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Wow!!! From the very beginning to 2000 AD!!!
What an AMAZING book! While it was a required portion of our history program for our son, I will never hesitate to purchase a Usborne IL Encyclopedia again! The information is accurate and descriptive and the book in your hand is worth it's weight in gold (and it's heavy!) But when you add the internet extensions, it becomes a priceless connection to history through the ages for children to explore and enjoy. I can see this book being a favorite in our home for many years to come.

Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History
We bought this book to use with the series: The Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer. It is a great supplemental text that is very easy to read with lots of pictures, however, I was very surprised to find the whole first 1/3 of the book covering evolution! I know that many Christian homeschoolers use this series, so I wanted to get a warning out to those who are considering buying this book.

Bought for my kids and I can't put it down!
This is a well-written resource that I think should be a part of every collection. I find that everyone in the family (including myself) opens it to look up one thing and then ends up reading page after page for enjoyment. (Yes, we are kinda geeky like that!)

The book is well-organized and indexed. It include color coding to indicate the region of the world where the events took place and timelines on almost every page. The book also includes bits of science and a lot of culture which helps to make it both well-rounded and intriguing. Although it is intended as a reference book, it contains enough interesting information and gorgeous pictures to make it enjoyable reading.

My son who reads on a 2nd grade level is able to read much of the book and is not intimidated by it -which is partly due to a nice (comfortable) font size and the illustrations on every page.

I am THRILLED with our purchase of this book!

Best Available Home School History Book
We are Christian parents homeschooling our two girls using a trivium-based curriculum of our own design. If we had to limit ourselves to one history book it would be the Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia Of World History (Hardcover).

We also use Parragon and Kingfisher World History books, Usborne Atlas of World History, Usborne History Dates, and the Mystery of History. I also use Cracking the AP World History Exam (by Princeton Review) as an aid in linking key history concepts when putting our history lessons together.

Because we are using the Well-Trained Mind to guide our homeschooling I have looked at Story of the World several times but can't bring myself to like it. I feel it (and Mystery of History) are inadequate for use as a history spine, although we occasionally use Mystery of History as a supplement. One reason Mystery of History is inadequate is that it's 50/50 religious/secular history, crowding out to much world history in the process. We do our Bible study in addition to history rather than trying to kill two birds with one stone.

The Parragon book is similar to the Usborne book and, though not as complete, it provides a very good complement. The Kingfisher was intended to be our primary history book for grades 5-8. It is more detailed and requires a higher reading level but overall doesn't flow nearly as well as the Usborne World History. I expect to lean primarily on the Usborne EWH again in grades 5-8 while still using the Kingfisher as a supplement. We'll just use it more often than in grades 1-4.

The Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia Of World History has great maps, great graphics, and well-written text. The sections are complete and it does a decent job of connecting the dots from one civilization to the next. It's also been very helpful in building a history timeline. Our Amy Pac timeline figures are really not that great and have numerous errors, so being able to download graphics from the Usborne Encylopedia has been very useful in generating our own timeline figures. The Usborne internet links provided are generally pretty good and are maintained current. Sure you can Google for similar content but it doesn't take long to realize how much time gets eaten up sorting through sites looking for something worthwhile. Using the Usborne-quicklinks is a no-brainer and time-saver.

As noted by other reviewers the first 100 pages covers creation to the dawn of man, including changes to the earth and life on it. It's well done and what we used for our daughter's Kindergarten "history" lessons. The girls always looked forward to the readings and, other than a few skipped pages, we had no trouble reconciling Usborne's pre-history with our Christian faith.

I spend a fair amout of time each week putting together history lessons using multiple resources, so I agree with the reviewer that wished for something better but wrote that it's the best history currently available. I'm also confident that if our girl's history lessons consisted of nothing more than reading from the Usborne Encyclopedia Of World History they would still love history and easily learn more about it than 98% of our country's children.

Contains Evolution & Big Bang....100+ pages of it
EDITED TO REMOVE MY OPINIONS ON EVOLUTION SINCE IT BOTHERS SOME OF YOU. ;-) I'LL STICK TO MY BOOK EVALUATION ONLY.

I purchased this at a used curriculum sale and should've paid a bit closer attention. The first 100 pages are based on the evolution/Big Bang theory and an earth that is over "4,000 million years old"; creation isn't discussed, nor is any other theory of origin for that matter. Be that as it may, why is evolution even being discussed in a WORLD HISTORY book? Evolution is a science, is it not?

Further, this book states that Homo Erectus evolved into Homo Sapien, which we know is false based on DNA samples taken from each species. There is no way one evolved from the other; DNA is unique to a species and can never "evolve" into something else no matter how much time passes (scientifically proven by an evolution scientist, btw.) Perhaps this book was printed before that information was made available?? I should certainly hope so, otherwise the authors are woefully negligent in keeping up-to-date.

That aside, the other 250 or so pages are at least usable with colorful art and photos, information isn't overwhelming, but not terribly in-depth either (perfect for up to 5th grade maybe.) I checked into some of the links, and they are "average". It's nice to have the work all done and the links in one spot, but some of them are nothing more than an enlarged picture of something in the book.