Whilst not quite a "coffee book table" per se, a great historical reference book is Robert Aldrich's The Age of Empires (2007; ISBN 9780500251362). It covers the rise, reign, and fall of 13 empires in rather good depth for an 'introductory book'. Each chapter of the book deals with a specific empire, and has a clear "theme" of what made that empire unique in its composition, ruling, or origins. Granted the lack of "global" coverage is rather lacking (10 of the 13 empires are European), but perhaps we can forgive the lack of depth seeing as this is meant to serve as an "entryway" into the realm of imperial history. Each section is accompanied by vivid maps, contemporary illustrations, and (in some cases) photographs depicting the subject empire/aspect at hand. The text-to-photo balance is a bit more skewed towards the text side of things, and this historical reference book certainly is not for a younger audience (not that I imagine OP will be looking for such a work), but it remains nonetheless a great bit of reading through which to survey this massive area of the past. If I also recall correctly, each chapter on a different 'empire' has input from a historian other than Aldrich who knows a fair bit about it, as well as further reading recommendations at the end for each empire.

If however, "coffee table books" can be a tad bit thicker but still 'entry-level' and accessible in their nature, then I can also wholeheartedly recommend Ernst Gombrich's A Little History of the World. A bit old admittedly; 1936 when the first edition was published, though you can easily find newer ones with additional material by other historians included. This book was one of my first ones when I was starting out on history (and the name AskHistorians was about three years away from ever becoming a commonplace utterance of mine), but it is frankly an amazing work of story-telling which traces some of the general trends, civilisations, and progress that our societies have undergone in the past four millennia or so. I also rather like the minimalist design of the cover and the illustrations inside the work, so bonus points for aesthetic there. It's probably one of the few history books I could fall asleep reading, not because of how boring or argumentative it is, but simply by how it flows so well and reads like your old bedtime story (and since that story is based on true fact, all the better!). As another bonus point, Gombrich's work is very much a plausible work for younger audiences to get stuck into history with! The prose is simple, easy to follow, and reads very much like a bedtime story (except this bedtime story is based entirely on events from the beautiful, tragic, but always interesting past).

Of course, these are just two works in a sea of potential historical reference books. For more entries from other flairs, check out the AH Booklist, which usually has a few "entry-level" reading recommendations per subject area. Hope you found this interesting, and feel free to ask any questions regarding either of the works mentioned here (for the record: I would choose Gombrich's work over Aldrich's anytime, mostly due to its sheer depth and breadth without being too academic or convoluted in the narrative).