In From Then to Now, Christopher Moore attempts a history of the world for young readers in fewer than 200 pages.

A project like this requires careful strategizing over which events to include and which to ignore. For the most part, Moore only discusses events that have had an impact on a great many people. Among other subjects, we learn about the cultivation of rice, the birth of democracy in Ancient Greece, the events of the French Revolution, and the development of Henry Ford’s assembly line.

These may not be entirely obscure topics, even for kids, but putting them in the context of world history adds a great deal of depth. And within these broad trends, Moore includes fascinating smaller details, such as why early humans stopped making cave paintings and the fact that most plants used to be able to sow their own seeds.

The book is not an homage to progress. Indeed, Moore occasionally argues that life was better before some of humanity’s most celebrated “advances.” His vivid description of the hunter-gatherer existence, for instance, engenders nostalgia for a time when human demands on the environment were less onerous.

Given the book’s readership, the decision to omit or make only cursory mention of Canadian history is perplexing. There is nothing on the pre-contact culture of Canada’s First Nations (even while that of the Incas is described in detail), and there is only a superficial reference to Canadian independence, even though it would serve as a good contrast to the 19th-century conflicts in other former colonies.

In addition, as is perhaps inevitable in a history of the world, the pace speeds up in the last chapters, resulting in places where more detail seems warranted. For example, a discussion of 20th-century China mentions the Beijing Olympics but not that country’s controversial human rights record.

On the whole, however, Moore does an admirable job not only getting so much history in, but displaying how it can be cyclical, a constant sucesion of societies rising and falling. That premise will prompt much discussion among curious young minds.