The outline of history I. (töredék)

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THE OUTLINE OF HISTORY H. G.Wells
Thoroughly revised.
Brought up to date by Raymond Postgate
The Outline of History, now com-pletely revised and updated, has estab-lished itself as one of the truly great books of all time. It is a brilliant survey of man's progress, from the earliest struggles of the caveman to the momentous events of the present. From all the diverse cultural, economic, political, and social back-grounds of mankind H. G. Wells has evolved a thrilling narrative that telis, in a lucid and concise style, the dramatic struggle of man against nature and his environment. The Outline of History is a library of knowledge of the past—an authentic record of world history inter-preted by one of the keenest minds of this century.
Here is the whole story of man, com-mencing with a compact survey of the dim and primeval millions of years before the coming of man, and continuing through the earliest feeginnings of society and of language, when man began to have somé understanding of the need for co-operation.
Then follows the first periods of which we have reasonable records—when the Assyrians, the Greeks, the Persians, the Judeans, and the Egyptians were the great powers. Literature and philosophy and art became important. Science and invention as we know them today appeared. Men became rulers and nations grew in strength.
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The far-reaching Román Empire, under the dictatorships of the Caesars, rose to magnificent heights and then disinteg-rated. We see the growth of Christianity and Islam and the clashes between them known as the Crusades. There are low ebbs of humán progress in the Dark Ages. Distinct nationalities emerge—French and Germán and English. Then, with the end-ing of the Middle Ages, we see the magnif-icence of the Renaissance, the new awaken-ing in thought and science, in art and literature, in religion and politics.
With modern times we come to the growth of the republics and to the splen-dors of the Grand Monarchies. The new democracies of Francé and the Americas come into being. Napoleon Bonaparte blazes through his extraordinary career. Life is revolutionized by mechanical in-ventions. Science shows the way to a new ease. But with this progress problems come too fast for man to solve. The economy of the world is upset; periods of depres-sion, of unemployment, of catastrophe and greed and war are more and more fre-quent.
The Outline of History is outstand-ing in conception, scope, and treatment. Familiarity with what it telis is essential for a cultured understanding of the modern world and the forces that mold it.
Before H. G. Wells died in 1946, he made several of the included revisions himself. Since that time, his son, Profes-sor G. P. Wells, and Raymond Postgate, the distinguished scholar and writer, have undertaken a further revision in the light of new discoveries in anthropology and re-cent events in world history. Professor Wells, without altering his father's style, has added new insights on prehistoric man that have just become available. Mr. Postgate has added a notable section on the Second World War and the struggle to maintain peace today. Vissza