Everyone's History: A Reader-Friendly World History of War, Bravery, Slavery, Religion, Autocracy, Democracy, and Science, 1 AD to 2000 AD

John H. Chambers

Oct 2008 · Xlibris Corporation

About this ebook

The book’s structure blends history and geography. A good world atlas or a world historical atlas will be helpful in the reading. The historical arrangement of contents has six Parts” Classical, Mediaeval, Early Modern (Lands), Early Modern (Ideas), Late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Twentieth Century. Although this sequence of periods and categories fits Western/European history best, it is also reasonably appropriate for Central Asia, India, and China. For other regions it is more arbitrary, and Classical and Mediaeval periods are merged. Because the Parts overlap and involve imprecise categories, in the List of Contents and Summaries no attempt is made to give dates for their beginning and end.

Ratings and reviews

This is a curious work, one man's vanity project, a tribute to himself. However, if you want a quick veneer of everything that is to be known, you may enjoy it particularly if scholarly research is not your concern. It is very much an idiosyncratic overview, not always demonstrating depth of understanding; however, as a recreational history, it could make for interesting lazy weekend reading for the historically uninitiated; but, even for this readership, a series of lesser works with greater depth and general scholarship rather than general reading may have been more useful. Essentially, it's supermarket magazine style history and, as such, may have been better presented in smaller 'take-away' portions. Sadly, Dr Chambers' writing style leaves something to be desired. Maybe he has 'written down' for his anticipated readers but that shortcoming, marred so often by a compulsion to express personal outrage, mars the work. Take, for example, p. 301: "Bound feet were also a good male insurance against a woman's running away or having affairs or doing anything outside the home. The paradox was that when bare, these golden lilies looked dreadful, so they always appeared in public bound, or in cute little shoes, to appease this sick sexual foot fetish of Chinese males." In fairness, one has to wonder if Dr Chambers actually wrote this himself. It does sound like an excerpt from the 'project' of one of his lower-level secondary classes. Writing of this kind is always popular with junior secondary school girls - but it is not quite "History". Nevertheless, even lower level secondary plodders could well be enthused and improved by access to this work - as long as their interest is purely recreational. It would be unwise, however, to cite the work as an 'authority' even for High School students; however,it would probably suit non-scholarly junior secondary school 'assignment' activity quite well.