Blackline Maps of World History (The Complete Set: 5000 BC to the Present) Review

Blackline Maps of World History (The Complete Set: 5000 BC to the Present)

Publisher: Bramley Books

Authors: Terri Johnson

Price: Hardcover: $44.95 with bonus CD-Rom - Purchase Here

Available at: Knowledge Quest, P.O. Box 789, Gresham, OR 97009

Blackline Maps of World History is the kind of book that makes homeschooling easier.

"Easier?" you might say, and I'll nod firmly. Easier. You see, I consider mapwork an essential part of education. Maps and timelines have been the tools that help our children anchor themselves in time and space, figuring out the whens and wheres of history and current events.

This 239-page book contains hundreds of maps, starting with the cradle of civilization and the earliest known cities, and ending with maps involving the Gulf War; September 11, 2001; and finally conflict in Iraq as it stood in 2003. Maps are in 8 1/2" x 11" format, and each appears in two forms, blank and labeled.

Lesson plans are included for all the maps, including discussion questions and map exercises. This is not a history study in itself, but an excellent supplement to any history program you're using. Because it covers ancient history to present times, it doesn't matter what period you're studying. Blackline Maps of World History will take you all the way through your history studies, from elementary grades through high school. The maps in the book are not completely complete, in that they are blackline maps, simplified for mapwork. The maps contain such things as major rivers, mountain ranges, cities, political boundaries of historical times. You'll want to have an atlas, globe, or world map available to your student to help fill in geographical details you encounter in your studies.

The book, though sturdily hardbound, is flexible enough to lay flat on a copier. However, the publisher has also supplied a CD-Rom with the contents of the book in PDF format.

The purchaser has permission to copy or print maps for individual, noncommercial use only. In other words, you can print the maps for your family's use, but not for a whole classroom, unless you write to Knowledge Quest for permission.

Many of the maps from Shaping of a Nation, Blackline Maps of American History (please see related review) also are included in this book, though not the maps of the individual states in the United States. The focus is on world history, after all.

Blackline Maps of World History is a wonderful timesaver. It makes lesson planning so much faster. I just turn to the right map for the time and place we're studying, make my student copies, and I'm done. No more cruising the Internet, looking for a map that reflects what we're studying, no more struggling to reconcile historical boundaries with modern maps, no more of skipping map study because I didn't quite get it all together before a lesson.

This teacher's help is a real help!

Review by: Virginia Jones
Virginia Jones hails from a small town in the Midwest, where “Nothing ever happens, thankfully!” Her family’s interests include horseback riding, cross-country skiing, swimming, and—when they can manage to sit still—reading.