Timeline: A Visual History of Our World

An inky swath of black bisects this gorgeous oversize volume, its shape transforming to create prehistoric seas, ancient monuments, and more as Goes creates a visual time line of life on Earth, augmented by concise captions and relevant historical detail. Beginning with the Big Bang, Goes covers mass extinctions, the rise and fall of empires, wars, and pop culture trends, conveyed with playful details and masterly use of negative space (the great Wall of China winds its way through an overview of China’s Ming Dynasty, while arrows radiate out from Nazi Germany in a WWII spread to demonstrate Hitler’s impact). As the time line concludes with events including the Fukushima nuclear disaster and Charlie Hebdo shooting (“peace and prosperity for all remains a distant dream”), readers will be left with a powerful sense of how far we have come and how far we have to go. Ages 10–up. (Jan.)