history books

The Handy History Answer Book, Second Edition (The Handy Answer Book Series)
$21.95
book was recommended by my nephew as a great resource for crossword puzzles, among other things. it was purchased as a gift for my daughter's boyfriend. recipient said he enjoyed it.

The Greatest War Stories Never Told: 100 Tales from Military History to Astonish, Bewilder, and Stupefy (History Channel)
$18.95
This interesting little book contains a lot of information about various wars that don't necessarily make it into the normal scholastic history books, even on the college level. It containbs two page vignettes of war tales from ancient Greece up to the present time; little asides to more well known war tales.

It's fascinating to read about how some very small and unusual happenings changes historical events, for better or worse (depending on your point of view). The best aspect of this book is that the snippets of information are so short that you can read a few at a time, put the book down, and come back to it later. There is not a continuous narrative so it is capable of that type of sporadic reading. It's a handy book to have around when you have a few minutes, just sitting somewhere with a bit of time on your hands (I think you know what I mean!).

History: The Definitive Visual Guide (From The Dawn of Civilization To The Present Day)
$50.00
This book is a pleasure to look at. I'm reminded of a combination of Life Magazine and National Geographic. Its got that visual quality to it. I'll let all the other reviews describe the other good stuff rather than be repetitive.

I have one concern and that is the text legibility. I wish to pass on to the publishers to please consider making the text larger even if it requires that some of the pictures be a little smaller. Also background images obscure the readability of the text. Some people actually do want to read the book and some of the text is a challenge for me to read because of the size of the print or the fact that the legibility is obscured by a background image.

The Complete Book of World History (Complete Books)
$14.95
This book was exactly what I was looking for. I gave it as a gift to my nephew who is in elementary school and just loves history. He found it to be very interesting and loves the illustrations. His parents think it is great that kids could be so enthusiatic in reading a book of this kind.