A Journey Through Art: A Global History

Gr 4 Up—This sweeping overview of world cultures, as revealed through art, spans continents and ages, from prehistory to the present. With such a broad range, it is by necessity a sampling of many great civilizations, with two to four pages devoted to each major development. Aboriginal cave paintings in what is currently Australia; the architecture and sculpture of ancient Rome; woodblock prints from the floating world of Edo, Japan; and postrevolution murals in Mexico City are just a few stops on the journey. Readers can compare the Renaissance of 1500 Florence with the book arts flourishing in the trade city of Timbuktu in West Africa during the same time period. These comparisons give perspective on commonalities and variations through time. The expansive text is brought to life with maps, illustrations, and photographs. The illustrator's colorful sketches of vistas emblematic of various cultures are interspersed with photographic examples of the art. The overall impression is one of the bounty of the imagination and industry. This title is a refreshing departure from Eurocentric volumes on art history. Readers will come away with a wider grasp on the history of humanity.