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wardo2700's review against another edition
1.0
This book took me a week to read and it was a struggle to stick with it. I’m not sure what child sat down in 1922 and read this and I doubt many children today would or should read it. The only positive thing it has going is the entire history of the world in one volume but it is so slanted that doesn’t help much. There are some interesting chapters and the extra 100 pages that were added in the 1970s and 1980s were better written in my opinion. I just can’t recommend this book to any age group but I checked off another Newbery winner.
ahtoad1's review against another edition
3.0
This book was the first Newbery Award winner; excellence in children's literature. I cannot children of today 1) reading this book at all 2) having any idea whatsoever of what it's talking about.
It is well written and moves along quite quickly for a history book. It is NOT about dates and people and names of treaties. While these are mentioned they are not the focus of the book; instead they are merely details to remind the reader of events. Without a background, even a limited one of Ancient Civilizations and European history (thank you Mr. Lynn Larsen and Mr. Neal Peacock!) I would not have been able to finish this book. As it was, it was an interesting review of things long forgotten. My favorite aspect of this book was the focus on the "whys" or historical events. Not the dry facts of "who" and "when" but their motivations and far-reaching consequences.
I am now motivated to seek out biographies on certain historical figures and to do further reading on certain subjects. I am also motivated to encourage history/geography in my children. They are not ready to read this book; but it has challenged me to make certain that they WILL someday be ready for it.
It is well written and moves along quite quickly for a history book. It is NOT about dates and people and names of treaties. While these are mentioned they are not the focus of the book; instead they are merely details to remind the reader of events. Without a background, even a limited one of Ancient Civilizations and European history (thank you Mr. Lynn Larsen and Mr. Neal Peacock!) I would not have been able to finish this book. As it was, it was an interesting review of things long forgotten. My favorite aspect of this book was the focus on the "whys" or historical events. Not the dry facts of "who" and "when" but their motivations and far-reaching consequences.
I am now motivated to seek out biographies on certain historical figures and to do further reading on certain subjects. I am also motivated to encourage history/geography in my children. They are not ready to read this book; but it has challenged me to make certain that they WILL someday be ready for it.
brianam's review against another edition
2.0
It’s a 100-year-old history book, so it’s out of date, both in the sense of not knowing recent discoveries and in the sense of including some language and judgements that range from cringy to offensive. It’s also written as if speaking to his grandchildren, which is a tone some people apparently find charming but seems to me just condescending and annoying.
If it were accurate, you’d at least learn something, and if it were a fun read, you’d forgive its age, but it’s neither.
If it were accurate, you’d at least learn something, and if it were a fun read, you’d forgive its age, but it’s neither.
emmy9937's review against another edition
So much better than I thought it would be. Obviously many of his views or interpretations were affected by the prejudices of the time, but overall he was much more critical of capitalism and imperialism than I thought he would be. I wish he had talked more about indigenous and aboriginal peoples and more about the many different cultures and civilizations of Africa. I liked how he explained big events and his thesis/system of explaining the broad strokes of history that affected the smaller events. I love how he approached contemporary events like the world wars by essentially saying “It's too soon to know for sure what the true causes and effects are of these wars, so pay attention and check in with me again in a few years”
“The future belongs to the living. The dead should mind their own business.”
“Historian as social diagnosticians”
“The future belongs to the living. The dead should mind their own business.”
“Historian as social diagnosticians”
hrobison11's review against another edition
3.0
I can see why this won the Newberry award, but it is a lot to take in for me personally. I ended up on the chapter "chivalry" before throwing in the towel. Great concept, but not for me to finish as of now.
roseleaf24's review against another edition
2.0
Medal Winner 1922
Done! Thank goodness! While some of the chapters were interesting, and most were fairly short, thus breaking up history into manageable chunks, this was not easy to get through. No way would I have finished it if I wasn't so close to finishing all the Newbery winners. The editorialization got ridiculous, and calls the lasting value of this book into serious doubt for me. I can't imagine giving this to a child or young adult as an actual history of the world, and I'm not sure who would at this point. It's much more Western Civilization than World History, and while it speaks against the "gentle savage" idea, it speaks from exactly that perspective in other places. It also denies many aspects of orthodox Christianity and devalues the impact of Christianity on the world, while assuming its readers are all Protestants.
For the record, I did not actually read all of the edition I have. 482 pages was plenty; I didn't feel it was necessary to read all the chapters that have been added since the book's original publication. Since my intention is to read the Newbery winners, I read the portions that won the Newbery.
Some particularly noteworthy passages:
"It is the duty of the honest chronicler to give a true account of all the good and bad sides of every historical event. It is very difficult to do this because we all have our personal likes and dislikes. But we ought to try and be as fair as we can be, and must not allow our prejudices to influence us too much."
This being said far enough in that his own likes and dislikes have been made more than clear to me. And at the beginning of the chapter on the Reformation where he makes absolutely no attempt to explain the theological reasons for anything.
"In less than thirty years, the indifferent, joking and laughing world of the Renaissance had been transformed into the arguing, quarrelling, back-biting, debating-society of the Reformation. The universal spiritual empire of the Popes came to a sudden end and the whole of western Europe was turned into a battle-field, where Protestants and Catholics killed each other for the greater glory of certain theological doctrines which are as incomprehensible to the present generation as the mysterious inscriptions of the ancient Etruscans."
Granted, I'm a Lutheran, but I can easily explain the theological differences that sparked the Reformation. I'm not going to kill anyone over them, but I can explain them, and have been able to explain them since about second grade. People may not care, but they could understand if they wanted to.
"Hence Russia received its religion and its alphabet and its first ideas of art and architecture from the Byzantine monks and as the Byzantine empire had become very oriental and had lost many of its European traits, the Russians suffered in consequence."
But we're not biased or anything.
Done! Thank goodness! While some of the chapters were interesting, and most were fairly short, thus breaking up history into manageable chunks, this was not easy to get through. No way would I have finished it if I wasn't so close to finishing all the Newbery winners. The editorialization got ridiculous, and calls the lasting value of this book into serious doubt for me. I can't imagine giving this to a child or young adult as an actual history of the world, and I'm not sure who would at this point. It's much more Western Civilization than World History, and while it speaks against the "gentle savage" idea, it speaks from exactly that perspective in other places. It also denies many aspects of orthodox Christianity and devalues the impact of Christianity on the world, while assuming its readers are all Protestants.
For the record, I did not actually read all of the edition I have. 482 pages was plenty; I didn't feel it was necessary to read all the chapters that have been added since the book's original publication. Since my intention is to read the Newbery winners, I read the portions that won the Newbery.
Some particularly noteworthy passages:
"It is the duty of the honest chronicler to give a true account of all the good and bad sides of every historical event. It is very difficult to do this because we all have our personal likes and dislikes. But we ought to try and be as fair as we can be, and must not allow our prejudices to influence us too much."
This being said far enough in that his own likes and dislikes have been made more than clear to me. And at the beginning of the chapter on the Reformation where he makes absolutely no attempt to explain the theological reasons for anything.
"In less than thirty years, the indifferent, joking and laughing world of the Renaissance had been transformed into the arguing, quarrelling, back-biting, debating-society of the Reformation. The universal spiritual empire of the Popes came to a sudden end and the whole of western Europe was turned into a battle-field, where Protestants and Catholics killed each other for the greater glory of certain theological doctrines which are as incomprehensible to the present generation as the mysterious inscriptions of the ancient Etruscans."
Granted, I'm a Lutheran, but I can easily explain the theological differences that sparked the Reformation. I'm not going to kill anyone over them, but I can explain them, and have been able to explain them since about second grade. People may not care, but they could understand if they wanted to.
"Hence Russia received its religion and its alphabet and its first ideas of art and architecture from the Byzantine monks and as the Byzantine empire had become very oriental and had lost many of its European traits, the Russians suffered in consequence."
But we're not biased or anything.
mrsbrharris's review against another edition
3.0
This book was sooo long. I had a hard time getting into it because it started with evolution, which I obviously don't agree with. However, I did learn a lot and it was interesting to see which events they focused on. The original author died and a few chapters were added by another author and I found his style of writing to be more to my liking.
natasoud's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
1.0
not a banger lol
I’d say the book’s a little early anthropology, about half about Greece/Rome/Christianity, then a bunch of European history.
Reads like a textbook and is obviously outdated and racist as hell toward like, everybody.
Most of the anthropology he talks about has been long debunked and as a person who knows a bunch about the modern stuff, it was a painful read.
The last chapter though is the author explaining why he chose to include this or that and admits he thinks some of the chapters drag and wanted to start the whole book from scratch but the publishers wouldn’t let him re-write. I do appreciate the honesty.
Also the big sell for the book at the time was that it was an *illustrated* history book and that history books without pictures would never be exciting to children, so I guess I’ll thank him for starting that trend?
bibliophileemily's review against another edition
3.0
This first Newbery Medal winner certainly is an ambitious book to try to cover the entirety of human history. Obviously there are gaps and plenty of 1920s white male Protestant bias, but I still found it an interesting read, at the very least as a look at the perspective of the period when it was written.
I read the 1984 version that had extra bonus chapters and found those interesting as well for the same reason.
I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book to everyone, but for children's librarians or anyone studying children's literature, I think it's worth a read, even if just skimmed to get a feel for the writing style and pictures.
I read the 1984 version that had extra bonus chapters and found those interesting as well for the same reason.
I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book to everyone, but for children's librarians or anyone studying children's literature, I think it's worth a read, even if just skimmed to get a feel for the writing style and pictures.