Customer Reviews (4)

Read It Slowly to Get All the Info
I love this book. I fully concur with the other positive reviews here that praise the beauty, layout, and writing quality. Futher, what I love is that the book informs and intrigues on several levels -- you can read it very slowly and carefully to get a lot of insight from all the maps and legends. Or, you can browse through it very fast, like flipping through a magazine. Whatever your level of intensity, you'll learn something and enjoy the book. As such, it makes an excellent gift for those with a lot of knowledge of Celts or even an elementary school child whose curiosity you'd like to stimulate.

Beautiful reference work
This comprehensive atlas and history book looks at archaeology and the military, cultural, literary and political history of the Celts. It opens with a Chronology list dating from 1200BC.

Part One (Continental Celts) deals with language, early bronze age Europe, Celtic migrations, Celts in Anatolia Italy and Iberia, trade routes, religion, the Roman conquest of Gaul and the kingdom of Brittany, among other topics. This section includes a diagram of the development of the Celtic language group.

Part Two discusses inter alia: prehistoric Celtic Britain and Ireland, the Roman conquest of Britain, the Picts and the Scots, King Arthur and the golden ages of Wales and Ireland.

Part Three investigates the Celtic Diaspora to places like Canada, the USA, Australia and South Africa, the Celtic languages today, the Celtic countries and the Celtic League which includes Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, Cornwall and Brittany.

Of the surviving languages, Welsh has the greatest number of speakers, followed by Breton. Scottish Gaelic still survives in the Outer Hebrides and Irish is still spoken by small numbers in western parts of Eire. Manx and Cornish are "hobby" languages with less than 100 speakers each.

The book concludes with a list of further reading and an index. The text is enhanced with more than 200 illustrations of which 180 are in full colour and 54 beautiful maps. It is an extensive reference work filled with fascinating facts and illuminating history.

Superb atlas
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. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Atlases - General   2. Atlases - Historical   3. Celts   4. Civilization, Celtic   5. Europe - General   6. Historical Atlases   7. Maps   8. Reference   

Customer Reviews (5)

Anglo-centric and a little outdated, but okay
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.

Great Illustrations
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.

Great reference guide
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 ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Atlases - Historical   2. Chronology   3. Europe   4. Geography, Medieval   5. History   6. Maps   7. Reference   8. Vikings   9. World - General   10. European history: c 500 to c 1500   11. Maps, charts & atlases   12. Northern Europe, Scandinavia   

Customer Reviews (3)

Good value for money
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

Awesome introduction
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!

Great Overview
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. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Atlases - Historical   2. History   3. History: World   4. Modern - 20th Century   5. Reference   

Customer Reviews (1)

Surprisingly flawed but still worthwhile
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. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Europe - Scandinavia   2. History   3. History - General History   4. History: World   5. Medieval   6. Reference   7. Social life and customs   8. Vikings   

Customer Reviews (7)

The best grammar for learning Modern Standard Arabic
If you want to learn how to read and write Modern Standard Arabic, or develop a base for Classical Arabic, this is simply the best there is. I cannot recommend it too highly. I wasted a couple years trying to struggle through other books, especially Thackston and Schulz, and got nowhere in spite of having had experience with difficult languages in the past. The difference with Haywood cannot be more extreme; from the very first day I made rapid progress. If it weren't for Haywood, I would still not know Arabic.

The explanations and examples are very clear--as clear as they can be in a language as different from English as Arabic is. I have friends who are forced to learn with other books in their classes, and repeatedly turn to Haywood to understand what's really going on. It is true that the exercises are sometimes simple (as noted in another comment), but this is because Arabic is a Semitic language and therefore less intuitive than other Indo-European language (like Latin). It's a common frustration of intermediate students of Arabic to face sentences where they know all of the words but still don't know what it means--to bridge the differences between English and Arabic, the authors have to take translation more slowly.

This book is comprehensive enough to take the student from no knowledge at all to an advanced intermediate level, where one can start reading widely in Arabic literature (though somewhat laboriously at first). It teaches a large and useful vocabulary of over 4000 words. And because the explanations are so clear and rigorous, it is also a good first-step reference grammar. Later chapters review and provide greater detail to subjects that are sometimes more confusing, like Arabic's numerous particles, many of which look very similar.

A note on print quality: on occasion it can be fairly bad. Usually it's just the voweling marks that are obscured, however, and this is only annoying in the beginning, before one develops a sense of what patterns of vowels are common. There are also some typos, but none (that I have found) that really impede understanding.

Again, I can't recommend this book highly enough. If I had never come across it, I would have never learned Arabic.

very well written but beware print quality
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"!!]

As good as Arabic grammar can be.
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. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Arabic   2. Arabic language   3. English   4. Foreign Language - Dictionaries / Phrase Books   5. Grammar   6. Language   7. Language Arts & Disciplines   8. Textbooks for foreign speakers   

Subjects:  1. Animals - Foxes & Wolves   2. Children's 9-12 - History - General   3. Children: Grades 2-3   4. History - Ancient   5. Juvenile Nonfiction   

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Historical Reference
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 ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Children's 9-12 - History - General   2. Children: Young Adult (Gr. 7-9)   3. Historical geography   4. History - Ancient   5. Juvenile Nonfiction   6. Juvenile literature   7. Reference - Atlases   8. World history   

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent reference
Any of the historical atlases by John Haywood is excellent. They combine readable text with great illustrative maps. The combination makes history easier to understand and remember. This atlas covers the time of 600 AD to 1492 AD. Those of you familiar with Haywood's Atlas of World History should note that this atlas contains all of the material as the medieval world section of that comprehensive, one-volume atlas plus about fifty percent more. The only problem is that all of Haywood's atlases seem to be out of print. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Arabic   2. Arabic language   3. English   4. Foreign Language - Dictionaries / Phrase Books   5. General   6. Grammar   7. Language   8. Language Arts & Disciplines   9. Textbooks for foreign speakers   

Subjects:  1. Celts   2. General   3. History   4. History - General History   5. History: World   6. World - General   7. History / General   

Customer Reviews (1)

The origins of Germanic tribal naval power and more.
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. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. General   2. History   3. Military   4. Military - Other   5. Sports & Recreation   

Subjects:  1. Children's 9-12 - History - General   2. Children: Grades 4-6   3. History - Exploration & Discovery   4. History - General   5. History - Military & Wars   6. Juvenile Nonfiction   7. Reference - Encyclopedias   

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Book for all Ages!
We got a copy of this book from the library for a report/panorama for my daughter's 5th grade class - what a Great Book! There are interesting things to learns about many cultures and fun things to make as well (art, food, house models, etc...). My daughter is making the Mayan house for her panorama (easy to follow directions too!). My six year old son has bookmarked tons of things he has picked out to do as well. So I am here to purchase a copy for our 'library'. It is well worth the money - especially if you want your children to learn about other cultures. It's good to look outside the fish bowl. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Children's 9-12 - Sociology   2. Civilization, Ancient   3. History - Ancient   4. Juvenile Nonfiction   5. Juvenile literature   6. People & Places - General   7. Reference   8. Reference - Encyclopedias   9. Social Studies - Customs, Traditions, Anthropology   

Subjects:  1. Business & Economics   2. Children's 9-12   3. Children: Grades 4-6   4. Economic history   5. History   6. History - Ancient   7. Juvenile Nonfiction   8. Juvenile literature   9. Labor   10. Science & Technology - Agriculture   

Customer Reviews (8)

Good History Atlas that is affordable for anyone
This History Atlas is probably the best generally available. I find it to be very good as a general overview of history timelines with maps and charts. It doesn't really dig deep; it is the proverbial two miles and two inches deep view of history.

For a through understanding a reader should move on to other books. That being said any true student of history needs to have a good overview of things before they can dig into the details. And this good gives a great overview of the major topics. Which is why I would recommend it to people.

One group that could really benefit from a book like this, of course, are high school students studying history or social studies or whatever they are calling that class now a day. A provides a way to understand an outline at a glance which is very useful for a student. I know I wish I had something like this book in high school or even college.

Absolutely Fantastic!
This is a terrific gem of a world history atlas. As a history undergraduate, I wanted an atlas that would give me an opprotunity to explore a multitude of historical periods with inpsiring maps and elegant prose. Do not be fooled by the price on this fantastic Atlas, it is worth its weight in gold.

The atlas starts with early human history and migration, moves into the prehistorical world, then the ancient world, then the medieval period (my personal specialty), the early modern period, and finally the modern period. The scholarly aptitude utilized in the writing of this atlas is beyond comparision. The maps are vibrant and extremely well-done.

Truely, I can not recommend a better book for anyone interested in gleaning an overall view of world (Western, Eastern, and everything in between) history.

The best combination of quality, features, and price
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. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Atlases   2. Atlases - General   3. Atlases - Historical   4. Reference   

Customer Reviews (1)

An Absolute Steal!
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... ... Read more

Subjects:  1. British & Irish history   2. Maps, charts & atlases   3. United Kingdom, Great Britain   

Customer Reviews (1)

The History of Early Man in baby food form...
From the first tool using hominids to the first civilizations, we get a complete yet easy to understand history in about 156 pages. The book hits all the major points, from the first hominids to walk only on two legs, to the Neanderthals, the development of Cro-Magnons and beyond. Once we get to Modern Man the book dives into stone tool development, the use of DNA to trace our family tree and the spread of man throughout the world. Yet it is careful to define every term or explain every theory that pops up. From there we follow mankind as they go from hunter-gathers to early farmers, from tribes to chiefdoms and, finally, from city-states to the first civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Indus valley.
The book gives the reader LOTS of information in the form of great photos, maps, timelines and graphs, all designed to make the text easier to follow. Nice hardcover book about early man for history beginners or kids. Slightly outdated, but most of the facts are still valid. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Children's Baby/Preschool   2. General   3. Interactive Adventure   4. Juvenile Fiction   5. Spanish: Grades 2-3