content: For a student required to read a history book, there is no better choice than this. True he may not get all the dates correct but for someone who is not planning to major in history that is unimportant. What is important is that Manchester made something that would otherwise have been boring (for some of us) into an enjoyable read. I learned so much from this book and it felt almost like a historical fiction rather than a textbook. If you are not familiar with the period however, I suggest that you start out with a dictionary which you can later abandon.