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Review from: Choice,
May 2000
Updating and expanding S.H.
Steinberg's Historical Tables (12th ed., 1991), this chronology
includes events from 3500 BCE through 1998, takes a broader global
perspective than Sternberg, and goes beyond politics and war to include
entries for science and technology, religion, and culture. The 25,000
events it records are divided into seven epochs, listing events
chronologically in each epoch in six categories, which in turn reflect the
history of each period. The format, typeface, and arrangement make the
volume easy to use. Illustrations complement the text. The subject index
is useful if sometimes idiosyncratic. In expanding the scope, material
from earlier editions had sometimes to be omitted, hence this volume
supplements earlier editions rather than replaces them. For recent
decades, there are some curious omissions: Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the UN Earth Summit (1992),
and South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (1998). Libraries
may well ask whether a single volume can do justice to more than five
millennia of history and should weigh it against H.E.L. Mellersh and
Neville Williams's Chronology of World History (4 v., CH, Nov'99),
which covers virtually the same period in greater detail. That said, it
should be noted that the editors met several goals they set for themselves
in revising Sternberg. Recommended to libraries at all levels as an update
to Sternberg and a complement to Mellerish and Williams.
Reviewed by: F. Oscadal, Dartmouth College |
