Reddit reviews Asimov's Chronology of the World: The History of the World From the Big Bang to Modern Times
We found 9 Reddit comments about Asimov's Chronology of the World: The History of the World From the Big Bang to Modern Times. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
I have always enjoyed Isaac Asimov's non-fiction. He wrote numerous history books, including the excellent
Asimov's Chronology of the World: The History of the World From the Big Bang to Modern Times.
The Near East: 10,000 Years of History
The Land of Canaan
The Egyptians
The Greeks: A Great Adventure
The Roman Republic
The Roman Empire
Constantinople: The Forgotten Empire
The Shaping of England
The Shaping of France
The Dark Ages
Christopher Columbus: Navigator to the New World
Ferdinand Magellan: Opening the Door to World Exploration
The Shaping of North America
The Birth of the United States
Asimov also wrote excellent histories of science and mathematics:
Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology
Asimov's Chronology of Science and Discovery
A Short History of Biology
A Short History of Chemistry
Most of Asimov's non-fiction was aimed at the masses (as was Sagan's Cosmos), so they tend not to go into great depth. However he was excellent at showing how an event or discovery would have direct or indirect impact on a future event or discovery (standing on the shoulders of giants and all that). Most of these were written in the 1960's and 1970's
[my favorite history book] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0062700367?pc_redir=1397832010&robot_redir=1)
It is a little known fact that Isaac Asimov wrote more science books than novels. I have read one or two of them and can tell you that the writing is clear and straightforward. He is credited with authoring around 500 books.
Here are a few examples:
Understanding Physics
Asimov's Chronoloy of the World
Atom: Journey Across the Sub-Atomic Cosmos(I Read this in the 90's and due to the speed of advances in this field it's a bit dated but it gave me a solid foundation and taught me the difference between a letpon and a baryon)
For anyone interested in seeing Asimov in a nonfiction light, I highly recommend Asimov's Chronology of the World: The History of the World From the Big Bang to Modern Times which is a spectacular history of the world. Totally readable, it gave me a much better understanding of the scope of human history than perhaps any book I read in my teens. Not often discussed in book groups, but an exceptional work of history and literature, IMO.
I seem to recall that Asimov's Chronology of the World was in a format like this, although it reached further back than 500 B.C.
https://www.amazon.com/Asimovs-Chronology-World-History-Modern/dp/0062700367/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1537113616&sr=1-1&refinements=p_lbr_one_browse-bin%3AIsaac+Asimov
There are some great popular anthropological works that attempt something of this sort. For a book that jumps across continents and cultures and, as you want, "highlights the truly astounding human achievements of a given society compared to the other societies existing on the Earth that didn't achieve that particular success and why or why not," I'd recommend something like Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. I can highly recommend this book if that is what you are looking for.
There was also, at one point, a whole school of historical scholarship called Universal History. You can still find these books coming out today, but they are less common within the history profession, which tends to focus on more finite questions. For more info on universal history, click here - that should help you get started. Also, here is a running list of published universal histories. I don't tend to read universal histories, so I can't recommend any particular one, though apparently Isaac Asimov dabbled in this at one point and his work, found here has some good reviews.
Good luck!
asimov's chronology of the world: the history of the big bang to modern times?
i can't claim to have read it, but my friends who have say it's pretty good.
link
This is what did it for me! All of history (up to about 100 years ago) in one source.
http://www.amazon.com/Asimovs-Chronology-World-History-Modern/dp/0062700367
I found it in a library sale for 2$ a few years ago and bought it on a whim. I keep it in my kitchen and read it with my breakfast pretty much every day.
Asimov's Chronology of the World is one possibility. It's organized in the way you describe, it's about as comprehensive as a one-volume work could be.