on Van Loon's The story of Mankind

Uneven, January 19, 2009 By  Ana Braga-Henebry (Rural South Dakota) - See all my reviews     The author is a secular humanist and I find that all religions in the book are ultimately regarded as fanaticism. While he dealt with the ancients we were OK, although some chapters were entirely his opinion with no historical content whatsoever. I could barely accomplish the reading aloud of the Reformation chapter, but the next chapter made me give up this book as a History read aloud for homeschooled children entirely: Saint Ignatius is all wrong! If you are Catholic, or even Protestant--because Van Loon does justice to neither--Chapters 16 and 17 of Light of the Nations (Catholic Textbook Project) will give you a much better idea of the errors of the Church then, and of the Counter-reformation. For an older, wiser History student it would be OK, as Van Loon does have some delightful style bits and innovative History-telling perspectives. The book, is important to note, changes drastically in format midpoint, as if if the author pieced together things he had done in the past. The chapters become much longer and the reading/student level quite older. I would recommend both Gombrich A Little History of the World and Hillyer's A Child's History of the World for children as better choices for a story-like classical History text at this point in the book!