Cleopatra: The Queen of Kings
While these titles in a new DK series continue to trade under the 'Eyewitness' brand, they look like a move back towards more conventional information book presentation, particularly in their use of commissioned illustrations. Crusades favours small, intricate scenes in which a huge cast is deployed like figures in war gaming, each appearing on their own base like pieces of landscape. In this way, Dennis conveys both the numerous battle scenes and the notion of the Crusades as a momentous clash of historical and cultural forces. In Cleopartra, by contrast, Molan's illustrations depict the epic conflict of powerful personalities as representatives of Roman and Egyptian civilisation: big in scale and atmosphere, and good at suggesting how the story has continued to inspire dramatists and film makers.
I like this sensitivity to the subject matter but, alongside it, there are too many of DK's bag of design tricks: vertical double pages, and varying fonts, including the amazing dwindling font size of the subject paragraph on each double page spread. It starts to detract from what the book has to say. The fold-out pages may catch the eye in the bookshop but, on library shelves, they soon crease up and rip.
The texts themselves are authoritative and informative, both in broad sweep and detail. Perhaps Crusades has the edge in scholarship and detail, but it could have given more attention to the Muslim viewpoint; and Cleopatra might have made more use of historical artefacts where it touches on social history. The indexes are inadequate and some subjects (What is the difference between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims?) are mentioned but not explained. The continuing strengths of the DK titles are their appeal to teenagers and adults, their careful use of artefacts and historical accounts, and their encouragement of their readers to find out more. It is my continual complaint that they do not include suggested books or web sites to help their readers take that interest further.