The problem with history textbooks is that they don’t put things into a conversational tone that makes kids curious. They do have photographs and illustrations but the text blurbs are usually quite short and just like Jack Webb or J. Jonah Jameson, they list just the facts. Sometimes they follow up every other page with a thinking activity or series of questions that students will leave blank or fill out with incomplete sentences when asked to answer them by the teacher. Big Ideas from History is an intelligent reference book that looks at integral chapters in history, like evolution, the start of religion, the ends of civilizations, science, and many more big concept issues.