100 Events That Shaped World History (100 Series)

The author often provides dates that span a certain time with no explanation as to why he choose that specific start date and that end date. For example he gives the date for the period of the crusades between 1096 and 1270 but does not mention the 9th crusade and to what date 1270 during the 9th crusade pertains. I can only speculate, the death of Louis IX of France or maybe it was when the Baibars was besieged Tripoli which was in 1271? The lack of specificity for me made it a little annoying, since I was endeavoring to memorize the dates. Also the book focuses on things that are important to westerners. I recognize it is ethnocentric but I didn't really mind, probably because I am western and these events are significant to me. There needs to be a book like this for eastern civilization. All in all, I recommend it as a resource you use in conjunction with Wikipedia and for kids who want to flip through it but probably wont spend their time memorizing the dates as I had intended. Illustrations are a little week as well.

This book was easy to read and contained just enough information to encourage additional reading elsewhere. I would recommend it to others.

This book provides a nice overarching storyline of the history of us. I think that by reading this book, a person can get a strong sense of how past events have shaped our world today. It's a great starter book for aspiring history buffs.

I read this hoping to pass it on to my nieces and nephews, but I wanted to check the accuracy. This book is very badly edited. Several sentences make absolutely no sense at all. The dates are inaccurate. King Arthur is listed as a legitimate king of England. While reading several events, my thoughts tended toward, "Well, that's not exactly what happened..." When I got to Event #27: the Magna Carta, where King Richard the Lionheart is stated to be the *father* of King John, I stopped reading. I just flipped through the remaining events after that.The book did get some things right, but the inaccuracies negate the value of the correct information, for me at least. If you're interested in historical accuracy, do not buy this book. I was going to give the book away, but I don't want any children being influenced by the false information in this book, so I will just send it to the recycle center, instead.

_100 Events_ turns out to be, sadly, a pretty shallow overview of world events. Readers anticipating a companion to, say, _The 100 Most Influential People_, will find themselves disappointed. To its credit, _100 Events_ does include a few events outside the canon of Western history -- the rule of Asoka, the destablization of Iran, and two or three others. But each of the top events that shaped our world is treated so lightly -- a single page, most of which is taken up by an illustration -- that one may well wonder what notice, if any, the author would give to the next 100.