100 Events That Shaped World History

by Bill Yenne

100 Events that Shaped World History is a wonderful and insightful overview of the basic facts that have created the world as it is today. Interesting and full of knowledge for both young and old alike.

Genres: History

128 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1993

About the author

Bill Yenne is the author of several novels and over three dozen books on historical topics. He has also been a contributor to encyclopedias of both world wars.

The New Yorker wrote of Sitting Bull, his biography of the great Lakota leader, that it "excels as a study in leadership." This book was named to the number 14 spot among Amazon's 100 Best Books of the Year.

Library Journal observed that "enthusiastic World War II readers will be drawn to" his dual biography, Aces High: The Heroic Story of the Two Top Scoring American Aces of World War II.

Recently, his book Convair Deltas was named as Book of the Month by Air Classics, while his book Tommy Gun was named Pick of the Month by Shooting Illustrated.

His book Guinness: The 250 Year Quest for the Perfect Pint was listed among the top business books of the year by Cond Nast Portfolio Magazine, which rated Yenne's tome as its TOP pick for "Cocktail Conversation."

Yenne's Rising Sons: The Japanese American GIs Who Fought for the United States in World War II, was praised by Walter Boyne, former Director of the National Air & Space Museum, who called it "a fast moving... page turner," and the "best book yet written on the saga."

The Wall Street Journal wrote, when reviewing his Indian Wars: The Campaign for the American West, that Yenne writes with "cinematic vividness," and says of his work that it "has the rare quality of being both an excellent reference work and a pleasure to read."

The author lives in San Francisco, California, and on the web at www.BillYenne.com

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Reviews

[Jason Garcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

its a very nice non fictional book. i'd reccomend it

[Theediscerning · Rating 3 out of 5]

A slightly juvenile look at history’s timeline, with all of a hundred situations given a short illustrated page, beneath the date they more or less happened and a dot on the globe to show where. The first few are much more ephemeral, as they deal with the birth of history and the development of writing, and the rise of this or that people. They also include the purely legendary, as Moses went up a hill for some medicine and came down with tablets that actually gave you a headache, at least if you were the covetous type, or favoured a more flexible working week. Either way, it’s certainly not history.

Much better are the key, factual specifics – and even better than that, when there is time given to explain just what they mean. A few battles going the wrong way and Greece would have been subservient to the Persians, and thus end up completely different; the Norman Conquest had such a legacy it has to be felt in North American culture today; the Arab oil embargo after losing Round Two against Israel is probably in all our background radiation as I write.

The hundred page-long essays do suffer in being sequential, so the moon landings can’t follow straight on from the birth of the space race, and the division of Germany and the Iron Curtain have to be recapped when we finally see the fall of the Wall. But this, where we see the before, the event and the afters, all in just a few hundred words, certainly proves the author’s powers of concision.

And then it’s homework time – twenty revision questions, followed by two much more serious, essay projects. That proves this is for the school library, as I knew all along, but the idea this is going to serve the eight and up audience that the back cover carries is utterly risible. It’s much more mature than that. It’s a good book, and adults will learn things from this (I think I always thought the Tet Offensive was named after a place, not a slice of the calendar), but just because it has mediocre, CG cartoon-styled illustrations that doesn’t mean primary school audiences will lap up Hammurabi’s laws or Matthew Perry opening Japan up to the world.

No, this is a book for older audiences, seeking the kind of world history that can be presented in such extended bullet points. I know I make this out to sound a lot worse than it is, but there are errors in judgement on the creative team, if not on mine too. It’s actually a very competent summary of many important things, that manages to get the better of its reductive format, and I can’t wish anything this snappy any harm. But I did find it easy to take against.

(Oh, and yes, it most assuredly has been updated since first publication in 1993 – some senile old codger signing Afghanistan back to the Taliban is the latest thing here.)

[Margaret Closs · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think the subject is rather intimidating to put all of world history in one book. Fortunately my son and I are history nerds, so we found this book engaging. I think it would be more difficult to get people engaged in this book if there wasn’t already an inherent interest. I think it’s hard to do a fair treatment of world religions, so while I think that’s a weakness, I’m not sure how they could have been more successful.

[John Bond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, short summary.

[Carlos · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about 100 event that shaped the world history today. This is a really good book I can recommend this book to people who want to know more about history. This give me a more understanding about humans history and all the trouble that humans have been over history. Some event that I found interesting for me is, the Hebrew religion. The Hebrew were the only religion that only pray to one God. This is something interesting because back in time most of the religion used to workshop to many God, but the Hebrew also known as the Jews were the only religion to workshop only to one God. This is related to christianity. In my opinion, I think christianity ideas come from Judaism.

[Dina · Rating 5 out of 5]

100 Peristiwa yang berpengaruh dalam sejarah dunia.

[SA]

good read

[Elaine O'Doherty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great series of books with basic historic facts