The Last 500 Years (Usborne World History) by Jane Bingham

The Last 500 Years (Usborne World History) Reviews

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  Ebookwormy1

  This is a solid summary of European history from 1500-2000 in just over 100 pages. The brevity of the text is helpful in giving an overview of European/ Western history and the European exploration/ expansion to the rest of the world. Colorful illustrations, maps and photographs complement the elementary narrative, which is often broken into small paragraphs.
  
  Indigenous cultures are covered as the Europeans discover them, along with short summaries of how that encounter progressed (disease, war, etc.) with some people thriving through the pressure of the European intrusion (such as China, Japan etc.) and some succumbing to the Western Europeans either permanently (such as Native Americans of North America, Maori of New Zealand, etc.) or temporarily (such as India, Brazil and Kenya).
  
  The one outstanding awful point is the discussion of the middle east. The narrative begins with 1948, failing to tie the history of the region to previous sections, specifically the Ottoman Empire, or deal with the governance of the region between the wars. Summaries of Iran and Iraq are better.
  
  Overall, this is overview has served our home school well, but it's hard to believe there are not other resources that would work just as well. The key for me in making it valuable was the brief coverage that we needed to fill in a severe education gap.
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  Gussie

  The book that taught me about Conquistadors and Captain Cook, Anne Frank and Princess Anastasia, Habsburgs and Hiroshima, Gulags and the Great Leap Forward, the Armada and Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Sitting Bull and Simon Bolivar, Blitzkrieg and the Brandenburg Gate, Lech Walesa and Lumière brothers... and a gazillion other wonderful facts that I collected like a greedy squirrel all before my 13th birthday. This is the book that I will perhaps always hold dear for kindling a love for history in me. This is also the book which cost too much for my then tiny little book budget and made me give up on Lay's potato chips for one whole month. However, as Calvin's dad would say, it "built a lot of character".
• 
  Shannon

  Brief little snippets of the past 500 years of history. Has illustrations and graphs that are a wonderful supplement to history studies.
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  Emily

  When filling out an "about me" my first grader said that this was his favorite book. It was very informative.