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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great start into exploring the rest of the world,
By
This review is from: Complete Idiot's Guide to Geography (Paperback)
I don't think I have ever seen anything like this book. This book is excellent if you want to get an overview of every part of the world. The author begins by dispelling the myth that geography entails memorizing a lot of place names; perhaps a myth that I had formally believed. I was excited as every new chapter launched me into a different region of the world. The author gives facts about the physical features of the area, its people including: history, languages, numbers, religions, problems, and successes as well as lots of interesting tidbits on the side. Of course, keeping with the genre of all Idiot's books, he also keeps it light hearted and funny. He is forced to be very brief on his discussions, and I can imagine someone could get offended on how little he covers their particular place of interest. The only thing I can say is to keep in mind that he has to cover the whole world in just 363 pages. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to extent his or her minds beyond our own borders and explore the rest of the world.
25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sun-Tzu1,
By
This review is from: Complete Idiot's Guide to Geography (Paperback)
The task of educating a reader on the subject of global geography in a one volume text is daunting to say the least. The author has concentrated his efforts in providing a synopsis of global geography. The book is divided into four parts. The first provides an overview of geography that introduces the terminology and basic maps reading skills. The second and third parts include a total of twenty chapters dedicated to describing and illustrating the geographical features of the earth. Only major geographic features are presented in these chapters. The reader should not expect descriptions of smaller features. For example the chapter discussing North America is accomplished in twelve pages. But at the end of those twelve pages the reader should have a mental sketch of the terrain including major rivers, mountain ranges, surrounding bodies of water, bordering countries and large lakes. Reciting and locating Canada's ten provinces and two territories will also be a much easier task. The final part of the book deals with population growth and environmental issues that effect our planet. Minimal information is provided on the cultural and social aspects of each geographic region. This exclusion has been noted as an oversight or deficiency by previous reviewer's. However if I may retort, the author has developed a reference book that strictly follows the definition of geography. Geography is defined as the study of the earth and it's features. Certainly these features affect how we interact with each other but any attempt to touch upon them is beyond the scope of this book. Readers should refer to geography books pertaining to the specific region of interest for detailed information regarding the relationships of those cultures. For those searching for detailed information on specific regions will also find this book inadequate and ultimately be disappointed. The books weakness is that the maps are black and white, very simplistic and unexciting. Overall the book provides an excellent geographical overview of the earth and is recommended for those readers who are looking to recapture what they have forgotten since high school geography.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good guide with one exception,
By A Customer
This review is from: Complete Idiot's Guide to Geography (Paperback)
I've had an enjoyable time using this guide and would definitely recommend it, but I would like to point out that you can't trust all the content of these "Idiot's" books. This geography guide states that the Lithuanian and Latvian languages are Slavic and similar to Russian and Polish. Any speaker of these languages will tell you Lithuanian and Latvian are Baltic languages, completely unlike the Slavic languages. Obviously, this is not the most important fact you'll ever need to know, but I question what other content is slightly incorrect.
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