A Little History of the World
In 1935, with a doctorate in art history and no prospect of a job, the 26-year-old Ernst Gombrich was invited to attempt a history of the world for younger readers. Amazingly, he completed the task in an intense six weeks, and "Eine kurze Weltgeschichte fur junge Leser" was published in Vienna to...
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In 1935, with a doctorate in art history and no prospect of a job, the 26-year-old Ernst Gombrich was invited to attempt a history of the world for younger readers. Amazingly, he completed the task in an intense six weeks, and "Eine kurze Weltgeschichte fur junge Leser" was published in Vienna to immediate success, and is now available in twenty-five languages across the world. In forty concise chapters, Gombrich tells the story of man from the stone age to the atomic bomb. In between emerges a colourful picture of wars and conquests, grand works of art, and the spread and limitations of science. This is a text dominated not by dates and facts, but by the sweep of mankind's experience across the centuries, a guide to humanity's achievements and an acute witness to its frailties.The product of a generous and humane sensibility, this timeless account makes intelligible the full span of human history.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780300143324 (030014332X)
Publish date: October 7th 2008
Publisher: Yale University Press
Pages no: 284
Edition language: English
Category:
Childrens,
Non Fiction,
History,
Academic,
School,
Reference,
Literature,
20th Century,
Art,
Politics,
World History
I've listened to the 8-CD audio of this twice in the car, as I have a young son who enjoyed it. I see many reviews that talk about how disappointed readers were that this seemed like it was for kids. It was. It was meant for children, so you have to look at it through that lens. I like the author's ...
Easy to read and written in a conversational tone, uncommon in history books, which works surprisingly well. Unfortunately, this book is way too biased and white-washed, and some of the "facts" (specially when it comes to more recent history) are presented with a one-sided view that sounds more like...
I can't recommend this much beyond the halfway point. Gombrich does a creditable job right up to the birth of Christ, but in my opinion the wheels fall off this book after the event. It's totally Eurocentric, Christian-slanted history. Very moving illustration of the old saw that history is written ...
In these big-fonted and illustrated 300 pages are comprised centuries of Human history. You’d think this would mean the book is terribly awful, but it’s not! It’s apparently a book written for children, which I hadn’t known when I started reading it. This made me judge it from a perspective of a lit...