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# of Units: | 3 CDs | ||||||||||||
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Length: | 3 hours | ||||||||||||
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# of Units: | 3 CDs | ||||||||||||
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Length: | 3 hours | ||||||||||||
Ratings: | |||||||||||||
Tell Your Friends: |
The book is listed as unabridged, but at the end of the book, the narrator claims the book has been abridged. I hope the narrator is the right one--there was a lot of interesting information in this book, but I wish that a bit more time had been spent in each area. It was fun to listen to, but don't expect to retain much.
It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great! It did have some really interesting topics. If you've read any of his other books, you'll know how he states a topic or question and follows with a reply. That's how the whole book is designed. It was neat, but some of his topics were uninteresting. I think it may be because it's an older book, written in 1999. It also doesn't get very in depth about any of the topics. He merely gives a very brief summary on each. I'm mixed about this one, you may like it, but you probably won't remember much about it.
Very good refresher on the basics of Geographic Concepts. Worth Listening to for anyone.
This title is not up to par with others in this genre (A Brief History of Almost Everything for example). It lacks the wit to be entertaining, is too shallow to be informative, and contains way too many "Earth Day"-type underpinnings to be taken seriously. Were you aware that the rainforest is being "decimated" or that there is a hole in the ozone??? Even if you have somehow missed that newsflash for the past 30 years, you will be made aware after being reminded of it on several occasions. I'm disappointed to say that you would have to have known squat (what a 6th grader learns) about geography to find much of use here.
This is a fairly entertaining audio book, but a lot of it doesn’t seem to have much to do with geography. About a third of the material was about environmentalism and cosmology. Both are fine topics, but not what I was expecting based on the title. Maybe the author ran out of material and filled in with material from his Universe book. The author did a good job presenting geography without maps. If you know absolutely nothing about geography you might have trouble following some of the material on audio book. Topics such as the 7 wonders of the ancient world loose some of their impact without pictures. Again, I am not certain what the 7 wonders have to do with geography. There are topics related to geography, such as what is a peninsula, spit, gulf. Much of it is based on a Guinness Book of World Records style, what is the longest river, biggest desert, most populous city style. Overall, an enjoyable if somewhat rambling book.
This book is chock full of information that, most likely, you should have learned in High School. I did pick up something new with most of the explanations, but there were some that went in one ear and out the other. I did also like the breadth of topics it covers. Not sticking with just pure geography, but swirling in how geography shapes economic and political landscapes as well.. Overall it’s a pretty good unless you do happen to remember everything from Geography classes from High School. In that case you may find it a bit repetitive.
Very cleverly done--not just dry facts, but historical vignettes--
Kenneth C. Davis is the bestselling author of "America's Hidden History" and "Don't Know Much About(R) History", which spent thirty-five consecutive weeks on the "New York Times" bestseller list, has sold nearly 1.6 million copies, and gave rise to his phenomenal "Don't Know Much About(R)" series for adults and children. He lives in New York City and Dorset, Vermont.