Why use this, and not Wikipedia? Distillation. The authors have already gone and done the work of finding areas/epochs/people of interest, grabbing a rather hearty handful of significant facts, and presenting them for a GM's use. While the details are sparser than a history buff like myself would prefer, I see this as a jumping off point, from which you could get some cool ideas and then research them further on your own. The book offers a few quick "here's how you could use this in your game" bits of advice at the end of each entry, which is also something Wikipedia couldn't hand you.
N.B., I particularly liked the "Centralia, Pennsylvania" profile, as I just heard a story on PRI's "This American Life" about this abandoned town that has a permanent fire raging under it, and actually thought, hrm, this could make a good adventure setting.
Better than a lot of the so-called GM background resources I've seen out there, so worth the price...
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