I haven't tried the Atlas program yet, but I've been using the History of the World program intensively for about a week, and have been favorably impressed with it. The interface is quite attractive and easy to navigate. One cute thing they do is that for each period of history they display a number of items typical of the period that you can click on to get more information. For example, they might display a Roman Legionnaire's helmet or a longbow depending on the period. Then you can click on these items and get more information about whatever it is. Sort of cool.
It takes a little while to learn how to locate everything, but you get used to it after a while.
The program has historical articles and facts that go from about 5000 BC to the present. Although there is some prehistoric and archaeological material related to man's origins that goes back further, the main focus of the program is from ancient historical times, that is, from Ancient Egypt and Sumeria, to the present.
In addition to the general history article that sets off each period, there are sections that deal with everyday life, inventions and technology, science and medicine, documents and literature, and Who's Who, are useful also. This is a menu you can pull up that presents all the important dates for the period you select. The entire history is divided into about 12 different sections from the ancient world to the present for convenience.
The program also includes audio narration so you can just click on the speaker icon and listen to it if you're too lazy to read. Unfortunately, my system seemed to have a problem with the audio, which skipped words occasionally. I don't know why this is as I have a 1 year old system that is pretty generic. The history is lavishly illustrated and the overall level of the text should be accessible to anyone with secondary school level reading ability.
