The Story of Mankind Part 1

The Story of Mankind.

by Hendrik van Loon.

FOREWORD

For Hansje and Willem:

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. I was to go with him to the top of the tower of Old Saint Lawrence in Rotterdam.

And so, one fine day, a s.e.xton 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 strange experiences.

For the first time in my life I was confronted by the phenomenon of audible silence. When we had climbed the first flight of stairs, I added another discovery to my limited knowledge 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 people of the city many years ago. That which had meant life and death to our ancestors was here reduced to junk and rubbish. The industrious rat had built his nest among the carved 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 heavy 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 rumbling 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 sc.r.a.ping 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 others--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 s.h.i.+ps 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, cl.u.s.tering around the protecting church which once, many years ago, had been the 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 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 new 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 the 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 my enthusiasm.

HENDRIK WILLEM VAN LOON.

CONTENTS

1. THE SETTING OF THE STAGE 2. OUR EARLIEST ANCESTORS 3. PREHISTORIC MAX 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 TABLETS TELL US THE STORY OF a.s.sYRIA 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 AND THE 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 h.e.l.lENES 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 AMUs.e.m.e.nT 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 LEADERs.h.i.+P OF GREECE 20. ALEXANDER THE MACEDONIAN ESTABLISHES A GREEK WORLD EMPIRE, 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 OF ALLAH, THE "ONLY TRUE G.o.d"

29. HOW CHARLEMAGNE, THE KING OF THE RANKS, CAME TO BEAR THE t.i.tLE 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 NORs.e.m.e.n 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 a.s.sERTED THEIR RIGHT TO BE HEARD IN THE ROYAL COUNCILS OF THEIR COUNTRY 37. WHAT THE PEOPLE OF THE MIDDLE AGES THOUGHT OF 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 OF THE OLDER AND MORE AGREEABLE CIVILISATION OF ROME AND GREECE AND THEY WERE 80 PROUD OF THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS THAT THEY SPOKE OF A RENAISSANCE OR RE-BIRTH OF 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 OF THEIR NARROW MEDIEVAL LIMITATIONS, THEY HAD TO HAVE MORE ROOM FOR THEIR WANDERINGS. THE EUROPEAN WORLD HAD GROWN TOO SMALL FOR THEIR AMBITIONS. IT WAS THE TIME OF THE GREAT VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY 42. CONCERNING BUDDHA AND CONFUCIUS 43. THE PROGRESS OF THE HUMAN RACE IS BEST COMPARED TO A GIGANTIC PENDULUM WHICH FOREVER SWINGS FORWARD AND BACKWARD. THE RELIGIOUS INDIFFERENCE AND THE ARTISTIC AND LITERARY ENTHUSIASM OF THE RENAISSANCE WERE FOLLOWED BY THE ARTISTIC AND LITERARY INDIFFERENCE AND THE RELIGIOUS ENTHUSIASM OF THE REFORMATION 44. THE AGE OF THE GREAT RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES 45. HOW THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS AND THE LESS DIVINE BUT MORE REASONABLE RIGHT OF PARLIAMENT ENDED DISASTROUSLY FOR KING CHARLES II 46. IN FRANCE, ON THE OTHER HAND, THE DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS CONTINUED WITH GREATER POMP AND SPLENDOR THAN EVER BEFORE AND THE AMBITION OF THE RULER WAS ONLY TEMPERED BY THE NEWLY INVENTED LAW OF THE BALANCE OF POWER 47. THE STORY OF THE MYSTERIOUS MUSCOVITE EMPIRE WHICH SUDDENLY 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 OF A LITTLE STATE IN A DREARY PART OF NORTHERN GERMANY, CALLED PRUSSIA 50. HOW THE NEWLY FOUNDED NATIONAL OR DYNASTIC STATES OF EUROPE TRIED TO MAKE THEMSELVES RICH AND WHAT WAS MEANT BY THE MERCANTILE SYSTEM 51. AT THE END OF 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 62. THE GREAT FRENCH REVOLUTION PROCLAIMS THE PRINCIPLES OF 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 CHANCES WHICH HAD BEEN BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 55. THEY TRIED TO a.s.sURE THE WORLD AN ERA OF UNDISTURBED PEACE BY SUPPRESSING ALL NEW IDEAS. THEY MADE THE POLICE-SPY THE HIGHEST FUNCTIONARY IN THE STATE AND SOON THE PRISONS OF 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 OF OTHER COUNTRIES OF THE EUROPEAN CONTINENT FOLLOWED SUIT AND THE NINETEENTH CENTURY WAS FILLED WITH THE RUMOR OF MANY WARS OF INDEPENDENCE 57. BUT WHITE 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 STAVE OF 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 WHITE HE MADE MORE MONEY THAN BEFORE, HE LOST HIS FORMER INDEPENDENCE AND HE DID NOT LIKE THAT 59. THE GENERAL INTRODUCTION OF MACHINERY DID NOT BRING ABOUT THE ERA OF 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 OF 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 OF 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.AN HISTORICAL READING LIST FOR CHILDREN

67.INDEX

THE STORY OF MANKIND

HIGH Up in the North in the land called Svithjod, there stands a rock.

It is a hundred miles high and a hundred miles wide. Once every thousand years a little bird comes to this rock to sharpen its beak.

When the rock has thus been worn away, then a single day of eternity will have gone by.

THE SETTING OF THE STAGE

WE live under the shadow of a gigantic question mark.

Who are we?

Where do we come from?

Whither are we bound?

Slowly, but with persistent courage, we have been pus.h.i.+ng this question mark further and further towards that distant line, beyond the horizon, where we hope to find our answer.

We have not gone very far.

We still know very little but we have reached the point where (with a fair degree of accuracy) we can guess at many things.

In this chapter I shall tell you how (according to our best belief) the stage was set for the first appearance of man.

If we represent the time during which it has been possible for animal life to exist upon our planet by a line of this length, then the tiny line just below indicates the age during which man (or a creature more or less resembling man) has lived upon this earth.

Man was the last to come but the first to use his brain for the purpose of conquering the forces of nature. That is the reason why we are going to study him, rather than cats or dogs or horses or any of the other animals, who, all in their own way, have a very interesting historical development behind them.

In the beginning, the planet upon which we live was (as far as we now know) a large ball of flaming matter, a tiny cloud of smoke in the endless ocean of s.p.a.ce. Gradually, in the course of millions of years, the surface burned itself out, and was covered with a thin layer of rocks. Upon these lifeless rocks the rain descended in endless torrents, wearing out the hard granite and carrying the dust to the valleys that lay hidden between the high cliffs of the steaming earth.

Finally the hour came when the sun broke through the clouds and saw how this little planet was covered with a few small puddles which were to develop into the mighty oceans of the eastern and western hemispheres.