Recently I did a detailed comparison of the 5 or 6 major offerings in this area, which includes such traditional notables as the big Hammond atlas and the one from Oxford University Press, as well as the Dorling-Kindersley one, but this atlas is the best combination of features and price out there. It's only a fraction of the cost of the big Hammond one, for example, and is cheaper than the other two by at least 50%.

So I agree with several of the other reviewers here, that this atlas really rocks, and that in many ways it's better than any of the more famous other offerings in this field on the market, including the massive Hammond one and DK ones, which, as I mentioned, are a lot more expensive.

I've read my share of ancient history books, and this atlas is just the best way to get a good overview quickly of a particular time frame and period. I've used it to clarify many aspects of ancient history, for example, when I got lost in the details in reading more standard histories on the subject. In reading your typical ponderous history, it's so easy to lose the forest for the trees, and there is no better solution for the problem than this book.

Another nice feature of the book is that periodically throughout the text there will be essays at key years or junctures in history, such as "The World in 1914," or "The World in 800 BC," or whatever, in addition to the more topically oriented essays, such as "Old Kingdom Egypt," or "The Persian Empire," or "The Warring States (referring to 5th A.D. century China) which give you further historical perspectives on the events of the time.

The book is organized into two-page spreads with the essays and their corresponding maps and illustrations. According to the jacket text, the book was also prepared with the aid of graphics experts and geographers skilled at combining the written word with visual illustrations and graphics. I would say they and John Haywood succeeded admirably, making this a great book just to browse casually, or read more seriously. Haywood also writes very well and has a nice, deft touch with the material that avoids the dry, technical-sounding quality of some atlases.

Another nice feature of the book is the detailed, color-coded timelines that accompany each two-page spread, which some atlases don't always include or set aside in a separate section of the book. This makes it easier to use and more informative since it can be referred to along with the maps and the text.

My only fault with the book is that the coverage is typically Eurocentric, but this really only applies to the DK atlas, which is suprisingly strong in terms of its coverage of Asian, African, and non-European history in general. All the others are more Eurocentric, like this one.

Keep in mind that this book (like all atlases) aims at breadth rather than depth, since it covers the entire history of the world from man's earliest origins up to modern times. Overall a great altas and a fine book to keep you oriented in whatever period of history you are reading on.

This is an excellent book, with detailed maps covering history from the dawn of civilization all the way upto the date of the book's publishing (only real change between the most recent map in this book and the present is the independence of East Timor.) Keep in mind that this book focuses on breadth, not depth; that isn't really a flaw, it's by design. It's not meant to be and all-in-one historical text, but a reference companion to any more in-depth historical text for a given region or period.

The best part of the book in my opinion is the several world maps that let you see the entire world at a glance during certain years. There are 27 of those, if I counted right, showing the world at a glance during key moments in history from 2000 BC all the way up to 1999 AD. Another thing the makes this book unique among historical references is the fact it isn't so Eurocentric as most history books are; it covers the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Australia with the same detail as Europe.

If you're a map-freak like me, who likes to see maps to help you picture historical periods, this is a great book to have.

I wanted to buy the best atlas of world history so I went to the library and looked through the top 3 atlases, namely Times/Hammond, Oxford, and DK. DK was clearly the nicest and most elegant of them, but contained little text and had lots of world maps in places where it should have had detailed close up maps of the regions. I eventually chose Hammond 5th edition, the most expensive of them all, and ordered it. Then in a local bookstore I found this book and because of its low cost I said "what the heck" and bought it. I am glad I did because in my opinion it is better than all the rest including Hammond. Whenever I want to look something up I go to this book first. When comparing the same events in this book and Hammond, I find that in many cases (but not all) this book provides a better and more detailed explanation.

This book is amazingly well organized. Each chapter starts with about 5 world maps spanning hundreads of years. (hammond doesn't have this). Followed by nice and detailed maps of each region. Color is used very well. The maps are mostly the same size so you can easily compare them and visually assimilate the information better. Each map has a timeline and a list of about 7 key events/battles that happened during that time.

The quality of this book matches or exceeds the quality of the major atlases. You do not need a better general world history atlas book than this. And the fact that the price is so low, gives you no reason not to buy this book. Goto the library/bookstore and compare the atlases, and you'll see this one is good enough for all your needs.

The "Atlas of Past Times" found a permanent place on my coffee table. This book is absolutely loaded with illustrative maps, photos, and text. John Haywood has done to the pictorial record of world history what Kenneth C. Davis did for American history in his "Don't Know Much About History."

Time after time over the years I've heard or read about a particular civilization, war, political upheaval, or religious movement, but was unclear as to the specific timeframe and geographic scope. It's one thing to read about boundaries in text, but Haywood lays it all out in numerous maps. Each map is color-coded and loaded with useful information. The legends are clear and concise. A perfect example of how I found the book useful was in my following the war in Iraq. I didn't want to read six textbooks to gain a better understanding of the region's history. Haywood's book provides a fantastic visual overview: Mesopotamia, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Jews, the Arabs, the advance and subdivisions of Islam, the Kurds, the Turks, etc. The area has a long and convoluted history, which the maps really help place within grasp of the common man.

The accompanying text is only a cursory--but well written--examination of chronological world history, which is fine; it is titled and pitched as an "Atlas," and therein lies its strength and attraction. I will refer to this book again and again. --Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of BIG ICE

John Haywood has brought a wide range of resources together to show the development of Germanic naval power from c.200 BCE through the 9th century. While most of his emphasis is on the Saxon and Frankish pirates in the North Sea, Haywood also provides information on early Germanic ships and their evolution.

Dark Ages is extensively footnoted and indexed. Included are maps and several drawings.

Information on early Continental tribes not found elsewhere in English helps make this a valuable text to anyone interested in the history of the Saxons and the Frankish tribes as well as pre-Viking raiders and ship building.

This revision of Haywood's earlier work is by far the best and most comprehensive review of the subject I have found.

I have started reading a lot of historical fiction and nonfiction, and have found Haywood's Altas to be very useful. It works well as an introduction, being quite readable and succinct. In addition, it is an excellent reference to use when reading nonfiction tombs that presume we all know where all the Hittites came from, or how the Illyrians migrated to Italy. Just easily finding Zhou, or Thrace on a map has been a big help for me. A good atlas, well worth the reasonably price.

This is a fantastic historical atlas. I have a collection of dozens of historical atlases and the quality is not always high. Too often topical historical "atlases" have too few actual maps -- most of which are just reprinted from earlier historical atlases.

"The Penguin Atlas of British & Irish History" is the exact opposite. There's an original full-color map on every page. The atlas covers the whole length of British history from the Ice Age to the Chunnel. The maps are very well made and detailed, alternating between overviews of the whole of the British Isles and close-ups of particular cities, regions, and topics. One particularly nice touch is original panoramic reconstructions of historic sites including: Roman-era London, Viking-era York, Medieval Norwich, Tudor-era London, 18th-century Dublin and Edinburgh, 19th-century Manchester, and contemporary London...

i purchased this book based on the reviews here and overall i agree that it's well written and presents the grammar clearly and thoroughly. my one complaint is with the print quality. at times it looks like a xerox of a xerox of a xerox, which can be quite annoying when trying to puzzle out the arabic. [contrast the much nicer but unfortunately unvowelled arabic in Thackston's book.]

also, the exercises are of dubious usefulness, since they mostly consist of translating stilted sentences such as "The foreign traveller mounted a swift camel and escaped. For two months he drank camel's milk, and found it very bitter, because he was used to cow's milk." [unfortunately all too typical in traditionally-minded language textbooks: compare Moreland and Fleischer's Latin book, with gems such as "After the torches had been carried into the city gates, the king was able to show the lofty walls to the guests from the province who had come to learn the art of fortifying towns"!!]

This book is technical and a bit dated, but its content and clarity is easy to follow. Unless you have a few years of formal grammar it can be difficult because the terminology and rhetoric may require some explaining by an instructor. It is knit picky with the details in Arabic so if you can use the language well but feel like you lack a strong grammar base then this book is perfect for you.

I picked up a copy of this book in 1978 when I was in the Middle East. I taught myself Arabic from this book and T.F. Mitchell's "Writing Arabic." I've worked with and reviewed many other books for learning Arabic since then, and I still feel that this is the best concise one-volume introduction to the subject you'll find. It is true that there are no tapes available for it(at least not as far as I know) and some would consider this a serious drawback. There is, however, a key to the exercises published separately. I cannot recommend it too highly. Even if you are using other books to learn Arabic, this one is worth having for reference purposes.

This is simply excellent. Concise, informative text and attractive, well-researched maps. I have to agree with Barry Cunliffe in his introduction to this book - it really is an 'incomparable source'.

A whole host of historians such as Rankin, Moscati, Chadwick, Martel, Eluere, Markale, Aedeen, Powell, and Litton have all edited or written books entitled simply "The Celts," not to mention the dozens and even hundreds of other books with other titles on the Celts, so if anything there is virtually a plethora of works out there available on the subject, especially in the way of traditional histories.

Which bring me to the present volume. For something a little different on the Celts, try Haywood's book. The book skillfully combines text with the many maps, graphics, and photos. Among the book's several strengths are the many pictures showing Celtic art and the maps which provide a graphical display of the important events of the time. There are 54 maps and 160 illustrations in the book. The photos show the Celts to be superb craftsman and metal-workers, and before reading this book, I didn't know they have been around since at least 1200 B.C. and lasted all the way down to late ancient times in the 3rd or 4th century A.D. Compared to the Greeks and Romans, who left major monuments, many texts, and various archeological finds, we have comparatively little in the way of remains for the Celts, but Haywood does a fine job of detailing and discussing what we do know of these somewhat mysterious and shadowy tribesman of Northern Europe.

Haywood is especially skilled at linking the text with the maps, and to give another plug for this fine author, he did a really great job with his Atlas of World History, which is one of the best historical atlases out there, especially considering it's up to 1/4 the cost of some of the more famous "big guns" like the Dorling-Kindersley and Hammond atlases of world history. Hammond also writes much better than most atlas writers, who prose only too often is a good substitute for late-night television as a soporific. If I recall correctly, Barry Cunliffe is the author of 40 books on history and archeology himself, and in the introduction he describes the book as "an incomparable source." I would have to agree with him, and altogether this is a fine book to read, browse, pore over the maps, or whatever, by a talented scholar and presenter of history.

First, disadvantages:
- too few maps and those available are with a small scale, so one can get only a rough idea about the changes on the word and especially European political maps within the century;
- the timeline doesn't contain the exact dates wherever it is possible (months, at best).

Meanwhile, all in all, due to the brilliant and concise annotation it is worth keeping for reference even by advanced students of this period. I also consider it good value for money

While these maps do not go into great and glorious detail, they do provide an excellent overview for students or lovers of 20th century history. Published in full color, therea are good keys, timelines for each map, brief explanations of historic events, world, regional and detail maps divided by era. An excellent value for the money, it should be in the library of any student taking 20th century history courses.

Most history books that I have read have far too few maps to help you visualize the events that you're reading about. Moreover, these books do not provide a quick overview so that you can appreciate the long-term trends and the significance of some arcane details.

This book solves both problems. It is extremely simplistic with few details, but provides maps (thank you) and an overview of the major trends (thanks again). If you plan to study any aspect of the 20th century in detail, start with this book first.

FYI, this book is actually just the last chapter (of 6) taken from "Atlas of World History" by the same author. If you're concerned about portability, then buy this lightweight volume. Otherwise, get the entire book, which starts at 10,000 BC and runs through the present -- and only costs $20. It's an INCREDIBLE bargain!

Although I agree with the other reviewers that the maps and the two-page spreads are handy and informative, in my opinion the book lacks information on some of the most important recent findings on viking life and culture in their homelands. It also bothered me that the author chose to use the derogatory term "Lapp" rather than "Saami" to refer to the other group living in Scandinavia at the time. I felt that for an American audience, the book assumes too much prior knowledge of British geography and history. The text makes many references that are not illustrated in the maps. The book is great for someone focusing on viking battles, influences and history in Great Britain (and to a lesser extent on the Continent), but I feel it lacks important information about viking life in Scandinavia. There were also some bloopers, like calling "Aud The Deep-Minded" (from Laxdoela Saga) "And The Deep-Minded" on p. 44.

The maps and illustrations are fantastic. Each pair of facing pages concentrates on one subject.

I liked the maps that conveyed additional info. There is one showing the last great expedition to reopen the trade routes with the Arabs, an expedition which ends in disaster for the Swedish adventurers.

The Khazars from Jewish history (a south Russian tribe that may have converted to Judaism) even make an appearance. It seems the Khazars gave the Vikings permission to loot their neighbors in exchange for half of the proceeds. But the Vikings were so brutal that the Khazars reneged on the deal and massacred the Norsemen on the way back from pillaging.

The Vikings eventually got even though, and their revenge led to the demise of the Khazar empire.

Reading this book is like leafing through a series of magazine articles on the general theme of the Vikings. By changing topics so often the book holds the interest of the casual reader who finds the Vikings strange and mysterious.

This book though small and short on pages is a good as the more lengthy reference books. Loaded with tons of great maps that show with clarity the actual extent of the vikings through out Europe. The reading is easy and full of easy to find valuable information. Well worth your money

I've read the whole of the section for A and just started on B (about 30 pages) and there is a lot of good information in this book - both for the less knowledgeable and for those whose subject this is but who could do with a quick reference work. There are also useful bibliographical references and the black and white photographs are good.

What is surprising though is the awful typography - yes, this is important because firstly the fonts used for this book don't appear to have the very important Old Norse letter eth - ð - resulting in using eths from another font (which looks absolutely awful) and secondly, all the very important Scandinavian letters like ö and ä are used seemingly at random - sometimes words have them and sometimes they don't. This is not a minor detail: it amounts essentially to misspelling important place names and the like. Whether this is the author's or the publisher's fault I don't know.

Furthermore, anglicization of Scandinavian names and words is bad enough, but even worse when it is done inconsistently, as in this book - some names are given in Old Norse, others in their modern English "equivalents". Very sloppy and strange.