Book #27

Spotted this at the Met gift shop in NYC. Had of course read Gombrich's The Story of Art, but never knew he'd penned a world history for wee ones. It has the deficits one might expect from a history written in the '30s, namely that Africa is given short shrift, but Gombrich is surprisingly sensitive to the plights of native peoples at the hands of colonials. He paints a broad swath of world history, and this little tome might be useful in my middle school classroom for students who are ready for more context to events we study in detail. It's a useful refresher for adults, too; I was surprised to note how much I'd forgotten about the 100 Years War, the 30 Years War, and Guelphs and Ghibellines. But I'd be wary of allowing kids to learn Civil War basics from Gombrich's faulty summarization!