.

The editors of the book seem to go out of their way to present Catholics and Catholicism in the worst possible light. The Spanish missionaries in the New World are accused of trying to force the natives to the Catholic faith and burning alive anyone who refused. The coverage of the conflicts between European Protestants and Catholics clearly makes the Catholics seem like the perpretrators of all the violence and murder, when in fact both parties committed atrocities against the other. The coverage of the Spanish Inquisition is all too typical.

With small children in the early grades these controversial topics don't even need to be addressed, so you could just skip this stuff, but Catholic households who keep this book around may want to go through it and point out the errors. Accurate histories sympathetic to Catholicism do exist: Fr. Philip Fulong's "The Old World and America" and "Pioneers and Patriots" for the middle grades and Anne Carroll's "Christ the King, Lord of History" and "Christ and the Americas" for older students.

Rating:
Summary: The Usborne Book of World History
Review: In general I appreciate Usborne books. This one has too much nudity for my taste and too much emphasis on ancient religions. I much prefer Usborne's Ancient World.

Rating:
Summary: a thorough homeschooler's choice
Review: This is a comprehensive coverage of topics in world history in a chronological fashion. By no means is it a thorough textbook. Then again, this book is targeted to elementary age children. Some concern may be elicited by understandably protective parents over the factual graphic representation of violence or nudity in art or historical depiction of facts (i.e. heads cut off laying in a pile from Assyrian victors, or Grecians with visible pubic hair at the Olympics), but if handled appropriately most children can probably deal well with this, especially if they aren't overly exposed to television or electronic games. My children have commented on the pictures, but a simple explanation usually suffices and we move on.

I use this with my first, second and third graders for our homeschool. We chose this from the recommendation of "The Well Trained Mind" by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer. It is a very affordable option for a full four years of history (if you follow the three four-year cycles of history for classical education as suggested by The Well Trained Mind). Reading a two-page section one day allows for other books or items to be explored for the other two days of study that week.

Practical and affordable, this is a welcomed and captivating alternative to today's textbook approach to history.

Rating:
Summary: The history spine for grammar stage Well Trained Mind
Review: This is what is in the curriculum for homeschooling with the Well Trained Mind. This is to be used for grades 1-4; although fourth grade needs Usborne's Twentieth Century as well.
This book is laid out chronologically and gives you information on all parts of the world at that time. Therefore, your kids will get information in nice, logical packets (which you then transfer to a time line). Once you've read in the history book the pages to cover for your two weeks, you then head to the library to check out books on subjects appropriate to your time frame.
This is a good book by a good company.

If you're not homeschooling and you want a book that might help your kid (younger) in history, try this one.

If you're a grownup and you're interested in filling in the gaps you missed in school, consider reading this book. Forget who the Sumerians were? Can't remember what happened when in the British Isles? This book is an wasy way to recover all that lost information.