The Handy History Answer Book

The Handy Answer Book

by Rebecca Nelson

The past is filled with stories of personal struggles, hard-fought triumphs, interesting trivia, common myths and serious misconceptions. Now, with "The Handy History Answer Book," you can step back in time and uncover the real truth behind the events that shaped the world leading up to the end of the 20th century. Open the pages of this historical guide and get ready for an exciting journey. From the excavation of the Neanderthal Man to the creation of MTV, this easy-to-read question and answer book will change your attitude about history forever.

Genres: History, Reference, Nonfiction, World History, Collections, Trivia, Education

456 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Allyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting and lengthy but needs better proofreading and fact checking. I found many typos as well as supposed facts that have actually been proven to be myth. it also irked me that she chose often to use less common spellings of names as well as some odd obscure word choices.

[Toe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Objective Summary

This book is a high-level summary of historical facts and figures divided into nine subjects. Those subjects, and a few facts from each, follow.

1. Eras and their historical highlights
a. Native Americans had three powerful civilizations whose brutality towards neighboring tribes contributed to their demise:
i. the Aztec in central Mexico—conquered by Hernan Cortes;
ii. the Maya on the Yucatan peninsula in southeast Mexico, Belize, and Honduras—conquered by Pedro de Alvardo; and
iii. the Inca in western Peru, Ecuador, and Chile—conquered by Francisco Pizarro.
b. Some of the greatest figures from the Renaissance are:
i. Italian poet Petrarch (1304-74);
ii. Florentine historian Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), who wrote “The Prince”;
iii. English playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616);
iv. Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616), who wrote the first modern novel, “Don Quixote,” which satirized medieval codes of conduct;
v. Italian painter and sculptor Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), whose works include “The Birth of Venus”;
vi. Italian Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), a polymath who painted the “Mona Lisa,” and “The Last Supper”;
vii. Italian Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), who sculpted “David” and painted the Sistine Chapel;
viii. Italian Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520), whose mural “The School of Athens” is considered by art historians to be the complete statement of the High Renaissance; and
ix. German Johannes Gutenberg (1400-1468), whose printing press reduced reproduction costs for the written word and spread learning throughout Europe.
2. Exploration and migration
a. Italian Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) sailed west from Spain in 1492 with the “Nina,” the “Pinta,” and the “Santa Maria” to find a westward passage to India. He landed on Caribbean islands (now the Bahamas, Cuba, and Haiti), which came to be known collectively as the West Indies.
b. America was named after Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512).
c. New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary (1919-2008) and Nepalese Tenzing Norgay (1914-1986) were the first people to climb Everest, which they did in 1953. Hillary took a photo of Norgay, but Norgay did not know how to operate the camera, so there is no photo of Hillary.
d. American Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974) was the first to complete a nonstop transatlantic flight, which he did in 1927 in a single-engine monoplane called “The Spirit of St. Louis.”
3. Wars, overthrows, and revolutions
a. The U.S. Civil War was from 1861-1865. The Union defeated the Confederacy and abolished slavery in the United States.
b. World War I was from 1914-1918. The Allied Powers defeated the Central Powers. Part of the peace process called for reparations from the Central Powers to the Allied Powers, which paved the way for World War II.
c. World War II was from 1939-1945. The Allied Powers defeated the Axis Powers and gave rise to the United Nations.
4. Government, law, and politics
a. The Roman Empire lasted from 27 B.C. to 476 A.D.
b. The Magna Carta was written by English barons and signed in 1215 by English King John, aka John Lackland. It stipulated that the king was subject to the laws of the land and guaranteed jury trials, among other rights. It made a provision for a Great Council of nobles and clergy who would approve actions by the king, and it laid the foundation for parliamentary government in England. It is considered a cornerstone of constitutional government.
c. The Byzantine Empire, lasting from 395 to 1453 A.D., was a continuation of the East Roman Empire centered in Asia Minor and the Balkan Peninsula.
d. The Habsburgs, also spelled Hapsburgs, were Europe’s most powerful royal family. Arising in Switzerland, they ruled Germany and the Holy Roman Empire beginning in 1273. They ruled the Holy Roman Empire from 1438 to 1806. They also ruled Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, and Spain at various times during the centuries.
e. The Ottoman Empire in Turkey and surrounding areas lasted from about 1453 to 1922.
f. The Romanovs ruled Russia from 1613 to 1917. Their rule began with Michael Romanov, grandson of Ivan the Terrible. It included Peter the Great (1682-1725) and Catherine the Great (1762-96). It ended when Nicholas II, the last Russian tsar, was overthrown by the Russian Revolution.
g. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) appointed a commission of legal experts to consolidate all French civil law (as opposed to criminal law) into one code. The process took four years and went into effect in 1804.
h. New Zealand was the first country to give all women full voting rights in 1893. Australia followed in 1902. The United States followed in 1920 with the passage of the 19th Amendment. Other countries around the world followed in the 20th century.
i. From its formation in 1922, the USSR had 10 leaders, but only 5 had meaningful tenures: Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev.
5. Natural, manmade, and other disasters
a. In 1556, an earthquake in the Shanxi province of China killed 830,000 people.
b. The 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia killed 96,000 people.
c. From 1845-48, the Great Irish Famine claimed about 2.5 million lives after the potato crop repeatedly failed due to fungal blight.
d. In 1871, a Chicago fire killed 250 people and destroyed much of the wooden city.
e. In 1878, about 20 million Chinese people died from famine after a two-year drought.
f. In 1883, a tsunami 130 feet high, created by earthquakes, hit an Indonesian island and killed 36,000 people.
g. In 1889, the Johnstown, Pennsylvania flood killed 2,000 people out of a population of about 30,000.
h. In 1900, a hurricane in Galveston, Texas killed about 7,000 people.
i. In 1912, the Titanic sank 2 hours and 40 minutes after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic, killing 1,513 of the 2,224 onboard.
j. In 1937, the German airship “Hindenburg” caught fire and crashed, killing 35 of the 97 people aboard and one person on the ground.
k. In 1976, an earthquake in Tangshan, China killed between 250,000 and 750,000 people.
l. From 1976 through 1980, news about the toxicity of Love Canal, New York leaked out. The community was built on top of a toxic waste dump that was improperly cleaned up. Residents became ill and suffered higher rates of cancer and other diseases.
m. In 1979, the nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania experienced a near meltdown, but was eventually contained.
n. In 1984, a gas leak at a Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal, India killed between 3,000 and 10,000 people, and 200,000 more were directly or indirectly affected.
o. In January 1986, NASA launched the Challenger space shuttle, which exploded and killed all seven astronauts aboard.
p. In April 1986, explosions at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, about 70 miles outside of Kiev, Ukraine, sent radioactive gasses and materials more than a half mile into the air. Thirty people died immediately from the explosions, but between 6,500 and 45,000 people may die from longer term effects of exposure to the radiation.
q. At 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995, a truck bomb exploded outside of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Of the 168 people killed, 19 were children. Former Army buddies Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were convicted of multiple charges related to the bombing. McVeigh was executed in 2001, and Nichols was sentenced to multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole.
6. Philosophy, science, and invention
a. Taoism was founded by Lao-tzu (604 B.C.-?).
b. Confucius (551-479 B.C.) was a Chinese moral and political philosopher.
c. Socrates (470-399 B.C.), Plato (428-348 B.C.), and Aristotle (384-22 B.C.), are credited with laying the foundations for Western thought.
d. German Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) published, among other works, “Critique of Practical Reason,” in which he asserted a moral law called the “categorical imperative.”
e. Karl Marx (1818-83) worked with Friedrich Engels (1820-95) on the “Communist Manifesto,” which interpreted all of history as determined by economics. Marx predicted the fall of capitalism, to be replaced by socialism then communism in which property is distributed equally among the people.
f. Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) was a Polish astronomer who argued that the Sun was the center of our solar system.
g. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was an Italian astronomer and mathematician who established the modern method for experimentation and further demonstrated the correctness of Copernicus’s heliocentric solar system.
h. Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) was a German astronomer who theorized that planets move in elliptical rather than circular orbits.
i. Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was a British polymath who theorized gravity, worked with light, invented calculus, and outlined three laws of motion.
j. Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was an English naturalist who theorized evolution by means of natural selection.
k. Henry Ford (1863-1947) was an American businessman who invented the assembly line and produced cars using it. His system of production was widely applied and reduced costs of many goods and services.
l. Brothers Wilbur (1867-1912) and Orville (187-1948) Wright were the first people to build and fly an airplane. They first flew in December 1903 in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
7. Medicine and disease
a. Imhotep was an Egyptian who lived around 2600 B.C. and is the first physician known by name.
b. Ancient Greeks and people in the Middle Ages believed in the “four humors,” which were types of bodily fluid—blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. They thought diseases and personalities came from the combination of these four humors.
c. Louis Pasteur (1822-95) was a French chemist who first put forth the germ theory of disease. His research and German physician Robert Koch’s (1843-1910) substantiated the germ theory as fact.
d. Hungarian obstetrician Ignaz Phillipp Semmelweiss (1818-65) began practicing antisepsis, or cleanliness to reduce infection, and it reduced mortality rates. English surgeon Joseph L. Lister (1827-1912) began working with solutions of carbolic acid, which killed germs, and published his findings in 1867.
e. American physician Jonas Edward Salk (1914-95) invented the polio vaccine.
8. Religion
a. The accepted number of popes as of the year 2000 was 264.
9. Culture and recreation
a. Great authors of the west include Homer, Brothers Grimm, Virgil, Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, Niccolo Machiavelli, John Milton, Voltaire, Adam Smith, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Charles Dickens, Marcel Proust, Walt Whitman, and James Joyce.
b. Great musicians include Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Joseph Haydn, Richard Wagner, Igor Stravinsky, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, Bill Monroe, Elvis Presley, and the Beatles.


Subjective Thoughts

It would be great, but impossible, to know everything. Accordingly, curious minds must settle for a curated collection of significant human events and achievements. This book is a laudable attempt at an elusive goal: Achieve the right balance between breadth and depth of coverage. Too much detail and the book would be impossibly long and boring. Too little detail and key facts and contexts get lost.

Here, the coverage of any particular topic is thin, and the analysis light. I read it straight through and found the burden falls to the reader to further explore any particular topic of interest. That makes sense for a general reference source like this. You cannot expect much depth when a single volume touches on such broad topics as war, medicine, science, history, philosophy, music, art, technology, religion, and exploration. On the plus side, most of the famous names and events of western culture and history make an appearance. You would go some way to achieving what E.D. Hirsch called “cultural literacy” by familiarizing yourself with the information contained in this book. For better or worse, there is an emphasis on western civilization. Whether that is because this book is for an American audience, or because most technological and artistic progress arose through western civilization, I can’t say. I can say that a disproportionate number of German, Italian, English, and American men appear.

Overall, this Handy History Answer Book is an ok foundation for a teenager or an ok refresher for older folk who haven’t taken a history course in a while. It contained maybe a dozen or so distracting typos. It did not condemn Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara’s murderous activities or FDR’s economically harmful government intrusions enough for my liking, but kudos for acknowledging that socialism and communism are practically the same and that Marxist theories have been discredited. I did not like the format of questions and answers; I’d rather just have a summary of the information. The bigger issue is whether it tried to do too much. Perhaps a book chronologically arranged would have been more effective than the topical arrangement undertaken here, which led to some repetition. But that would still leave the issue of which topics to include and omit. Maybe separate books, chronologically arranged, addressing each of the topics—major wars, disasters, technological advancements, the arts, religion, and philosophy—would be more effective. They would also be thousands of pages longer than this one. Norman Melchert’s “The Great Conversation,” for example, is a textbook on philosophy arranged chronologically, and it is around 900 pages. Sticking with the format chosen by the Handy History Answer Book, there must be both better and worse books out there.


Revealing Quotes

“Upon returning to Haiti (Hispaniola), Columbus found the colony at La Navidad had been destroyed by natives.”

“These government organizations soon become known by their initials (PWA, FDIC, SEC, NLRB, TVA, NRA, CCC). Roosevelt’s critics charged him with giving the federal government too much power and began calling his New Deal “alphabet soup.” The president even became widely known as FDR.”

“Lao-tzu reasoned that since humans face a ‘cloud of unknowability,’ they ought not to react to things at all. He viewed the world as a pendulum with the Tao as its hinge. Anyone who struggles against the current of life is like an insect caught at the end of a pendulum—swinging back and forth, and suffering with each movement. But by crawling along the hinge (Tao) to reach the top, a place of complete stillness is found. Lao-tzu advised that people do away with their desires, avoiding that which is extreme, extravagant, or excessive, and steering clear of any competition.”

“[The Hegelian dialectic] is the system of reasoning put forth by German philosopher Georg Hegel (1170-1831) who theorized that at the center of the universe there is an absolute spirit that guides all reality. According to Hegel, all historical developments follow three basic laws: each event follows a necessary course (in other words, it could not have happened in any other way); each historical event represents not only change but progress; and that one historical event, or phase, tends to be replaced by its opposite, which is later replaced by a resolution of the two extremes. This third law of Hegel’s dialectic is the “pendulum theory” discussed by scholars and students of history—that events swing from one extreme to the other before the pendulum comes to rest at the middle. The extreme phases are called the thesis and the antithesis; the resolution is called the synthesis. Based on this system, Hegel asserted that human beings can comprehend the unfolding of history. In this way, he viewed the human experience as absolute and knowable.”

“The cornerstone of Marxism, to which Engels greatly contributed, is the belief that history is determined by economics. Based on this premise, Marx asserted that economic crises will result in increased poverty, which in turn will inspire the working class (proletariat) to revolt, ousting the capitalists (bourgeoisie). According to Marx, once the working class has seized control, it will institute a system of economic cooperation and a classless society. Marx predicted the failure of the capitalist system, based on his belief that the history of society is ‘the history of class struggle.’ He and Engels viewed an international revolution as inevitable.”

“While Marxism still has its followers in the late twentieth century, most scholars have discredited Marx’s predictions, citing improved conditions for workers in industrialized nations, which has been brought about by the evolution of capitalism.”

“In practice, there is little distinction between the two systems [communism and socialism]—which both rely on the elimination of private property and the collective ownership of goods. But in theory, there are distinctions between the two. According to Marxism, socialism is a transition state between capitalism and communism: In socialism, the state (or government) still exists, and is in control of property and the programs for collectivization. Marxist theory holds that communism is the final stage of society—after the state has dissolved. In a communist society, economic goods and property are distributed equally among the people.”

“Galileo Galilei (Italian; 1564-1642) is credited with no less than establishing the modern method of experimentation. He was the first scientist and thinker to try to prove or disprove theory by conducting tests and observing the results.”

“Newton had arranged Galileo’s findings into three basic laws of motion: a body at rest tends to remain at rest, and a body in motion tends to remain in motion (this is the law of inertia); the force to move a body is equal to its mass times acceleration; and for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

“Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), the so-called “Wizard of Menlo Park,” registered 1,300 patents in his name during his lifetime, more than any other individual in American history.”

“In modern times, [Edward] Jenner pioneered the science of immunology by developing a vaccine against smallpox. The English physician was practicing medicine in rural Gloucestershire in 1796 when he observed that dairymaids who had been sick with cowpox did not contract smallpox, suggesting that they had developed an immunity to the often fatal disease, which then occurred in epidemics. Jenner must have been quite certain of his theory: He chose to test it on an eight-year-old schoolboy, James Phipps, whom Jenner vaccinated with matter from cowpox vesicles from the hands of a milkmaid, Sarah Nelmes. Jenner then allowed the boy’s system to develop the immunity he had previously observed in the dairy maids. Several weeks later, Jenner inoculated Phipps with smallpox, and the boy did not become even the least bit ill. The experiment was a success.”

“The Austrian neurologist [Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)] believed that human behavior and all mental states are influenced by a complex of repressed and forgotten impressions, many of them from childhood. . . . In analyzing human behavior, Freud came to the conclusion that the mind (or psyche) is divided into three parts—the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is the source of instincts; the ego is the mediator between those instincts and reality; and the superego is the conscience. The superego functions to reward or punish through a system of moral attitudes and a sense of guilt. The theories of psychoanalysis hold that if the parts of the mind oppose each other, a mental or emotional disorder (called a neurosis) occurs.”

[Jillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am smarter than this fact book. Okay, that may not be fair, but I really wanted to start my review with that sentence. In some respect, that is true. Published in 1999, The Handy History Answer Book doesn't know about 9/11 or Wi-Fi. It still thinks that VCRs and MTV are the height of cool. It doesn't know we have a black president or gay marriage. In some ways, it was fun for me to read this book to see what I actually know is still true and what has changed. What HHAB thinks is the greatest terrorist attack on U.S. soil isn't anymore. The worst hurricane isn't the same as it was in '99. It's fun to see how much has changed since 1999.

Though some of the information is obviously dated, most of the facts presented in HHAB still remain true. I'm a huge history junkie, and I love fact books. I found this one at Bookstock (which is amazing, and you should go if you ever get a chance because it has great deals and the proceeds go to supporting literacy) and couldn't put it down. It's organized by topic so it's easy to skim. I particularly enjoyed some of the details included in the answers. That kind of made it for me.

There are more up-to-date fact books out there, and I highly recommend you seek them out, but this one also has its charms. I definitely recommend Bookstock. It's my favorite used book sale of the year.

[B. P. Rinehart · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have had this book since at least 2003-2004 and I must say it is as good a beginner's guide to history as one can get. Ms. Nelson's approach is simple without being simple if you can understand that and I admire her way of breaking down history for people who may not know or understand. This is a very good book.

[Rylie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really, REALLY freaking cool. Touches on pretty much anything. Provides introductions to each thing it touches on, so if you're interested in one of the many subjects, you'll do some investigating of your own.

[Brian Wilkerson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this was a gift from several years back. It is a general history book that claims to provide answers to common questions.

The book is organized by subject: war, philosophy, discovery etc. These are the chapters. Within the chapters are sections that are a couple pages each in length. Each section is topped by a question such as "What is X" or "who was Y". As far as that goes, the book is fine.

Being a general history book, the answers are general. They are short and summarized, maybe to the point of being incomplete. This is not a problem. It was addressed in the introduction. Adding more specific answers to each question would make the book unwieldly in length. For introductory information, it is sufficient. The problems, as I seem them, are not with the answers themselves.

Rather, the problems are with the table of contents and the lack of recommended direction. The former is incomplete and the latter is stifling. These problems make the book less convenient to use and less useful overall.

The table of contents only lists the start of each chapter. So there is no easy means of paging within chapters, only between them. Next, the questions answered are not listed so the reader does know which are answered without going through the entire chapter. Making this worse, the table of contents only lists categories like "Ancient medicine" or "Trojan War" so one must make a guess in which section one's question is in. All this combines to make the book inconvenient at best as a reference book.

Each answer is limited in its information. This is excusable but there is no direction to find in-depth information. All that exists is a page of references at the end of the book. A couple titles as recommended reading for each answer would increase the book's value. Without such a feature, the book is far less "handy" than it could be.

Trickster Eric Novels gives "The Handy History Answer Book" a C-

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. We used it to help our children fall in love with history like their Dad. We would take the book with us in the car. A question would be asked either by us or they could ask a question from some fact in the book.
One of my boys became an officer in the Airforce after graduating from the Airforce Academy. One son is studying International Relations in Geneva, Switzerland. They both love history. I am shocked at how little of history is taught to children. Great book.

[Johnny G. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recently took a test, covering everything from ancient civilizations to American history to economics to geography. Well, I think I got some extra questions correct because I “crammed” with this book. It’s organized well, and the sections I already knew about I glossed over. It was handy indeed…and no fault of the book’s for being dull in parts that I didn’t find interesting.

[Alok · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty decent "porcelain throne" book. I read it over the course of a couple months. There are tons of interesting facts. The book is from around 2000 (pre 9/11) and comes across as very dated in some places.

[Ali Hassan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is an answer to the most asked historical questions. The language and the way of narration is very simple and lucid but brief.

[April · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book helped me survive three history classes, a US cultures class and an on-line seminar. Enough facts of many different events are given, without bogging the reader down in "details". A cliffs notes version of history!

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is composed of a series of questions in a variety of fields such as history, science, politics, culture and medicine with capsule answers. It is a neat way to gain some knowledge on a variety of topics. The capsule type answers are easily read.

[Lafcadio · Rating 2 out of 5]

Woefully incomplete, but it gives a short review of historical events and people you should have learned about in school.

[Anissa Rajala · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book for quick reference and uncluttered explantion.

Excellent!

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

useful for genealogy

[Kelly A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to read/find subjects or people. I learned a lot!

[Jonathan]

None

[Ashley Brooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Havent read straight through from beginning to end. It's kind of like the Bathroom Books, which I love!

[Georgene · Rating 3 out of 5]

A newer version of this book might be even better. This is a 1999 copy.

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

a very effective way to understand any and all aspects of battles, events, and people through history

[C.Y. Chong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well laid out, with sections on different subject categories, such as disasters, philosophy, art, culture, etc. Spans prehistoric era to the modern day. I enjoyed reading the book.

[Tina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this to prepare for the Social Studies Praxis Exam.

[Belle Meade School]

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