ID: 27165
LOON, HENDRIK VAN. The story of mankind - 74764/5
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Loon, hendrik van. The story of mankind. London: george g. Harrap, 1922 (1st ed.); Xxviii+492pp., Index, numerous bl-wh and some coloured drawings, large 8vo, dark blue cloth w. Gilt lettering and drawing pasted down on front cover. Near fine copy w. Bookplate. Van loon's classic cultural history of mankind, still pleasant to read and attractively illustrated. When i was twelve or thirteen years old, an uncle of mine who gave me my love for books and pictures promised to take me upon a memorable expedition, was to go with him to the top of the tower of old saint lawrence in rotterdam. And so, one fine day, a sexton with a key as large as that of saint peter opened a mysterious door. "ring the bell,\" he said, \"when you come back and want to get out,\" and with a great grinding of rusty old hinges he separated us from the noise of the busy street and locked us into a world of new and itrange experiences. For the first time in my life i was confronted by the phelomenon of audible silence. When we had climbed the first light of stairs, i added another discovery to my limited knowlidge of natural phenomena ? That of tangible darkness. A match showed us where the upward road continued. We went to the next floor and then to the next and the next until i had lost count and then there came still another floor, and suddenly we had plenty of light. This floor was on an even height with the roof of the church, and it was used as a storeroom. Covered with many inches of dust, there lay the abandoned symbols of a venerable faith which had been discarded by the good i people of the city many years ago. That which had meant life and death to our ancestors was here reduced to junk and rubli images and the ever watchful spider had opened up shop between the outspread arms of a kindly saint. The next floor showed us from where we had derived our light. Enormous open windows with heav y iron bars made the high and barren room the roosting place of hundreds of pigeons. The wind blew through the iron bars and the air was filled with a weird and pleasing music. It was the noise of the town below us, but a noise which had been purified and cleansed by the distance. The rumbhng of heavy carts and the clinking of horses' hoofs, the winding of cranes and pulleys, the hissing sound of the patient steam which had been set to do the work of man in a thousand different ways - they had all been blended into a softly rustling whisper which provided a beautiful background for the trembling cooing of the pigeons. Here the stairs came to an end and the ladders began. And after the first ladder (a slippery old thing which made one feel his way with a cautious foot) there was a new and even greater wonder, the town-clock. I saw the heart of time. I could hear the heavy pulsebeats of the rapid seconds - one - two - three up to sixty. Then a sudden quivering noise when all the wheels seemed to stop and another minute had been chopped off eternity. Without pause it began again - one - two - three - until at last after a warning rumble and the scraping of many wheels a thunderous voice, high above us, told the world that it was the hour of noon. On the next floor were the bells. The nice little bells and their terrible sisters. In the centre the big bell, which made me turn stiff with fright when i heard it in the middle of the night telling a story of fire or flood. In solitary grandeur it seemed to reflect upon those six hundred years during which it had shared the joys and the sorrows of the good people of rotterdam. Around it, neatly arranged like the blue jars in an old-fashioned apothecary shop, hung the little fellows, who twice each week played a merry tune for the benefit of the country-folk who had come to market to buy and sell and hear what the big world had been doing. But in a corner - all alone and shunned by the other s - a big black bell, silent and stern, the bell of death. Then darkness once more and other ladders, steeper and even more dangerous than those we had climbed before, and suddenly the fresh air of the wide heavens. We had reached the highest gallery. Above us the sky. Below us the city - a little toy-town, where busy ants were hastily crawling hither and thither, each one intent upon his or her particular business, and beyond the jumble of stones, the wide greenness of the open country. It was my first glimpse of the big world. Since then, whenever i have had the opportunity, i have gone to the top of the tower and enjoyed myself. It was hard work, but it repaid in full the mere physical exertion of climbing a few stairs. Besides, I knew what my reward would be.
I would see the land and the sky, and i would listen to the stories of my kind friend the watchman, who lived in a small shack, built in a sheltered corner of the gallery. He looked after the clock and was a father to the bells, and he warned of fires, but he enjoyed many free hours and then he smoked a pipe and thought his own peaceful thoughts.
He had gone to school almost fifty years before and he had rarely read a book, but he had lived on the top of his tower for so many years that he had absorbed the wisdom of that wide world which surrounded him on all sides.
History he knew well, for it was a living thing with him. \"there,\" he would say, pointing to a bend of the river, \"there, my boy, do you see those trees? That is where the prince of orange cut the dikes to drown the land and save leyden.\" or he would tell me the tale of the old meuse, until the broad river ceased to be a convenient harbour and became a wonderful highroad, carrying the ships of de ruyter and tromp upon that famous last voyage, when they gave their lives that the sea might be free to all.
Then there were the little villages, clustering around the protecting church which once, many years ago, had been home of their patron saints. In the distance we could see the leaning tower of delft. Within sight of its high arches, william the silent had been murdered and there grotius had learned to construe his first latin sentences. And still further away, the long low body of the church of gouda, the early home of the man whose wit had proved mightier than the armies of many an emperor, the charity-boy whom the world came to know as erasmus. Finally the silver line of the endless sea and as a contrast, immediately below us, the patchwork of roofs and chimneys it and houses and gardens and hospitals and schools and railways, which we called our home. But the tower showed us the old home in a new light. The confused commotion of the streets and the market-place, of the factories and the workshop, became the well-ordered expression of human energy and purpose. Best of all, the wide view of the glorious past, which surrounded us on all sides, gave us n ew courage to face the problems of the future when we had gone back to our daily tasks. History is the mighty tower of experience, which time has built amidst tne endless fields of bygone ages. It is no easy task to reach the top of this ancient structure and get the benefit of the full view. There is no elevator, but young feet are strong and it can be done. Here i give you the key that will open the door. When you return, you too will understand the reason for i my enthusiasm. Hendrik willem van loon. Contents:
- 1. The setting of the stage
- 2. Our earliest ancestors
- 3. Prehistoric man begins to make things for himself
- 4. The egyptians invent the art of writing and the record of history begins
- 5. The beginning of civilisation in the valley of the nile
- 6. The rise and fall of egypt
- 7. Mesopotamia, the second centre of eastern civilisation
- 8. The sumerian nail writers, whose clay table ts te ll us the story of assyria and babylonia, the great semitic melting-pot
- 9. The story of moses, the leader of the jewish people
- 10. The phoenicians, who gave us our alphabet
- 11. The indo-european persians conquer the semitic athe egyptian world
- 12. The people of the aegean sea carried the civilisation of old asia into the wilderness of europe
- 13. Meanwhile the indo-european tribe of the hellenes was taking possession of greece
- 14. The greek cities that were really states
- 15. The greeks were the first people to try the difficult experiment of self-government
- 16. How the greeks lived
- 17. The origins of the theatre, the first form of public amusement
- 18. How the greeks defended europe against an asiatic invasion and drove the persians back across the aegean sea
- 19. How athens and sparta fought a long and disastrous war for the leadership of greece
- 20. Alexander the macedonian establishes a greek world em pire , and what became of this high ambition
- 21. A short summary of chapters 1 to 20 - 22.
The semitic colony of carthage on the northern coast of africa and the indo-european city of rome on the west coast of italy fought each other for the possession of the western mediterranean and carthage was destroyed
- 23. How rome happened
- 24. How the republic of rome, after centuries of unrest and revolution, became an empire
- 25. The story of joshua of nazareth, whom the greeks called jesus
- 26. The twilight of rome
- 27. How rome became the centre of the christian world
- 28. Ahmed, the camel driver, who became the prophet of the arabian desert, and whose followers almost conquered the entire known. World for the greater glory op allah, the \"only true god\"
- 29. How charlemagne, the king of the pranks, came to bear the title of emperor and tried to revive the old ideal of world-empire
- 30. Why the people of the tenth century prayed the lord to protect them from the fury of the norsemen
- 31. How central europe, attacked from three sides, became an armed camp and why europe would have perished without those professional soldiers and administrators who were part of the feudal system
- 32. Chivalry
- 33. The strange double loyalty of the people of the middle ages, and how it led to endless quarrels between the popes and the holy roman emperors
- 34. But all these different quarrels were forgotten when the turks took the holy land, desecrated the holy places and interfered seriously with the trade from east to west. Europe went crusading - 35. Why the people of the middle ages said that \"city air is free air\"
- 36. How the people of the cities asserted their right to be heard in the royal councils of their country
- 37. What the people of the middle ages thought op the world in which they happened to live
- 38. How the crusades once more made the mediterranean a busy centre of trade and how the cities of the italian peninsula became the great distributing centre for the commerce with asia and africa
- 39. People once more dared to be happy just because they were alive. They tried to save the remains op the older and more agreeable civilisation of rome and greece and they were so proud op their achievements that they spoke op a renaissance or re-birth op civilisation
- 40. The people began to feel the need of giving expression to their newly discovered joy of living. They expressed their happiness in poetry and in sculpture and in architecture and painting, and in the books they printed
- 41. But now that people had broken through the bonds op their narrow mediaeval limitations, they had to have more room for their wanderings. The european world had grown too small for their ambitions. It was the time op the great voyages of discovery
- 42. Concerning buddha and confucius
- 43. The progress op the human race is best compared to a gig antic pendulum which forever swings forward and backward. The religious indifference and the artistic and literary enthusiasm op the renaissance were followed by the artistic and literary indifference and the religious enthusiasm op the reformation.
- 44. The age of the great religious controversies
- 45. How the struggle between the divine eight op kingsand the less divine but more reasonable right of parliament ended disastrously for king charles
- 46. In france, on the other hand, the \"divine right of kings\" continued with greater pomp and splendour than eves before and the ambition of the ruler was only tempered by the newly invented law of the balance op power
- 47. The story op the mysterious muscovite empire which sudenly burst upon the grand political stage of europe
- 48. Russia and sweden fought many wars to decide who shall be the leading power of northeastern europe
- 49. The extraordinary rise op a little state in a dreary part of northern germany, called prussia
- 50. How the newly founded national or dynastic states op europe tried to make themselves rich and what was meant by the mercantile system
- 51. At the end op the eighteenth century europe heard strange reports of something which had happened in the wilderness of the north american continent. The descendants of the men who had punished king charles for his insistence upon his \"divine rights\" added a new chapter to the old story of the struggle for self-government
- 52. The great french revolution proclaims the principles op liberty, fraternity and equality unto all the people of the earth
- 53. Napoleon
- 54. As soon as napoleon had been sent to st. Helena, the rulers who so often had been defeated by the hated \"corsican\" met at vienna and tried to undo the many changes which had been brought about by the french revolution
- 55. They tried to assure the world an era of undisturbed peace by suppress ing al l new ideas. They made the police-spy the highest functionary in the state and soon the prisons op all countries were filled with those who claimed that people have the right to govern themselves as they see fit
- 56 the love of national independence, however, was too strong to be destroyed in this way. The south americans were the first to rebel against the reactionary measures of the congress of vienna. Greece and belgium and spain and a large number op other countries of the european continent followed suit and the nineteenth century was filled with the rumour of many wars of independence
- 57 but while the people of europe were fighting for their national independence, the world in which they lived had been entirely changed by a series of inventions, which had made the clumsy old steam-engine of the eighteenth century the most faithful and efficient slave op man
- 58 the new engines were very expensive and only people of wealth could afford them. The old carpenter or shoemaker who had been his own master in his little workshop was obliged to hire himself out to the owners of the big mechanical tools, and while he made more money than before, he lost his former independence and he did not like that
- 59. The general introduction op machinery did not bring about the era op happiness and prosperity which had been predicted by the generation which saw the stage coach replaced by the railroad. Several remedies were suggested, but none op these quite solved the problem
- 60. But the world had undergone another change which was of greater importance than either the political or the industrial revolutions. After generations of oppression and persecution, the scientist had at last gained liberty op action and he was now trying to discover the fundamental laws which govern the universe
- 61. A chapter of art
- 62. The last fifty years, including several explanations and a few apologies
- 63. The great war, which was really the struggle for a new and better world
- 64. Animated chronology
- 65. Concerning the pictures
- 66. Index
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I would see the land and the sky, and i would listen to the stories of my kind friend the watchman, who lived in a small shack, built in a sheltered corner of the gallery. He looked after the clock and was a father to the bells, and he warned of fires, but he enjoyed many free hours and then he smoked a pipe and thought his own peaceful thoughts.
He had gone to school almost fifty years before and he had rarely read a book, but he had lived on the top of his tower for so many years that he had absorbed the wisdom of that wide world which surrounded him on all sides.
History he knew well, for it was a living thing with him. \"there,\" he would say, pointing to a bend of the river, \"there, my boy, do you see those trees? That is where the prince of orange cut the dikes to drown the land and save leyden.\" or he would tell me the tale of the old meuse, until the broad river ceased to be a convenient harbour and became a wonderful highroad, carrying the ships of de ruyter and tromp upon that famous last voyage, when they gave their lives that the sea might be free to all.
Then there were the little villages, clustering around the protecting church which once, many years ago, had been home of their patron saints. In the distance we could see the leaning tower of delft. Within sight of its high arches, william the silent had been murdered and there grotius had learned to construe his first latin sentences. And still further away, the long low body of the church of gouda, the early home of the man whose wit had proved mightier than the armies of many an emperor, the charity-boy whom the world came to know as erasmus. Finally the silver line of the endless sea and as a contrast, immediately below us, the patchwork of roofs and chimneys it and houses and gardens and hospitals and schools and railways, which we called our home. But the tower showed us the old home in a new light. The confused commotion of the streets and the market-place, of the factories and the workshop, became the well-ordered expression of human energy and purpose. Best of all, the wide view of the glorious past, which surrounded us on all sides, gave us n ew courage to face the problems of the future when we had gone back to our daily tasks. History is the mighty tower of experience, which time has built amidst tne endless fields of bygone ages. It is no easy task to reach the top of this ancient structure and get the benefit of the full view. There is no elevator, but young feet are strong and it can be done. Here i give you the key that will open the door. When you return, you too will understand the reason for i my enthusiasm. Hendrik willem van loon. Contents:
- 1. The setting of the stage
- 2. Our earliest ancestors
- 3. Prehistoric man begins to make things for himself
- 4. The egyptians invent the art of writing and the record of history begins
- 5. The beginning of civilisation in the valley of the nile
- 6. The rise and fall of egypt
- 7. Mesopotamia, the second centre of eastern civilisation
- 8. The sumerian nail writers, whose clay table ts te ll us the story of assyria and babylonia, the great semitic melting-pot
- 9. The story of moses, the leader of the jewish people
- 10. The phoenicians, who gave us our alphabet
- 11. The indo-european persians conquer the semitic athe egyptian world
- 12. The people of the aegean sea carried the civilisation of old asia into the wilderness of europe
- 13. Meanwhile the indo-european tribe of the hellenes was taking possession of greece
- 14. The greek cities that were really states
- 15. The greeks were the first people to try the difficult experiment of self-government
- 16. How the greeks lived
- 17. The origins of the theatre, the first form of public amusement
- 18. How the greeks defended europe against an asiatic invasion and drove the persians back across the aegean sea
- 19. How athens and sparta fought a long and disastrous war for the leadership of greece
- 20. Alexander the macedonian establishes a greek world em pire , and what became of this high ambition
- 21. A short summary of chapters 1 to 20 - 22.
The semitic colony of carthage on the northern coast of africa and the indo-european city of rome on the west coast of italy fought each other for the possession of the western mediterranean and carthage was destroyed
- 23. How rome happened
- 24. How the republic of rome, after centuries of unrest and revolution, became an empire
- 25. The story of joshua of nazareth, whom the greeks called jesus
- 26. The twilight of rome
- 27. How rome became the centre of the christian world
- 28. Ahmed, the camel driver, who became the prophet of the arabian desert, and whose followers almost conquered the entire known. World for the greater glory op allah, the \"only true god\"
- 29. How charlemagne, the king of the pranks, came to bear the title of emperor and tried to revive the old ideal of world-empire
- 30. Why the people of the tenth century prayed the lord to protect them from the fury of the norsemen
- 31. How central europe, attacked from three sides, became an armed camp and why europe would have perished without those professional soldiers and administrators who were part of the feudal system
- 32. Chivalry
- 33. The strange double loyalty of the people of the middle ages, and how it led to endless quarrels between the popes and the holy roman emperors
- 34. But all these different quarrels were forgotten when the turks took the holy land, desecrated the holy places and interfered seriously with the trade from east to west. Europe went crusading - 35. Why the people of the middle ages said that \"city air is free air\"
- 36. How the people of the cities asserted their right to be heard in the royal councils of their country
- 37. What the people of the middle ages thought op the world in which they happened to live
- 38. How the crusades once more made the mediterranean a busy centre of trade and how the cities of the italian peninsula became the great distributing centre for the commerce with asia and africa
- 39. People once more dared to be happy just because they were alive. They tried to save the remains op the older and more agreeable civilisation of rome and greece and they were so proud op their achievements that they spoke op a renaissance or re-birth op civilisation
- 40. The people began to feel the need of giving expression to their newly discovered joy of living. They expressed their happiness in poetry and in sculpture and in architecture and painting, and in the books they printed
- 41. But now that people had broken through the bonds op their narrow mediaeval limitations, they had to have more room for their wanderings. The european world had grown too small for their ambitions. It was the time op the great voyages of discovery
- 42. Concerning buddha and confucius
- 43. The progress op the human race is best compared to a gig antic pendulum which forever swings forward and backward. The religious indifference and the artistic and literary enthusiasm op the renaissance were followed by the artistic and literary indifference and the religious enthusiasm op the reformation.
- 44. The age of the great religious controversies
- 45. How the struggle between the divine eight op kingsand the less divine but more reasonable right of parliament ended disastrously for king charles
- 46. In france, on the other hand, the \"divine right of kings\" continued with greater pomp and splendour than eves before and the ambition of the ruler was only tempered by the newly invented law of the balance op power
- 47. The story op the mysterious muscovite empire which sudenly burst upon the grand political stage of europe
- 48. Russia and sweden fought many wars to decide who shall be the leading power of northeastern europe
- 49. The extraordinary rise op a little state in a dreary part of northern germany, called prussia
- 50. How the newly founded national or dynastic states op europe tried to make themselves rich and what was meant by the mercantile system
- 51. At the end op the eighteenth century europe heard strange reports of something which had happened in the wilderness of the north american continent. The descendants of the men who had punished king charles for his insistence upon his \"divine rights\" added a new chapter to the old story of the struggle for self-government
- 52. The great french revolution proclaims the principles op liberty, fraternity and equality unto all the people of the earth
- 53. Napoleon
- 54. As soon as napoleon had been sent to st. Helena, the rulers who so often had been defeated by the hated \"corsican\" met at vienna and tried to undo the many changes which had been brought about by the french revolution
- 55. They tried to assure the world an era of undisturbed peace by suppress ing al l new ideas. They made the police-spy the highest functionary in the state and soon the prisons op all countries were filled with those who claimed that people have the right to govern themselves as they see fit
- 56 the love of national independence, however, was too strong to be destroyed in this way. The south americans were the first to rebel against the reactionary measures of the congress of vienna. Greece and belgium and spain and a large number op other countries of the european continent followed suit and the nineteenth century was filled with the rumour of many wars of independence
- 57 but while the people of europe were fighting for their national independence, the world in which they lived had been entirely changed by a series of inventions, which had made the clumsy old steam-engine of the eighteenth century the most faithful and efficient slave op man
- 58 the new engines were very expensive and only people of wealth could afford them. The old carpenter or shoemaker who had been his own master in his little workshop was obliged to hire himself out to the owners of the big mechanical tools, and while he made more money than before, he lost his former independence and he did not like that
- 59. The general introduction op machinery did not bring about the era op happiness and prosperity which had been predicted by the generation which saw the stage coach replaced by the railroad. Several remedies were suggested, but none op these quite solved the problem
- 60. But the world had undergone another change which was of greater importance than either the political or the industrial revolutions. After generations of oppression and persecution, the scientist had at last gained liberty op action and he was now trying to discover the fundamental laws which govern the universe
- 61. A chapter of art
- 62. The last fifty years, including several explanations and a few apologies
- 63. The great war, which was really the struggle for a new and better world
- 64. Animated chronology
- 65. Concerning the pictures
- 66. Index
Verzendkosten zijn voor de koper.
Bekijkt u ook eens mijn andere advertenties ivm de verzendkosten.
Afhalen is mogelijk na telefonische afspraak.
Onverzekerd verzenden is voor risico van de koper.
Bieden vanaf 7,50
74764/5