A Small World History in 100 Big Dates

Barbara De Munnynck brings 100 remarkable events of world history to life in a fascinating way. The stories include interesting facts and fun anecdotes about well-known and less well-known events or people. You get to know why in 2700 BCE an empress asked her ladies in waiting to toss caterpillars into her tea, why Cleopatra rolled herself up in a carpet and who in 1633 took the most difficult decision of his life. Each event has a powerful narrative arc and is told with verve and humour in two or three pages. Furthermore, by making connections with the environment of today’s young people, Munnynck places famous facts in a contemporary light.

The full-page illustrations by Isabelle Geeraerts stand out for their bright colours, their pictorial force and the way they are able to tell a story independently of the text but in dialogue with it. There is humour in the monochrome vignettes, too, and much to discover. The book is written chronologically from ‘The very beginning’ to ‘Our own time’, but it doesn’t need to be read that way; the reader can pick out whatever looks interesting. To make clear how history coheres, a number of common threads are added at the end of the book, such as women and women’s rights.

The narrative tone, which resembles that of a newspaper column, the powerful illustrations and the humour in both text and image make ‘A Small World History in 100 Big Dates’ an excellent book for generating enthusiasm for history and research in readers young and old.