This monumental volume presents world history from an original perspective that provides fresh insights with every colorful spread.

For readers of all ages, world history is easily accessible, depicted as never before—so that events occurring simultaneously around the world can be viewed at-a-glance together.

For example, see how Texas Instruments launched the pocket calculator the same year the Soviet Union launched the first manned space station, in 1971. Columbus sailed from Spain the year Martin Behaim constructed a terrestrial globe in Nuremberg. The California Gold Rush followed the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s.

The book's innovative time line truly sets it apart, allowing readers to scan across the years and explore a single area or compare contemporary societies across the globe.

• Hardcover
• 416 pages, 250 photos, art, maps & timelines
• 9 1/8'' x 10 7/8''
• © 2006

Neil Kagan, former publisher of Time-Life Books now heads Kagan & Associates, creators of innovative illustrated books. Over his 30-year career he has developed such award-winning book series as Voices of the Civil War, What Life Was Like, Our American Century, and the Time-Life Student Library.

Jerry H. Bentley, head of The Concise History's advisory board is Professor of History at the University of Hawaii, editor of the Journal of World History, and an expert in the history of cross-cultural interactions.