It’s an ambitious aim: 320 pages to cover the whole history of humankind, from hominids to the millennium. But this excellent reference book for eight-year-olds and above manages it very successfully, and shows how handy a reference book can still be in the age of the internet and the CD-Rom.

There’s a lot of information here, but it is concise, with no topic extending beyond two pages. Original images are relatively few, and some of the artists’ impressions are decidedly more successful than others (if I was George Washington I’d sue) but that’s a teacher’s quibble. Most of the entries focus on a particular country or culture - the Inca Empire or Bismarck’s Germany - with a few thematic ones, on medieval trade or the Industrial Revolution. The later pages pick up modern pre-occupations such as terrorism and the environment.

The book is very successful at integrating African or Asian history into the usual Euro-centric mainstream: the Guptas of ancient India, who managed to defeat the Huns (twice!) as well as producing the Mahabarata, or the west African kingdom of Benin, which declined to enslave its defeated enemies and ended up a central part of the transatlantic slave trade once the Europeans arrived.

The global approach gets a bit patchy later on, but this book is a perfect way to broaden children’s historical horizons beyond the national curriculum.