This charming little book chronicles the beginnings of man from Pre-history (once again, another work that begins in the cave!) to WWI (frankly, just reading the prehistory chapter and the WWI chapter back to back and skipping the rest of time you have to ask yourself, have we really progressed at all?) The author, E.H. Gombrich, a Viennese cultural historian who lived mainly in London is most famous for his art history text book, The Story of Art (also worth owning as a reference). However, his tiny little history summary is a gem – and easily read in bits and bites. The woodblock illustrations add to the charm. Available only in German during the 20th century-(Gombrich wrote the original in 1936) – he self-translated the work into English in his later years, working on it until his death, at which point his research assistant took over and brought it to fruition. It was published in the US in paperback by Yale University Press posthumously (2008).
It is a perfect bedside book to read “in” — ours lives on our bathroom reading shelf and teens and adults enjoy browsing through its chapters none of which are more than 11 or 12 pages long.
dispatchfromthecave 