The Student's Friend Concise World History: Parts 1 and 2

---Current issues updated for 2025---
This student- and teacher-friendly history is designed for classroom and homeschool use; it supplies a solid foundation for life-long historical learning.

UNLIKE TRADITIONAL TEXTBOOKS that can overwhelm the reader with countless facts to absorb, The Student's Friend Concise World History highlights the most important developments of world history in a clear and concise manner that is capable of being comprehended by the human mind. In comparison to standard thousand-page textbooks, The Student's Friend addresses world history in 127 pages.

Since 2001, teachers have successfully used The Student's Friend (updated periodically) in homeschool, middle school, high school, and college in the United States and abroad.

COST HAS BEEN KEPT LOW, which makes The Student’s Friend affordable when students need to keep a copy of their history book at home. Low cost also makes it possible to supply a whole classroom of students with their own copies to mark up and keep for future reference. (It would take approximately 8 to 16 years of giving students these books to equal the cost of one classroom set of traditional textbooks.)

IN CONTRAST TO STANDARD HISTORY TEXTS that only describe the past, The Student's Friend identifies important Recurring Dynamics of History that can inform judgment in the future--dynamics that are cross-referenced with historical events that illustrate these enduring dynamics. And unlike concise histories that focus on impersonal historical processes, this narrative features men and women who helped to shape history and reveal timeless aspects of human nature.

WHY A CONCISE HISTORICAL NARRATIVE? The Student's Friend is designed to be consistent with findings from cognitive science that emphasize learning the most important principles and concepts of a school discipline, rather than learning large quantities of superficial facts that are likely to be forgotten shortly after the exam is over. The respected Bradley Commission on History in Schools has said, "The amount of time required to achieve student engagement and genuine comprehension of significant issues will necessitate leaving out much that is 'covered' by the usual text."

CONCISENESS CAN BRING CLARITY. Cognitive psychologist Frank N. Dempster has written, "Many texts are so packed with facts, names, and details that the real point of the lesson is often obscured." One of the greatest benefits of a concise historical narrative is the clarity it can bring to a student's understanding of history by focusing on essential knowledge rather than on extensive and often-trivial detail.

BALANCES BREADTH AND DEPTH. The concise historical narrative leaves time in the curriculum for additional learning activities such as research papers, multimedia presentations, source-analysis activities, and simulations, a practice sometimes called "postholing." The narrative performs a unifying function like a fence that gives shape to the landscape and provides the connecting fabric between events, while postholes are occasions to dig more deeply into the human dimensions of history--to explore how events of the past affected people's lives then and now.

The subject matter of world history is so vast that it can be a difficult subject to grasp and to teach. Teachers and students alike can benefit from the understandable picture of history offered by The Student's Friend Concise World History.

Notes:
- The Student's Friend supplies an unvarnished, evidence-based telling of history useful for educators who wish to address difficult problems faced by society.
- As this is a concise world history, those accustomed to the extensive detail of standard textbooks may wish to click on the "Read Sample" feature to see if this book will meet their needs and expectations.

Former journalist and history teacher Mike Maxwell has been operating the Student's Friend website for history teachers since 2001. In addition to writing The Student's Friend Concise World History, he is author of Future-Focused History Teaching: Restoring the Power of Historical Learning.