What do you think?
Timelines of Everyone
Get the inside track on the incredible lives of history's biggest names: from Shakespeare to Oprah Winfrey, and Anne Frank to Julius Caesar.
Following on from the smash hit Timelines of Everything, Timelines of Everyone stands out from other history books by focusing squarely on the biographies of a myriad of movers and shakers across millennia. This DK children's book boasts more than 130 visual timelines, covering kings and queens, humanitarians, scientists, inventors, explorers, activists, writers, artists, and more.
Timelines of Everyone breathes fresh life into the biographies of the people you thought you knew, yet also finds new stories from previously overlooked or ignored voices. Did you know US President Franklin D. Roosevelt was defeated only once in 300 wrestling matches? Or that more women passed NASA's rigorous astronaut training tests for Project Mercury, but were forbidden to fly into space? Or how about the fact that Einstein's last words were lost, because his nurse didn't speak German? This fascinating title takes kids on a historical journey, revealing not just the incredible achievements, contributions, and adventures of historical luminaries, but the lesser-known events that shaped them too, from childhood into old age.
Filled with easy-to-understand visual timelines, vibrant illustrations, and a diverse range of historical figures, Timelines of Everyone is the must-have guide to the world's must-know names.
Following on from the smash hit Timelines of Everything, Timelines of Everyone stands out from other history books by focusing squarely on the biographies of a myriad of movers and shakers across millennia. This DK children's book boasts more than 130 visual timelines, covering kings and queens, humanitarians, scientists, inventors, explorers, activists, writers, artists, and more.
Timelines of Everyone breathes fresh life into the biographies of the people you thought you knew, yet also finds new stories from previously overlooked or ignored voices. Did you know US President Franklin D. Roosevelt was defeated only once in 300 wrestling matches? Or that more women passed NASA's rigorous astronaut training tests for Project Mercury, but were forbidden to fly into space? Or how about the fact that Einstein's last words were lost, because his nurse didn't speak German? This fascinating title takes kids on a historical journey, revealing not just the incredible achievements, contributions, and adventures of historical luminaries, but the lesser-known events that shaped them too, from childhood into old age.
Filled with easy-to-understand visual timelines, vibrant illustrations, and a diverse range of historical figures, Timelines of Everyone is the must-have guide to the world's must-know names.
319 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 6, 2020
About the author
D.K. Publishing
10.3k books2,221 followersDorling Kindersley (DK) is a British multinational publishing company specializing in illustrated reference books for adults and children in 62 languages. It is part of Penguin Random House, a consumer publishing company jointly owned by Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA and Pearson PLC. Bertelsmann owns 53% of the company and Pearson owns 47%.
Established in 1974, DK publishes a range of titles in genres including travel (including Eyewitness Travel Guides), arts and crafts, business, history, cooking, gaming, gardening, health and fitness, natural history, parenting, science and reference. They also publish books for children, toddlers and babies, covering such topics as history, the human body, animals and activities, as well as licensed properties such as LEGO, Disney and DeLiSo, licensor of the toy Sophie la Girafe. DK has offices in New York, London, Munich, New Delhi, Toronto and Melbourne.
Source: Wikipedia.
Established in 1974, DK publishes a range of titles in genres including travel (including Eyewitness Travel Guides), arts and crafts, business, history, cooking, gaming, gardening, health and fitness, natural history, parenting, science and reference. They also publish books for children, toddlers and babies, covering such topics as history, the human body, animals and activities, as well as licensed properties such as LEGO, Disney and DeLiSo, licensor of the toy Sophie la Girafe. DK has offices in New York, London, Munich, New Delhi, Toronto and Melbourne.
Source: Wikipedia.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
March 1, 2021
This is one of those massive DK books that as always packs in loads of information in an interesting way. I liked the way the information is presented, we had several books like this when my children were small and they got so much use.
It’s difficult to represent a selection of people, obviously so many will be missed out. I think there was a good mix of people here. It’s an overview of most people as there’s much to fit in. I enjoyed looking through this, it would be a good starting point for further research. Ideal for fact loving children.
It’s difficult to represent a selection of people, obviously so many will be missed out. I think there was a good mix of people here. It’s an overview of most people as there’s much to fit in. I enjoyed looking through this, it would be a good starting point for further research. Ideal for fact loving children.
November 7, 2020
I could rate this book one star, or I could rate it three, depending on what section or page I have in mind. Thus, I will average it out at two stars. This book features glossy, photo-illustrated timelines about a variety of different people throughout global history, and I appreciate how the collaborative team made an effort to include significant figures from such a broad range of time periods, geographical locations, and cultures. However, this book is incredibly biased at moments, like when the authors can't bring themselves to mention that there was anything wrong with communism.
This book is not remotely neutral. It conveys attitudes and value judgments about a whole variety of different concepts and social issues, and even though some degree of bias is inevitable, the authors chose to be inconsistent and leave out caveats when it suited their purposes. They made sure to mention problems with colonialism every time it came up, but communism? NOT ONCE. Not once. MILLIONS and MILLIONS of people died because of communism, and even if you want to argue that it's just because communist ideals haven't been implemented effectively, communism has been an egregious failure every time someone has attempted it, and it is ridiculously biased and skewed for these authors to not even mention the deaths associated with communist regimes.
The authors also made strange selective decisions about who to include in their timelines and who to leave out. They mention lots of different religious leaders, some of whom are relatively obscure, but they never mention Jesus or Muhammad. This seems particularly dubious since they include multiple Catholics, Protestants, and Muslims from throughout time, but don't bother to cover the background for Christianity or Islam. The authors also leave out various prominent figures while including random entertainers who are very famous, but haven't done anything to significantly shape the world that we live in. Neil Armstrong doesn't even make it into the book until an addendum at the end, while Dwayne Johnson and other stars get full page spreads.
Obviously, the title is going to be an overstatement, because no book could possibly present timelines of everyone. Still, the title underscores how randomly selective this book is, and I wish that the authors had included some information or explanation of how they made their decisions. Who decided who was important? What was their measuring stick for who to include? How did they determine when they would mention someone's religious background and motivating life beliefs, and when they would decide to present them as secular figures without any reference to the core convictions that shaped them, like with Harriet Tubman and Olaudah Equiano? What decision-making went into mentioning the negative features of one person's legacy and not another?
I could tear apart any book like this, honestly, but under normal circumstances, I would prefer not to. I would rather just read it, learn new things, and be reminded of historical details that I've forgotten, without feeling increasingly aggravated and like someone hiding behind the names DK and Smithsonian is trying to teach children skewed history that suits their personal agenda. I don't actually want to be critical, but this book has so many flaws and so many gaps that it's hard for me to even take it seriously as a work of history.
This book is also poorly designed at times, and can be very difficult to read. The font choices and colors often fade into a dark or busy background, and most of the timelines wrap around images in a circle, requiring the reader to slowly rotate this very heavy book in order to read them. I skimmed a lot because of this, and had to squint to read small print that didn't show up well against some of the graphic design choices.
Kids can definitely learn a lot from this book, and parts of it have merit. Many of the prominent people are covered with accuracy, precision, and depth, and this book can introduce children to a variety of significant figures and movements from throughout global history. However, they will also be told what to think by nameless authors who can't keep their personal bias out of the book, with egregious paragraphs like, "Marx's revolutionary ideas were used as the foundation for communism, a political belief that all people should share wealth and land equally. It is considered to be the opposite of capitalism, which promotes individual wealth and can lead to inequality." Right. Totally. Go read Animal Farm or an actual work of twentieth century history and see if inequality still sounds like the worst thing in the world.
There are a lot of problems with capitalism. It is a profoundly flawed system. Still, it has led to far greater freedom and human flourishing than communism ever has, and the whole idea that individual wealth is an inherently bad thing, and that the economic pie must be divided evenly, is a huge, value-loaded assumption that has no business being presented in a DK reference work about history. I really could give this entire book just one star for this, because it's everything that I hate and despise in history books for children, but enough of this was good, or at least accurate and inoffensive, that I will stick with my two star rating.
This book is not remotely neutral. It conveys attitudes and value judgments about a whole variety of different concepts and social issues, and even though some degree of bias is inevitable, the authors chose to be inconsistent and leave out caveats when it suited their purposes. They made sure to mention problems with colonialism every time it came up, but communism? NOT ONCE. Not once. MILLIONS and MILLIONS of people died because of communism, and even if you want to argue that it's just because communist ideals haven't been implemented effectively, communism has been an egregious failure every time someone has attempted it, and it is ridiculously biased and skewed for these authors to not even mention the deaths associated with communist regimes.
The authors also made strange selective decisions about who to include in their timelines and who to leave out. They mention lots of different religious leaders, some of whom are relatively obscure, but they never mention Jesus or Muhammad. This seems particularly dubious since they include multiple Catholics, Protestants, and Muslims from throughout time, but don't bother to cover the background for Christianity or Islam. The authors also leave out various prominent figures while including random entertainers who are very famous, but haven't done anything to significantly shape the world that we live in. Neil Armstrong doesn't even make it into the book until an addendum at the end, while Dwayne Johnson and other stars get full page spreads.
Obviously, the title is going to be an overstatement, because no book could possibly present timelines of everyone. Still, the title underscores how randomly selective this book is, and I wish that the authors had included some information or explanation of how they made their decisions. Who decided who was important? What was their measuring stick for who to include? How did they determine when they would mention someone's religious background and motivating life beliefs, and when they would decide to present them as secular figures without any reference to the core convictions that shaped them, like with Harriet Tubman and Olaudah Equiano? What decision-making went into mentioning the negative features of one person's legacy and not another?
I could tear apart any book like this, honestly, but under normal circumstances, I would prefer not to. I would rather just read it, learn new things, and be reminded of historical details that I've forgotten, without feeling increasingly aggravated and like someone hiding behind the names DK and Smithsonian is trying to teach children skewed history that suits their personal agenda. I don't actually want to be critical, but this book has so many flaws and so many gaps that it's hard for me to even take it seriously as a work of history.
This book is also poorly designed at times, and can be very difficult to read. The font choices and colors often fade into a dark or busy background, and most of the timelines wrap around images in a circle, requiring the reader to slowly rotate this very heavy book in order to read them. I skimmed a lot because of this, and had to squint to read small print that didn't show up well against some of the graphic design choices.
Kids can definitely learn a lot from this book, and parts of it have merit. Many of the prominent people are covered with accuracy, precision, and depth, and this book can introduce children to a variety of significant figures and movements from throughout global history. However, they will also be told what to think by nameless authors who can't keep their personal bias out of the book, with egregious paragraphs like, "Marx's revolutionary ideas were used as the foundation for communism, a political belief that all people should share wealth and land equally. It is considered to be the opposite of capitalism, which promotes individual wealth and can lead to inequality." Right. Totally. Go read Animal Farm or an actual work of twentieth century history and see if inequality still sounds like the worst thing in the world.
There are a lot of problems with capitalism. It is a profoundly flawed system. Still, it has led to far greater freedom and human flourishing than communism ever has, and the whole idea that individual wealth is an inherently bad thing, and that the economic pie must be divided evenly, is a huge, value-loaded assumption that has no business being presented in a DK reference work about history. I really could give this entire book just one star for this, because it's everything that I hate and despise in history books for children, but enough of this was good, or at least accurate and inoffensive, that I will stick with my two star rating.
October 14, 2020
Major people missing. Barack Obama but no Mohammad. Malala but no Abraham. Serena Williams but no Jesus. Alan Turing and no Ada Lovelace. Who decided who was and was not important?
December 25, 2022
Well, the good thing is, it's well-produced, visually appealing, and professionally presented. It's just a little bit evil, is all.
It's become fashionable lately to gripe about "wokeness." Yes, this book is woke, or whatever you want to call it. In the eight-century gap between Julius Caesar and Charlemagne, they include Cleopatra, Zenobia, and Wu Zetian. Omitting Jesus, St. Paul, Diocletian, Constantine the Great, and (of all people) Muhammad in the process. The appearances of the world's two largest religions are entirely omitted from this history of everyone, presumably to maintain an even male-to-female ratio. There's a bunch of figures who are obviously only included to represent racial or sexual minorities of various kinds, and you know what? That's fine. Silly, but that stuff is at least, as far as I can tell, not lies. I don't really mind if my kid learns about Sarah Breedlove, even if she isn't a top priority.
It kinda lost me when I got to Karl Marx, "whose teachings have inspired social movements all over the world." Communism stands in opposition to capitalism, which promotes inequality. Skip forward a few pages, and you come to WWII, where Hitler, Hirohito, and Mussolini all have sections detailing the crimes committed by their regimes. Stalin appears alongside them, but his box is noticeably smaller because the book only mentions that his name means "man of steel," that he took over following the Communist Revolution, that Hitler double-crossed him, and that he was still in power when he died. No mention of the Holodomor, show trials, Lysenko, gulags, or any of that. Mao, Pol Pot, the Kims, and Ho Chi Minh are entirely absent from the book. Fidel Castro is mentioned as a footnote in the two page hagiography of noted homicidal t-shirt model Che Guevara. It both-sides Castro. That's as close as it comes to allowing criticism of an ideology that killed tens of millions of people.
At least the hardcore right-wingers are relatively straightforward about their admiration for totalitarian scum. You know it's bad when the useful idiots get something published with the Smithsonian imprint on the cover.
It's become fashionable lately to gripe about "wokeness." Yes, this book is woke, or whatever you want to call it. In the eight-century gap between Julius Caesar and Charlemagne, they include Cleopatra, Zenobia, and Wu Zetian. Omitting Jesus, St. Paul, Diocletian, Constantine the Great, and (of all people) Muhammad in the process. The appearances of the world's two largest religions are entirely omitted from this history of everyone, presumably to maintain an even male-to-female ratio. There's a bunch of figures who are obviously only included to represent racial or sexual minorities of various kinds, and you know what? That's fine. Silly, but that stuff is at least, as far as I can tell, not lies. I don't really mind if my kid learns about Sarah Breedlove, even if she isn't a top priority.
It kinda lost me when I got to Karl Marx, "whose teachings have inspired social movements all over the world." Communism stands in opposition to capitalism, which promotes inequality. Skip forward a few pages, and you come to WWII, where Hitler, Hirohito, and Mussolini all have sections detailing the crimes committed by their regimes. Stalin appears alongside them, but his box is noticeably smaller because the book only mentions that his name means "man of steel," that he took over following the Communist Revolution, that Hitler double-crossed him, and that he was still in power when he died. No mention of the Holodomor, show trials, Lysenko, gulags, or any of that. Mao, Pol Pot, the Kims, and Ho Chi Minh are entirely absent from the book. Fidel Castro is mentioned as a footnote in the two page hagiography of noted homicidal t-shirt model Che Guevara. It both-sides Castro. That's as close as it comes to allowing criticism of an ideology that killed tens of millions of people.
At least the hardcore right-wingers are relatively straightforward about their admiration for totalitarian scum. You know it's bad when the useful idiots get something published with the Smithsonian imprint on the cover.
May 23, 2022
This book was politically correct to the extent that it left out multiple great people.
February 7, 2021
A two-page spread for most of the people featured, but occasionally a group of six, like the Islamic Golden Age. A few specialty timelines like Healers through time and the opening sequence of Humans through time, from first tools to the computer age. Though much of the focus is on Europe and North America, there are people like Sejong the Great of China, Fatima al-Fihri of Morocco who founded the world's oldest university and who happens to be a woman. These and many others are completely new to me. Each featured person gets a portrait, either a real portrait or a conceptualized one of someone like him or her, plus a main item pictured and sometimes other pictures of people or things associated with them, like Catherine the Great's crown and a dual portrait of her with her husband. Most featured persons also have a small group of others in the same field: Sitting Bull has three other Native American warriors; Indira Gandhi has three other remarkable leaders in her part of the world who happen to be female; Anne Frank has two other "young people and World War II," both of whom are female; Chinese scholar Wang Zhenyi has three other pioneers of astronomy who also happen to be female. There are a lot of people who promote women's and children's rights as well as the civil rights of black people.
One small frustration is in the timeline of 38 people on the cover: all but one are portraits featured inside the book. The one is a European woman with dark braids who comes somewhere between Chinese Empress Wu Zetian (624-705 A.D.) and Korean King Sejong the Great (1397-1450). Searching on Google, I find it's a portrait of Eleanor of Aquitaine, but not the image used inside the book.
A pretty good once-over-lightly version of a lot of people, but more research is needed to know about or understand any of them. A good supplement to a world history study and a place to start for any of these people. Ramses the Great of Egypt is the first individual featured and the last is Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg.
One small frustration is in the timeline of 38 people on the cover: all but one are portraits featured inside the book. The one is a European woman with dark braids who comes somewhere between Chinese Empress Wu Zetian (624-705 A.D.) and Korean King Sejong the Great (1397-1450). Searching on Google, I find it's a portrait of Eleanor of Aquitaine, but not the image used inside the book.
A pretty good once-over-lightly version of a lot of people, but more research is needed to know about or understand any of them. A good supplement to a world history study and a place to start for any of these people. Ramses the Great of Egypt is the first individual featured and the last is Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg.
August 16, 2023
Highly biased book and majorly missing many essential people in the history of the world.
What does it say about the authors who have written the book when they have omitted Prophets Jesus and Mohammad from the book, two of the most influential figures in the history of the world?
There are far greater Mughal Emperors than Shah Jahan, just because he get the Taj Mahal made doesn't make him influential.
Additionally, Gandhi, a political figure of India (a highly controversial person), was mentioned in the book, along with several other leaders of the Indian subcontinent's independence movement but Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the central leader of Muslims during this era, was not even mentioned in passing.
And don't even get me started on the 2-page spread of Madhuri Dixit and Dwayne Johnson, when there are better and more influential celebrities who have done far greater work than them, both for entertainment and humanitarian purposes.
Additionally, you should also have added Abdul Sattar Edhi as he has single-handedly founded the largest ambulance fleet in the world.
What does it say about the authors who have written the book when they have omitted Prophets Jesus and Mohammad from the book, two of the most influential figures in the history of the world?
There are far greater Mughal Emperors than Shah Jahan, just because he get the Taj Mahal made doesn't make him influential.
Additionally, Gandhi, a political figure of India (a highly controversial person), was mentioned in the book, along with several other leaders of the Indian subcontinent's independence movement but Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the central leader of Muslims during this era, was not even mentioned in passing.
And don't even get me started on the 2-page spread of Madhuri Dixit and Dwayne Johnson, when there are better and more influential celebrities who have done far greater work than them, both for entertainment and humanitarian purposes.
Additionally, you should also have added Abdul Sattar Edhi as he has single-handedly founded the largest ambulance fleet in the world.
February 8, 2024
This book is a historical encyclopedia and dictionary that describes historical events and important people from the Stone Age to the present day, in chronological order by period.
Thanks to this book we can understand what is happening in other countries during the same period. The book is new, published in 2020, so the quoted images and illustrations are clear and easy to understand.
However, since the time series is drawn inside a circle, in the case of Kindle Edition, the circle is divided into different pages, making it difficult to read.
Thanks to this book we can understand what is happening in other countries during the same period. The book is new, published in 2020, so the quoted images and illustrations are clear and easy to understand.
However, since the time series is drawn inside a circle, in the case of Kindle Edition, the circle is divided into different pages, making it difficult to read.
February 1, 2025
Although this book is simplified for younger readers, I still found it interesting and engaging. The unique page designs stood out, except for those with black backgrounds. DK frequently uses black backgrounds in their reference books, and while it looks nice, it bothers me that my fingerprints are left all over the pages. This is particularly unsettling for coffee table books, where fingerprints scattered across the pages are quite noticeable. I did lose some interest near the end, as it mainly focused on famous sports stars, but that's just my personal preference.
December 22, 2021
Found this at Costco! (Shameless plug: They have some of the best books I've ever seen.) I picked up this book and "Timelines of Everything". This is a DK book, so you know the information is good and the illustrations are beautiful. But I really enjoyed the set-up of this book too. Very clean and orderly. However, I did prefer Timelines of Everything over Timelines of Everyone.
September 25, 2024
They covered a wide range of interesting people.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews