A Brief History of the World

A Brief History of the World is one of Hendrik Willem van Loon's classic works. Breaking away from the traditional approach of geography books that simply list facts and figures, it uses vivid literary language to bring together the natural and human worlds. It tells how people living in different geographic environments adapt to nature and try to change their surroundings in pursuit of happiness. This is both an accessible work of popular science and a history of the development of different nations and peoples. “History is the fourth dimension of geography, giving it time and meaning.” In this book, that idea takes shape as a history of human survival, with history as its warp and geography as its weft.