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Rating: 
Summary: Bargain priced, but no text. Very basic.
Review: First of all: this book is a bargain. At under ten bucks, you can get maps of world history to refer to. However, there are a few problems: (1) The book offers no text to explain history. So you really need to know the history yourself or have companion books to help; (2) the book emphasizes European state history, and shortchanges other nations, cultural changes, religious movements, migrations, slavery, technologies, etc. This is mostly a book of maps showing the changing territories of nations. //// I was hoping to assign this book to my college Geography students, but will not, nor do I have much use for it myself. I much prefer the other Hammond world historical atlas, even at the higher cost. Most of the new, larger world historical atlasses are superior, becuase they show that history is so much more than states. In sum, this book is a disappointment, useful to a very limited audience.
Rating: 
Summary: An Atlas that's an Atlas
Review: Thank goodness I can still buy an atlas that is really an atlas. I read a lot of history, and having reached that stage in life where most of the books I enjoy are not profusely illustrated, I have been searching for a good historical atlas. I've bought several now, covering different periods and regions, but most have been a dissapointment (the lone exception being the Penguin Atlas of Medieval History). Instead of an atlas, i.e., a collection of maps, what I got was an illustrated history book. Unfortunately, to make room for the text, graphs, etc., they left out most of the maps. The maps that were included often ignored political boundaries, or tried to encapsulate 100 years of change on a single, low-detail map with a few arrows and dots drawn on. While I understand that history is much more than political and national boundaries, those are the aspects of history that change most rapidly, thus requiring more maps to follow. I remember the old Hammond Historical Atlas from my childhood, as the perfect companion for most books of post-Renaissance European history (and not bad for earlier periods, though usually weak outside Europe). I just hope it hasn't changed too much.
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