from Ancient Rome to the American War of Independence

: From Ancient Rome to the American War of Independence and Press Release Monday 19 October 2015 H. G. Wells A Short History of the World In Three Volumes. Illustrated. Edited by George Sandulescu and Lidia Vianu Contemporary Literature Press is Contemporary Literature Press publishing a book about the past, publică acum o carte despre trecut, written by a visionary writer who, scrisă de un vizionar care, împreună cu along with Jules Verne, is considered Jules Verne, este considerat a fi creat to be the father of science fiction. genul science fiction. H. G. Wells’s Short History of the Scurtă istorie a lumii a fost World was published in 1922, the peak publicată de H.G. Wells în anul 1922, year of Modernism—the year when anul modernist prin excelenţă, având în James Joyce’s Ulyssses and T.S. Eliot’s vedere că exact atunci au apărut Ulysses The Waste Land appeared. Its author de James Joyce şi The Waste Land de T.S. was a novelist who also wrote books Eliot. Autorul acestui volum de istorie a about the future, such as The Time scris şi cărţi despre viitor, cum ar fi Machine, The Invisible Man, The First Maşina timpului, Omul invizibil, Primii Men in the Moon. Partly, the scientific oameni pe lună. Unele descoperiri and technical future imagined by ştiinţifice şi tehnice imaginate de Wells Wells at the beginnig of the 20th la începutul secolului XX chiar au fost Century has already happened. ulterior făcute cu adevărat. This clearly written and amply Cartea aceasta scrisă limpede şi illustrated book provides both bogat ilustrată aduce, pentru profesori teachers and students with possible şi elevii lor, tot felul de istorii despre stories about life on earth. Whether viaţa pe Pământ. Există oare o logică în these stories follow one another înşiruirea lor, este evoluţia explicaţia logically, whether evolution is the key corectă? La ceste întrebări va răspunde word, the readers will decide for fiecare în felul său. Cu siguranţă, însă, themselves. One thing is certain: aveţi în faţă o carte din care, cei care Wells’s book is bound to improve the doresc, pot învăţa mai bine englezeşte. English of all the students who decide to read it. 11 October 2015 Lidia Vianu ISBN 978-606-760-020-9 © The University of Bucharest Cover Design and overall Layout by Lidia Vianu Subediting: Andreea Florescu, Irina Mihai, Daniela Rai, Mihai Ţoncu, Andreea Voicu, Bianca Zbarcea Typing: Mihai Ţoncu, Bianca Zbarcea Proofrerading: Violeta Baroană, Cristina Vîjea IT Expertise: Cristian Vîjea, Simona Sămulescu Publicity: Violeta Baroană. Cover: Marc Chagall, The Revolution. H.G. Wells, 1935 We have used the first edition of H. G. Wells’s A Short History of the World, Cassel and Company, Ltd, London, New york, Toronto and Melbourne, 1922. H. G. Wells A Short History of the World Volume Two: From Ancient Rome to the American War of Independence Illustrated Edited by Lidia Vianu H. G. Wells A Short History of the World Volume Two: From Ancient Rome to the American War of Independence 1 Preface This Short History of The World is meant to be read straight-forwardly almost as a novel is read. It gives in the most general way an account of our present knowledge of history, shorn of elaborations and complications. It has been amply illustrated, and everything has been done to make it vivid and clear. From it the reader should be able to get that general view of history which is so necessary a framework for the study of a particular period or the history of a particular country. It may be found useful as a preparatory excursion before reading of the author’s much fuller and more explicit Outline of History is undertaken. But its especial end is to meet the needs of the busy general reader, too driven to study the maps and time charts of that Outline in detail, who wishes to refresh and repair his faded or fragmentary conceptions of the great adventure of mankind. It is not an abstract or condensation of that former work. Within its aim the Outline admits of no further condensation. This is a much more generalized History, planned and written afresh. H. G. Wells H. G. Wells A Short History of the World Volume Two: From Ancient Rome to the American War of Independence 2 Contents H. G. Wells: A Short History of the World. Volume Two p. 3 31. Rome Comes into History p. 3 32. Rome and Carthage p. 9 33. The Growth of the Roman Empire p. 13 34. Between Rome and China p. 23 35. The Common Man’s Life under the Early Roman Empire p. 28 36. Religious Developments under the Roman Empire p. 35 37. The Teaching of Jesus p. 41 38. The Development of Doctrinal Christianity p. 49 39. The Barbarians Break the Empire into East and West p. 53 40. The Huns and the End of the Western Empire p. 58 41. The Byzantine and Sassanid Empires p. 62 42. The Dynasties of Suy and Tang in China p. 68 43. Muhammad and Islam p. 71 44. The Great Days of the Arabs p. 75 45. The Development of Latin Christendom p. 80 46. The Crusades and the Age of Papal Dominion p. 88 47. Recalcitrant Princes and the Great Schism p. 97 48. The Mongol Conquests p. 106 49. The Intellectual Revival of the Europeans p. 112 50. The Reformation of the Latin Church p. 121 51. The Emperor Charles V p. 125 52. The Age of Political Experiments; of Grand Monarchy and p. 133 Parliaments and Republicanism in Europe 53. The New Empires of the Europeans in Asia and Overseas p. 143 54. The American War of Independence p. 149 H. G. Wells A Short History of the World Volume Two: From Ancient Rome to the American War of Independence 3 31 Rome Comes into History The reader will note a general similarity in the history of all these civilizations in spite of the effectual separation caused by the great barriers of the Indian north-west frontier and of the mountain masses of Central Asia and further India. First for thousands of years the heliolithic culture spread over all the warm and fertile river valleys of the old world and developed a temple system and priest rulers about its sacrificial traditions. Apparently its first makers were always those brunette peoples we have spoken of as the central race of mankind. Then the nomads came in from the regions of seasonal grass and seasonal migrations and superposed their own characteristics and often their own language on the primitive civilization. They subjugated and stimulated it, and were stimulated to fresh developments and made it here one thing and here another. In Mesopotamia it was the Elamite and then the Semite, and at last the Nordic Medes and Persians and the Greeks who supplied the ferment; over the region of the Ægean peoples it was the Greeks; in India it was the Aryan-speakers; in Egypt there was a thinner infusion of conquerors into a more intensely saturated priestly civilization; in China, the Hun conquered and was absorbed and was followed by fresh Huns. China was Mongolized just as Greece and North India were Aryanized and Mesopotamia Semitized and Aryanized. Everywhere the nomads destroyed much, but everywhere they brought in a new spirit of free enquiry and moral innovation. They questioned the beliefs of immemorial ages. They let daylight into the temples. They set up kings who were neither priests nor gods but mere leaders among their captains and companions. H. G. Wells A Short History of the World Volume Two: From Ancient Rome to the American War of Independence 4 The Dying Gaul. The statue in the National Museum, Rome, depicting a Gaul stabbing himself, after killing his wife, in the presence of his enemies. In the centuries following the sixth century B.C. we find everywhere a great breaking down of ancient traditions and a new spirit of moral and intellectual enquiry awake, a spirit never more to be altogether stilled in the great progressive movement of mankind. We find reading and writing becoming common and accessible accomplishments among the ruling and prosperous minority; they were no longer the jealously guarded secret of the priests. Travel is increasing and transport growing easier by reason of horses and roads. A new and easy device to facilitate trade has been found in coined money. Let us now transfer our attention back from China in the extreme east of the old H. G. Wells A Short History of the World Volume Two: From Ancient Rome to the American War of Independence 5 world to the western half of the Mediterranean. Here we have to note the appearance of a city which was destined to play at last a very great part indeed in human affairs, Rome. Hitherto we have told very little about Italy in our story. It was before 1000 B.C. a land of mountain and forest and thinly populated. Aryan-speaking tribes had pressed down this peninsula and formed little towns and cities, and the southern extremity was studded with Greek settlements. The noble ruins of Pæstum preserve for us to this day something of the dignity and splendour of these early Greek establishments. A non-Aryan people, probably akin to the Ægean peoples, the Etruscans, had established themselves in the central part of the peninsula. They had reversed the usual process by subjugating various Aryan tribes. Rome when it comes into the light of history, is a little trading city at a ford on the Tiber, with a Latin-speaking population ruled over by Etruscan kings.

Load more