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Adams 101

Dünya Tarihi 101; Antik Mezopotamya ve Viking Fetihlerinden Nato ve Wikileaks'e Dünya Tarihi Hakkinda Bilmeniz Gereken

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Uncover the mysteries of the past with this exciting, comprehensive guide on world history.

History books are often filled with long descriptions, complex facts, and stories that can bore even the most enthusiastic history buffs. In World History 101 you’ll skip those tedious details and focus on engaging lessons that will impress any kind of historian.

From Julius Caesar and Genghis Khan to the Cold War and globalization, each section takes you on an adventure through time to discover the most important moments in history and how they shaped civilization today.

With hundreds of absorbing facts and trivia throughout, World History 101 can help you learn more about the civilizations of the past and help bring history to life.

248 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2017

1158 people are currently reading
1358 people want to read

About the author

Tom Head

45 books64 followers
Author of It's Your World So Change It (Que/Pearson), Civil Liberties A Beginner's Guide (Oneworld UK), and 22 other nonfiction books on a wide range of topics; About.com guide to civil liberties.

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5 stars
185 (21%)
4 stars
362 (41%)
3 stars
245 (28%)
2 stars
63 (7%)
1 star
19 (2%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 69 reviews
Profile Image for Jessica Worthington.
46 reviews
May 26, 2018
This was, overall, a good book. I would call it a "gateway" book, because there were many things the author pointed to in history that I would love to do some further reading on. I mainly read American history, but after reading this book I would like to branch out and read about other countries and rulers.

With that being said, there was one point in this book I feel like he over looked. He was quick to point out whites, and apparently only whites, are racist. This is the reason I gave the book 4 stars instead of 5. This book was really phenomenal except for that one point.
Author 2 books461 followers
Read
December 19, 2021
Yakın zamanda katılacağım bir sınav öncesinde tümleşik bir tarih hatırlatması maksadıyla okumayı seçtiğim iki kitaptan ikincisiydi. Oldukça hızlı, pratik, hap bilgilerle doluydu. Yazarın tarafsız kalma çabası çoğunlukla başarıya ulaşmış. Afrika, Uzak Doğu, Latin Amerika gayet bolca yer almış. Dünya tarihini etkileyen her olayı buraya sığdıramasalar da hızlı bir tekrar niteliğinde okunabilir.
Profile Image for moi, k.y.a..
2,076 reviews380 followers
March 22, 2022
dnf @129

her kitabın bir tarafı vardır ama bu bildiğiniz ikiyüzlülük!

“FROM BISMARCK TO THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC” bölümünde Alman devriminden ve kısaca Nazi döneminden BASİT BİR ŞEY GİBİ BAHSEDİYOR, sanki 6 milyon insan bilinen insanlık tarihinin en rezil muamelesini görmemiş gibi.
ama hemen ardından gelen “THE STORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE” bölümünde hiç şaşırmadım gibi soykırım, en karanlık anlar gibi tanımlamalarla Ermeni meselesine değiniyor.

evet kardeşim, Naziler Yahudilere cici cici yapıyordu, orada hiçbir soykırım olmadı sadece diktatörlük vardı!
işin komiği benim anladığım kadarıyla da yazar Yahudi...

geçenlerde İlber Ortaylı’nın konuyla ilgili dediği çok hoşuma gitti; Batı’nın bu söylemini şu ana etki etsin diye değil, gelecek bin yılda Yahudiler öldürüldü ama din kardeşlerimiz de orada öldü diyebilsinler şeklinde tanımlanmıştı.

normal şartlarda kitabı, genel ve yormayan bir tarih kitabı olarak nitelendirecektim. gözümdeki eksiği, kapak tasarımı yüzünden iç sayfalarda da çizim görme beklentisine sokmasiydı ama bu şartlarda, kitaba devam etmeme kararı aldım. sabah sabah sinirlendim!
Profile Image for Sleepless Dreamer.
897 reviews400 followers
December 28, 2018
I'm procrastinating and man, maybe re-doing math was a stupid idea, maybe I'm going to fail and man, I'm so scared.

But anyway, I felt this book was good. It was really nice to read 20 ish pages each day.
Profile Image for Pink.
29 reviews
September 27, 2019
Kinda everything but not realling anything.
Profile Image for Aysel Ibrahimova.
211 reviews14 followers
August 12, 2021
Tarixi kitablarını qısaldılmış versiyalarda oxumağı sevirəm, çünki müəlliflər fərqli hadisələri günümüzlə əlaqələndirəndə analiz qabiliyyətimə əhəmiyyətli dərəcədə təsir edir. Bu kitabı oxuduqlarımdan ayıran ən əsas xüsusiyyət müəllifin olduqca obyektiv olmasıdır. Onun üçün nə xristian icmasının, nə də islam cəmiyyətinin xüsusi ölçüsü var, onun mərkəzə qoyduğu tək şey var: insan və onun gələcəyi. Kaş ki, bütün müəlliflər bu qədər obyektiv olmağı bacara bilsəydi. Ən azından cəmiyyətdə propoqanda maşınlarının təsiri gücü nisbətən azalardı. Oxuduğum ən keyfiyyətli şərh verən, xülasə fikir mübadiləsi aparan kitablardan biri oldu.

Əla!

Əlavə olaraq qeyd edim ki, ilk dəfə tarix xülasələri oxumaq istəyənlər üçün uyğun seçim olmaya bilər, daha çox baş verənlərin məntiqi tərəfini sorğulayıb müəllif və oxuduqca bilmədiyiniz hadisələrə görə qavramaqda boşluq yarana bilər.
41 reviews
January 5, 2023
Nice, brief overview of major historical events

This book is well written, and summarized many historical eras and events. It is not a deep dive on any particular point in history, but rather a blurb (3 to 6 pages) on each topic. The book breezes through thousands of years and covers important events that perhaps a reader would want to research and read up on in depth. It’s very basic, but nonetheless puts a vast amount of information “in a nutshell.”

Some reviewers note the author’s liberal bent. This is true, but not to the point of distraction. Nor does the injection of opinion take away from the overall effectiveness of the book as a historical review. It is well written and I’d recommend it to anyone looking for an overview of world history.
Profile Image for Rıdvan.
549 reviews93 followers
June 4, 2019
Sumerlerden baslayip Facebook’un kullanici verilerini satmasina kadar gelmis. Dunya tarihinde onemli rol oynadigini dusundugu herseyden kisa kisa bahsetmis. Tabi cok fazla detay verememis. Aksi taktirde kitap yuzlerce sayfaya cikardi. Sadece belli basli konulara merak uyandirabiliyor. Cokta guzel yapiyor.
Profile Image for Hannah.
67 reviews
November 22, 2022
This book was a (extremely) brief yet informative book about the history of the world. however because if it's brevity,there it doesn't go into detail about certain events, so this book would be best served as a review or and introduction to world history. Nonetheless, I would recommend to anyone interested in history.
Profile Image for Devrim.
6 reviews12 followers
April 16, 2019
Tarihin kısa bir özetini okuyacağımın farkındaydım ama bu kadar da özetin özeti olacağını düşünmemiştim. Keşke sonunda kısa bir bibliyografya olsaydı, çok daha faydalı olurdu. Yine de tarihle yeni ilgilenmeye başlayanlar için genel bir fikir vermesi açısından güzel bir kitap.
Profile Image for Miranda Mayo.
64 reviews6 followers
December 18, 2017
Excellent book! The author keeps it simple and interesting. I loved it.
1 review
Read
March 10, 2023
Overall this book satisfied my standards for this book. The history in it is very well researched and backed up by many pieces of evidence that are sorted at the end. The Book covers the Romans all the way to modern history and WW2. The Book was a little hard to follow at times as there were no set chapters and bounced around from time point to time point. Other than this flaw the book flowed, and shined around where the pieces of evidence were cited and backed up.
Profile Image for Hande Hazer Ansay.
70 reviews4 followers
November 14, 2024
Dünya tarihini uçtan uca irdelemiş bir kitap.
Atatürk’ten bahsetmesi ne kadar gurur verici ise, şuan geldiğimiz noktayı cumhuriyet açısından muğlak görünmektedir cümlesi de bir o kadar üzücü idi.
39 reviews
July 28, 2022
Bir lise öğrencisinin ders notlarından derlenmişcesine, her konudan 1-2 sayfalık bilgiler paylaşan bir tarih özet kitabı. Bu 1-2 sayfalık, birbiri ile alakasız, rastgele sıralanmış bilgi “yükü”nü okurken kendinizi sınava hazırlanan bir öğrenci gibi hissediyorsunuz. Bu sebepten olsa gerek ki kitaptan hiç zevk almadım ve çok zor bitirdim.
Profile Image for Cheyenne.
207 reviews1 follower
January 1, 2019
The look over each subject is brief (obviously and understandably) so you need a little prior knowledge to understand the subjects. I enjoyed the short chapters, broken up further by inclusions of relevant information.
Profile Image for Onur.
43 reviews
May 11, 2019
Daha fazla okunacak konu seçmek için güzel bir kaynak. Yazarın Wisecrack için çalıştığı hissedilse ve Türkçe çevirisi sanki hiç kontrol edilmemiş gibi olsa da benim gibi dünya tarihi cahilleri için multivitamin yararında.
Profile Image for Mert Cobanoglu.
22 reviews4 followers
November 2, 2018
bu seriyi özellikle çok beğendim, bilgi konsantre olduğu için kalıcılığı biraz belirsiz fakat ilgi alanlarının tespiti için temel oluşturulabilir
Profile Image for Nihal Sever.
54 reviews8 followers
December 1, 2022
11-12. yüzyılın dört büyük geçiş dönemi eserinden biri olup adı kelime anlamıyla "Gerçeklerin Eşiği" olarak çevrilidir.

Hakaniye lehçesi, aruz vezni ve dörtlüklerle yazılmış olan eser, Yüknekli Edip Ahmet tarafından Karahanlı Beylerinden olan Muhammed Dad Sipehsalar'a ithaf edilir.

Kitap bilgilerini geçtikten sonra içeriğine gelelim. Kitap tam olarak bir öğüt kitabı. Peygamberlere ve Sipehsalara övgü ile başlayan kitapta yine peygamber hadisleri de mevcut. Bazı öğütler hadislere de dayandırılarak açıklanmış.
İyi bir insan nasıl olmalı, ne yapmalı ne yapmamalı gibi konuları dil, doğruluk, ahlâk, cömertlik/yetinmek gibi konular çerçevesinden anlatır. Burada bir ideal insan profili ister istemez akılda çizilir. Buradan ithaf ettiği kişinin nasıl olması gerektiğine dair ipucu vereceğini ve bu kişinin de bir bey, bir siyasetçi olduğunu düşünürsek siyasetname özelliği taşıdığını da söyleyebiliriz.
Okunuşu kolay, kafiyesi yerinde başarılı bir Türkiye Türkçesi çevirisiyle İş Bankası Kültür Yayınlarından okuduğum bir kitap bana bin yıl öncesinden seslenen bir büyüğün beni karşısına alıp konuşması olarak zihnimde kaldı...
782 reviews5 followers
January 30, 2019
This book does a great job of what it says on the front -- a quick and somewhat superficial coverage of world history. My knowledge of history is a bit shaky, so I can't point to anything obvious that is missing, but there were a number of topics covered that were outside my previous knowledge base. Despite the brevity of discussion (most selections got around 3 pages) there was a good discussion of what is reasonably well known and uncontroversial versus those topics that lean more to the hypothetical.

I was particularly impressed with sections on intersectional feminism and the long history of gender diverse individuals.

In terms of memorable -- I engaged better with sections on topics I was already familiar with. In particular, I found it interesting comparing what I'd remembered on those topics with the range of what is now known. While the rest was interesting reading, really, I now need to go off and read a book on each of the topics that interested me, because at the moment, I'm kind of forgetting it as I close the book.
Profile Image for Mark Zodda.
800 reviews1 follower
June 14, 2025
Disappointing. Not a straightforward primer on world history, the author uses the book to gloss over vast sections of the world (Africa, South Asia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Southeast Asia) and brings in culture war issues as well. I was hoping to read a fairly condensed view of world history that gave at least roughly equal weight to European and non-European history with a focus farther back in time than the last 200 years, but instead got what appears to be a screed that wants to look at events through a more "modern" interpretation that focuses on making points rather than covering what happened. Unfortunately this means that events like the first world war and World War II lose key details and coverage of Israel, Palestine and the Middle East lose any connection to events in World War I or even why this mess exists. Instead we get a chapter called "Feminism's First Wave," with a section on transgenderism through the ages. Not recommended.
Profile Image for Oussama Nakkal.
55 reviews17 followers
February 1, 2019
Nice material for crash courses and encyclopedic readings fans. Brief, and to the point. It made me go look up every new term for me. And expand my general knowledge.
However, I think that in terms of objectivity this material shouldn't be taken for granted. I sensed some far-leftist political agenda, when it comes to the history of religions. Forgetting the greatest atrocities and genoicides that religions are responsible of throughout the history. It's just not valid, take the fall for such dividing doctrines and to blame it on the people ruling in the name of them. As far as history is concerned, religons are the primary dividing factors among ethnicity and power. For a PhD in Religion and Ethics, I'm quite disappointed that such facts aren't highlighted in plain words.
Profile Image for Isabel Pedrosa.
2 reviews
January 16, 2025
Concise and delightful pocket-sized tellings of history. Great for reading while in transit. It introduces many topics I’d love to delve in with further research.

I appreciate the quotes at the beginning of every chapter and the additional facts at the end. Tom Head’s narrative includes witty and humorous jabs that invoke a giggle every so often. Honestly, the whole thing almost seems his inner monologue spewed out on paper, or his narration of a Once Upon A Time story.

Regarding the publication, Adams Media did a great job on modeling it as a quintessential 101 book. Perfect size, coherent use of fonts, a variety of additional information in the book e.g. a timeline of events, poems, a collection of figures, bulleted lists, etc. It’s very clean and engaging.
Profile Image for Lisa Simpson :).
34 reviews1 follower
December 21, 2021
# 🚀 el libro en dos frases

1. resumen de la historia
2. partes de la historia que quizás no sabías

# 🎨 impresiones

10/10 lo leería de nuevo, fue una gran compra.

## Cómo lo descubrí

quería comprarme un libro en Antártica en Conce y pillé este libro y me llamó l aatención.

# ☘️ lo que aprendí del libro


💡 Como mi vida/ acciones / pensamientos / ideas / han cambiado.



- yo diría que básicamente lo que aprendí de este libro son datos medios random de la historia :)
- creo que lejos de mis partes preferidas están la inclusión de “minorías”, y los dos últimos capítulos que hablan del futuro y de lo que hoy somos como sociedad.
Profile Image for Will Fox.
9 reviews
May 28, 2019
Really enjoyed this. I love the "bite-sized" chunks of history, which made it quick and easy to read through, while still being interesting and well-written. I would have liked him to talk more about the progress of science/technology/inventions, plus he could have mentioned a few more events (e.g. the English Civil War, among the defining events of the country, is completely omitted), but apart from that, a great book. It ends particularly well, as he reminds us that democracy isn't something that should be taken for granted.
Profile Image for Darcy.
67 reviews
October 17, 2021
A broad, fair, and interesting look at world history. It was formatted in rough chronological order and frequently referenced previous chapters, which created an easy to follow and understand “timeline” of events. It definitely helped explain some things to me and I feel like I learnt a lot about the ancient world in particular. Definitely not comprehensive though, it was fairly western focused for the most part, but thats fine, seeing as it’s only meant to be an introduction to the topic. Overall, would recommend!
4 reviews
May 18, 2025
A very good overview of world history. I picked up this book mainly to give me an overview of ancient civilizations. That it did. But a couple of pages dedicated to each civilization or period of time isn’t quite enough. My next quest will be to find a book that covers Mesopotamian history through the Roman Empire without being too voluminous. This text could have used a few maps to help me visualize where many of these periods took place with respect to current geopolitical boundaries. Overall the book does what it is advertised to do, provide a quick world history overview.
Profile Image for faith adams-michaels.
354 reviews1 follower
May 17, 2020
This book taught me a lot, especially about ancient civilizations, and I enjoyed it. I would've liked for it to be more objective, but the telling of history is always, in some aspect, subjective, and for the most part I respect the author's opinions and reasoning. My biggest takeaway is that I would like to learn more about Asian history, I've been taught so little of that in high school / college compared to European and American history.
Profile Image for Merve.
11 reviews
October 22, 2021
Dünya tarihi oldukça "advanced" bir konu olsa da kitap bu konuyu okuyanlar için "introductory course" seviyesine indirebilmiş. Bu nedenle tarih alanının uçsuz bucaksız deryasına yeni adım atacaklar için bu kitap bir deniz feneri görevi görecektir; fakat çeviriden dolayı okuma o kadar zorlaştığı için kitabın sonuna kadar gelmek çok da kolay olmayacaktır.
2 reviews
December 16, 2022
Omissions on Purpose

Very vague in terms of exploring the different time periods or geographic locations. Book is rife with misleading personal conjecture about the West. All cultures have their share of shameful history. If that's the point of the book then don't go out your way to omit the harsh truths about the east; just cover it all. I quit reading half way through.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 69 reviews

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