World History (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from World History The scope, character, and purpose of this textbook perhaps require some clarification here. It covers the entire historic field, together with a chapter on prehistoric times; it presents a survey of human progress, rather than a chronological outline of events; it is intended for that large body of students who, for various reasons, do not take more than one year of history in the high school. They ought to gain from such a course, however brief, some conception of social development and some realization Of man's upward march from the Stone Age until the present time. Nothing but general or universal history will give them that conception, that realization. And only a history of the world will enable them to appreciate the contributions made by peoples widely separated in space and time to what is steadily becoming the common civilization of mankind. About two thirds of the book are devoted to the last three centuries. This period furnishes the immediate historical background Of the life of to-day: it is therefore the period ordinarily most interesting and profitable to the student. The chapters dealing with it are reproduced, with some abbrevia tion, from my Modern European History. The other chapters are based on my Early European History, but they contain much that is new, both in the text and also by way of maps and illustrations. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.