Thomas F. (hardtack) - , reviewed on 8/24/2019 + 2566 more book reviews

Whenever you pick up a book of "100 Most Famous..." , "100 Most Important..." , " or "100 something...", you know it is going to have problems, if not outright errors. I've read a number of these books and often remark out loud, "What! No Way!"

Despite this, I think the author of this book did a better job than most. However, I only gave it 3.5 stars due to the mistakes I found, and the ones I probably didn't.

For example, in the History and Politics section, he obviously got his 'facts' on the American Civil War from a Southern Lost Cause Mythology book. This is inexcusable. In some sections he made other mistakes or contradicted himself, sometimes in the same entry.

I didn't keep track of these contradictions, but on the last two pages he makes an interesting one. He states the Milky Way is 100,000 light years, or roughly 600 million miles, in diameter. Yet, on the facing page he states "A light year is the distance a beam of light travels in one year, or approximately 5,865,696,000,000 miles." Doing some simple math reveals the diameter of the Milky Way is about 9,776 times wider that he says on the other page. Obviously, he is off by more than a couple of decimal points. :-)

All in all, the book makes for interesting reading. But if you are ever in a position where you are betting money on a fact from this book, double-check it first.

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