History Books

The writing of historical biography is properly a work of partnership, to which public credit is awarded too often in an inverse proportion to the labours expended. One group of historians, labouring in the obscurest depths, dig and prepare the ground, searching and sifting the documentary soil with infinite labour and over an area immensely wide. They are followed by those scholars and specialists in... more...

WANDERINGS WITH AN IDEA The man to whom Columbus proposed to address his request for means with which to make a voyage of discovery was no less a person than the new King of Portugal. Columbus was never a man of petty or small ideas; if he were going to do a thing at all, he went about it in a large and comprehensive way; and all his life he had a way of going to the fountainhead, and of making flights... more...

The writing of historical biography is properly a work of partnership, to which public credit is awarded too often in an inverse proportion to the labours expended. One group of historians, labouring in the obscurest depths, dig and prepare the ground, searching and sifting the documentary soil with infinite labour and over an area immensely wide. They are followed by those scholars and specialists in... more...

CHAPTER I—THE NÜ-CHÊNS AND KITANS The Manchus are descended from a branch of certain wild Tungusic nomads, who were known in the ninth century as the Nü-chêns, a name which has been said to mean "west of the sea." The cradle of their race lay at the base of the Ever-White Mountains, due north of Korea, and was fertilised by the head waters of the Yalu River. In an illustrated Chinese work... more...

CHAPTER I THE EARLY AGES The Chinese are unquestionably the oldest nation in the world, and their history goes back to a period to which no prudent historian will attempt to give a precise date. They speak the language and observe the same social and political customs that they did several thousand years before the Christian era, and they are the only living representatives to-day of a people and... more...

CHAPTER I Away down in the Indian Ocean there is a long chain of islands that stretches from Burmah to Australia. One of these is New Guinea which is the largest island in the world (leaving out Australia), and Borneo comes next in size. It is nearly four times as large as England. One quarter of it—the States of Sarawak and British North Borneo—is under British influence. The rest is all claimed... more...

CHAPTER I CHILDHOOD 1433-1440 On St. Andrew's Eve, in the year 1433, the good people of Dijon were abroad, eager to catch what glimpses they might of certain stately functions to be formally celebrated by the Duke of Burgundy. The mere presence of the sovereign in the capital of his duchy was in itself a gala event from its rarity. Various cities of the dominions agglomerated under his sway... more...

Chapter I. 1600-1622Born in Scotland.King Charles the First was born in Scotland. It may perhaps surprise the reader that an English king should be born in Scotland. The explanation is this:The circumstance explained.They who have read the history of Mary Queen of Scots, will remember that it was the great end and aim of her life to unite the crowns of England and Scotland in her own family. Queen... more...

"Corruption" in Ancient Rome And Its Counterpart in Modern History Two years ago in Paris, while giving a course of lectures on Augustus at the Collège de France, I happened to say to an illustrious historian, a member of the French Academy, who was complimenting me: "But I have not remade Roman history, as many admirers think. On the contrary, it might be said, in a certain sense, that I... more...

CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN. INTRODUCTION. Scene—A Library. ALDA. You will not listen to me? MEDON. I do, with all the deference which befits a gentleman when a lady holds forth on the virtues of her own sex.He is a parricide of his mother's name,And with an impious hand murders her fame,That wrongs the praise of women; that dares writeLibels on saints, or with foul ink requiteThe milk they lent... more...