Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I read a lot of non-fiction history and when alerted by Bookbub that the Kindle edition of this book was on sale for $2.99 I immediately went to the product page to check it out. The information found there was almost worthless, so I clicked on "Look Inside" to see what additional information I could glean from the sample. Again, I found very little useful information. So, I did a Google search to try to find more info. Again, I found almost no information about this book, although I did find a great deal of info about the author and his other publications. My only option was to go ahead and purchase it, knowing that Amazon's generous return policy would allow me to return the book if it didn't meet my expectations and, unfortunately, that's what I ended up doing. After buying the book, following my unsuccessful search for detailed information about it, here's what I now know and the reason I returned it. Stephen W. Sears is a well-known, respected historian with numerous books to his credit and is a former editor of American Heritage. He's best known for his books about the American Civil War but has published numerous other historical books as well. In 1973, American Heritage and Time-Life Books published a 2-volume oversized "coffee table" book edited by Sears, titled "The Horizon History Of The British Empire" as a companion volume to a BBC television series. It's was collection of short essays by various authors and included extensive maps and illustrations. It's been out of print for years. As to the current Kindle book, it lists Sears as author but actually he is again the editor, not the author, and it is also a collection of short essays. There are no maps or illustrations whatsoever. Although the product page lists it as a 1st edition, my suspicion is that the publication rights of the Horizon History probably reverted to Sears and it has been re-released by the current publisher, New World City eBook Publishers. I visited their website and they seem to specialize in re-releasing eBook editions of older books. There was no detailed information about this book on their website and their 3-page excerpt was totally worthless. Is the book worth $2.99 for those interested in the subject? Almost certainly, yes! I would have liked to have owned it. However, I returned it because I believe the product information page contains false, misleading and incomplete information as to what I was purchasing. As an avid consumer of eBooks, I know of no other effective way of letting publishers know that the information they provide about their books should be accurate and informative. The sort of shoddy. sloppy product information provided by this publisher doesn't deserve my business. The earlier "Horizon History Of The British Empire" has been so long out of print that I was unable to find any detailed information as to its contents and contributors. If, as I suspect, this book is a re-release of the earlier book, has it been newly edited and revised? Is there any new information included? Has it been abridged from the earlier edition? Why were all of the maps and illustrations omitted and why didn't the publisher provide any information about any of this? In particular, I find the lack of maps and illustrations to be a serious failing in this sort of book and their omission was one of the main reasons I returned it. Although, even if they had been included, I would probably still have returned it for the other reasons stated. Hopefully, with the information I've provided, if you decide to buy the book, you now know what you're getting and can make an informed decision. Despite my two-star review, I don't necessarily recommend against purchasing it. After all, it's only $2.99 and is probably worth reading. Just keep in mind that, as far as I can determine, it isn't a new book. It omits all of the invaluable maps and illustrations from the earlier edition and it may or may not be abridged. There's no way of knowing unless you happen to run across a used copy of the original book. To express my displeasure, I'm sending an email to the publisher advising them of my negative review and also reporting it to Amazon through their feedback link.