Very thought provoking and interesting - as well as great humour - excellent.
A while ago i invested in an 'Atlas of World History', which whilst obviously not the most in depth guide, does give timelines, shows changes to boundaries etc etc. It has been an extremely useful book that i regularly refer to when trying to follow or get to the bottom of such long standing issues.
I loved history at school and have an A level in it....but why was it mostly about the Henrys/first world war etc. and less about comtemporary issues that help make sense of some of todays problems (ok so i know WW1 does to an extent, but ...)
Anyway having gone on....i would recommend such a guide.