History Books

Chapter I. The Frontier In History The frontier! There is no word in the English language more stirring, more intimate, or more beloved. It has in it all the elan of the old French phrase, En avant! It carries all of the old Saxon command, Forward!! It means all that America ever meant. It means the old hope of a real personal liberty, and yet a real human advance in character and achievement. To a... more...

CHAPTER I AIMS History may be made, in several ways, an important factor in forming intelligent, patriotic citizens: (a) It must be remembered that society, with all its institutions, is a growth, not a sudden creation. It follows that, if we wish to understand the present and to use that knowledge as a guide to future action, we must know the story of how our present institutions and conditions have... more...

PREFACE The rules of the Royal Institution forbid (and wisely) religious or political controversy.  It was therefore impossible for me in these Lectures, to say much which had to be said, in drawing a just and complete picture of the Ancien Régime in France.  The passages inserted between brackets, which bear on religious matters, were accordingly not spoken at the Royal Institution. But more.  It... more...

CHAPTER I. GRANDFATHER AND THE CHILDREN AND THE CHAIR. GRANDFATHER had been sitting in his old arm-chair all that pleasant afternoon, while the children were pursuing their various sports far off or near at hand, Sometimes you would have said, "Grandfather is asleep;" hut still, even when his eyes were closed, his thoughts were with the young people, playing among the flowers and shrubbery of... more...

CHAPTER I SHEPHERDS ON THE BORDER OF THE DESERT Ancient Arabia is the home of that branch of the white race known as the Semitic. Here on the fertile fringes of well-watered land surrounding the great central desert lived the Phœnicians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Canaanites who, before the Hebrews, inhabited Palestine. So little intermixing of races has there been that the Arabs of... more...

The object of a census is scientific.  A census is a sociological investigation.  And the object of the science of sociology is the happiness of the people.  This science and its methods differ sharply from all other sciences. Its peculiarity lies in this, that sociological investigations are not conducted by learned men in their cabinets, observatories and laboratories, but by two thousand people... more...

CHAPTER I—ANCIENT CHALDÆA The Creation, the Deluge, the history of the gods—The country, its cities its inhabitants, its early dynasties. "In the time when nothing which was called heaven existed above, and when nothing below had as yet received the name of earth,* Apsu, the Ocean, who first was their father, and Chaos-Tiâmat, who gave birth to them all, mingled their waters in one, reeds... more...

CHARLES F. HORNE Philip II succeeded his father Charles V on the throne of Spain. The vast extent of his domains, the absoluteness of his authority, and, above all, the enormous wealth that poured into his coffers from the Spanish conquests in America, made him the most powerful monarch of his time, the central figure of the age. It was largely because of Philip's personal character that the great... more...

CHAPTER I The Precursors Every schoolboy knows that the Middle Ages arose on the ruins of the Roman Empire. The decline of Rome preceded and in some ways prepared the rise of the kingdoms and cultures which composed the medieval system. Yet in spite of the self-evident truth of this historical preposition we know little about life and thought in the watershed years when Europe was ceasing to be Roman... more...

The object of a census is scientific.  A census is a sociological investigation.  And the object of the science of sociology is the happiness of the people.  This science and its methods differ sharply from all other sciences. Its peculiarity lies in this, that sociological investigations are not conducted by learned men in their cabinets, observatories and laboratories, but by two thousand people... more...