History Books

PREFACE The purpose of this volume is to show the action and reaction of the most important social, economic, political, and personal forces that have entered into the make-up of the United States as a nation. The primary assumption of the author is that the people of this country did not compose a nation until after the close of the Civil War in 1865. Of scarcely less importance is the fact that the... more...

CHAPTER I—THE DISCOVERY OF PREHISTORIC EGYPT During the last ten years our conception of the beginnings of Egyptian antiquity has profoundly altered. When Prof. Maspero published the first volume of his great Histoire Ancienne des Peuples des l'Orient Classique, in 1895, Egyptian history, properly so called, still began with the Pyramid-builders, Sne-feru, Khufu, and Khafra (Cheops and... more...

INTRODUCTION. The springs of American civilization, unlike those of the elder world, lie revealed in the clear light of History. In appearance they are feeble; in reality, copious and full of force. Acting at the sources of life, instruments otherwise weak become mighty for good and evil, and men, lost elsewhere in the crowd, stand forth as agents of Destiny. In their toils, their sufferings, their... more...

CHAPTER I PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE The newspapers have lately been making large quotations from the poems of Mr. Rudyard Kipling. They might, if they had been so minded, have laid under similar contribution the Revelation of St. John the Divine. There, too, with all the imagery usual in Apocalyptic literature, is to be found a description of vague and confused fighting, when most of the Kings of the... more...

CHAPTER I THE ANGLO-ITALIAN TRADITION AND ITALY'S PART IN THE WAR Anglo-Italian friendship has been one of the few unchanging facts in modern international relations. Since the French Revolution, in the bellicose whirligig of history and of the old diplomacy's reckless dance with death, British troops have fought in turn against Frenchmen and Germans, against Russians and Austrians, against... more...

PREFACE. At the election of President and Vice President of the United States, and members of Congress, in November, 1872, Susan B. Anthony, and several other women, offered their votes to the inspectors of election, claiming the right to vote, as among the privileges and immunities secured to them as citizens by the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The inspectors, Jones,... more...

Chapter I.—PREFATORY. The Twelve Hercules-labors of this King have ended here; what was required of him in World-History is accomplished. There remain to Friedrich Twenty-three Years more of Life, which to Prussian History are as full of importance as ever; but do not essentially concern European History, Europe having gone the road we now see it in. On the grand World-Theatre the curtain has fallen... more...

CHAPTER I LAND AND PEOPLE Only in comparatively late years has the Iberian Continent been added to the happy hunting-grounds of the ordinary British and American tourist, and somewhat of a check arose after the outbreak of the war with America. To the other wonderful legends which gather round this romantic country, and are spread abroad, unabashed and uncontradicted, was added one more, to the effect... more...

AN HISTORY &c. Some account of the derivation of the name of Birmingham. The word Birmingham, is too remote for certain explanation. During the last four centuries it has been variously written Brumwycheham, Bermyngeham, Bromwycham, Burmyngham, Bermyngham, Byrmyngham, and Birmingham; nay, even so late as the seventeenth century it was written Bromicham. Dugdale supposes the name to have been given... more...

A PROMISING OFFICER The lengthening shadows lay blue and cool beneath the alders by the waterside, though the cornfields that rolled back up the hill glowed a coppery yellow in the light of the setting sun. It was hot and, for the most part, strangely quiet in the bottom of the valley since the hammers had stopped, but now and then an order was followed by a tramp of feet and the rattle of... more...