These books, including this one, serve their purpose and this one is kind of useful to this adult who wasn't paying attention to international events which are now history in those distant teenage years. But, when it comes right down to it, I don't like the framing and the unnecessary factual errors (like the assertion that FDR had polio as a child) are annoying.

I've read all four volumes and found this one to be the most frustrating due to the lack of neutrality in the writing information. This volume wasn't written in a story form like the other volumes and the writing is a bit choppy, but this isn't what I had a problem with. This book has a disclaimer in the beginning that it's for older students so I was expecting more facts, but found the book to be more biased and included more misleading information than the other three. (there were a few misleading or absolute falsehoods in the others as well, but perhaps not as glaringly obvious?) If you don't have time to do more research I'd suggest bypassing this volume or to take it with many grains of salt. ( )

This is a great way to introduce children to world history and mythology. It is very simplistic, but if you know nothing about some cultures, it is a great start. ( )

The conclusion of The Story of the World takes us from 1850 to 1994, with a brief mention of September 11th, 2001 in an afterword. The reason Ms. Bauer stops short is that the big events of the 21st Century are essentially current events, not historical ones which folks can look at with a full perspective. I suppose that's why my history books in school never went past the Vietnam War. (Not that it mattered, we were always behind at the end of the year.) Anyway, Modern Age is true to form, presenting historical events as a story. It was interesting that the further I got into the book, and hence the more familiar I was with the historical events described, the more critical I got. But this is a book for kids after all and one should expect a certain degree of simplicity. So check it out.
--J ( )