To be exact, this book(let) is very brief and concise but presents the history of tattoos in a simple, easy to understand language, gives its reader a comprehensive and relatively broad (even if superficial) overview of the subject and contains a very short bibliography list (which is not that obvious in this kind of publications).

Upsides:

• very short but pretty detailed (it’s barely 25 pages) <– a possible downside for those who prefer ‘bigger’ books;
• available in Kindle format, so you can start reading it right away (even if you don’t have your own Kindle, you can still download a Kindle application for PC or a mobile device);
• cheap ($2.45);
• might inspire you to read more;
• the cover (one of the Maori Kings) is a good start to read on the Maori King Movement and thus expand your knowledge on the cultures and peoples around the world.

To sum it up, even if this book is tiny and superficial, it still might be a good beginning for something bigger. There is no such thing as a bad book, there are only weak readers 😉 (credits for a paraphrase should go to one and only Bill Bowerman).

Nicholas E. Efstathiou, A Brief History of the Evolution of Tattoos, Kindle format.