The Wallchart of World History (Revised): From Earliest Times to the Present - A Facsimile Edition

Although this is certainly a provocative artifact and an intriguing way to view history visually, I don't find it particularly useful for learning anything about history. Because this was first published for 19th century audiences, it has to proceed from its Victorian starting place, and likewise Victorian religiosity. It goofily begins at Adam and Eve in 4004 b.c.e. (!). Because a diagram is not easily revised once finished the more recent panels just continue the problem. It caters to Victorian hero worship by covering historical figures only, and maybe a few events; no text mind you, just a citation of the event. What these events mean will be just as unknown after, as before you purchased it. Hundreds of kings names on various double-page spreads will continue to be meaningless to a reader. All you'll know after getting this is chronology. You'll know Joiada preceded Onias but you still won't know who the hell they were, or anything they acheived.

In favoring the dubious "Great Men" approach to understanding history, the Victorians failed to devise a more alive, dynamic concept for its study. Names and dates are just not compelling - history IS the history of ideas. This elaborate document never gets around to epoch-altering ideas at all. A sequenced timechart of ideas (and maybe technology; the development of agriculture, the gothic arch, the invention of glass, the Gutenberg press) would be valuable, and a much more interesting way to engage history. Here it all just remains dry history with a capital H.