The Outline Of History - Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind

Far and away the best selling popular history of all time - Howard Zinn still has a mountain to climb.

The Outline of History began literally as an outline of historical facts and dates that Wells made as a working reference for his earlier works. It was amended and corrected over the course of many years, but was never meant to serve as a basis for a book. But with the close of WWI, H.G. thought that the post-war world needed to have better textbooks, particularly in the subject of history. History texts, he felt, were not only generally illiterate, but riddled with nationalistic bias that made them unfit for the modern world. Taking a big gamble he plunged into a year long frenzy of research and writing that produced the Outline. First published in serial form in soft covers in 1919, it was later revised and compiled into book form in 1920. It was an enormous success selling over one million copies in the first year alone, and since then it has gone on to sell many millions more. Translated into several languages, it has been used as a text in many countries of the world, but its real impact has been outside of the classroom. The unqualified success of the Outline made Wells an extremely rich man, and greatly enhanced his "know-it-all" reputation.

To ensure the essential accuracy of the facts presented in the Outline, it was originally written with the aid and cooperation of several notables; Mr. Ernest Baker, Sir H.H. Johnston, Sir E. Ray Lankester, and Professor Gilbert Murray among them. Wells also kept copious notes on the piles of letters that he received from educators all around the world, who wrote in to complain that the Outline had made this mistake or that. As the Outline passed through edition after edition over the decades, many of these corrections and amendments were adopted. After Wells' death the Outline continued to live on, selling several million more copies. It was revised by Raymond Postgate in the late 1940's to include the second World War and other small corrections and additions throughout. It was further revised several more times and was still sold as a new book until at least the 1970's.

Critical appraisals of the Outline by professional historians was quite mixed, but the book did have its staunch supporters amongst intellectuals; Toynbee, in particular thought that it was the best introductory history text available.

Early editions of the Outline have extensive footnotes and are more opinionated. In particular his early treatment of the October Russian revolution is more obviously anti-bolshevik than that of later editions. Throughout all editions the excellent maps and charts made by illustrater, J.F. Hoorabin remain. The Outline has passed through numerous formats since its inception. First sold as one very large book, it was later reprinted in two to four volume sets. Copies of it are still so numerous that there is little point in having it reprinted (except of course for the purpose of addition and revision) for perhaps another century.

What accounted for the incredible success of the Outline? First and foremost it was the first time that a peoples' history of the world had been written. It read (and still reads) like a novel. Secondly, it was written at just the right time to take advantage of the public's desire for answering why the Great War happened. Third, was the messenger himself. Wells had gained quite a reputation for understanding and explaining the future before it happened. In particular, The War in the Air (1908) and The World Set Free (1914) had with uncanny skill forecasted the "total war" that WWI was. So, if Wells could explain what happened, before it happened, it made sense to many that he could explain the past as well.

The Outline begins with a chapter entitled "The Earth in Space and Time" and then progresses through the various archeological ages. Humankind does not make an appearence until nearly a hundred pages have gone by. Much of this information presented in the early going is, quite frankly, dated. The chapters dealing with archeology and paleontology will serve as much to misinform as illuminate the modern reader (the Piltdown man, proven to be a hoax is presented, albeit with some skepticism, as a possible ancestor of man). After this, though, the Outline starts to become more and more viable as a text. It presents the reader with a flood of fascinating facts and theories that were not and still are not often addressed in the classroom. The Outline remains an excellent supplementary text for the undergraduate or secondary school student, or as causual reading for anyone who has a curiosity about the past.

Some passages from The Outline of History:

"It is a striking tribute to the power of the written assertion over realities in men's minds that this Bible narrative has imposed, not only upon the Christian, but upon the Moslem world, the belief that King Soloman was not only one of the most magnificent, but one of the wisest of men. Yet the first book of Kings tells in detail his utmost splendours, and beside the beauty and wonder of the buildings and organizations of such great monarchs as Thothmes III or Rameses II or half a dozen other Pharaohs, or of Sargon II or Sardanapalus or Nebuchadnezzar the Great, they are trivial. His temple was... the (size) of a small villa residence... And as for his wisdom and statecraft, one need go no further than the Bible to see that Solomon was a mere helper in the wide-reaching schemes of the trader-king Hiram, and his kingdom a pawn between Phoenicia and Egypt. His importance was due largely to the temporary enfeeblement of Egypt... To his own people Solomon was a wasteful and oppressive monarch, and already before his death his kingdom was splitting, visibly to all men" (282).

"The Indian mind was full of the idea of cyclic recurrence; everything was supposed to come round again. This is a very natural supposition for men to make; so things seem to be until we analyse them. Modern science has made clear to us that there is no such exact recurrence as we are apt to suppose; every day is by an infinitesimal quantity a little longer than the day before; no generation repeats the previous generation precisely; history never repeats itself; change, we realize now is inexhaustible; all things are eternally new" (438)

"In particular the figure of Julius Caesar is set up as if it were a star of supreme brightness and importance in the history of mankind. Yet a dispassionate consideration of the known facts fails altogether to justify this demi-god theory of Caesar. Not even that precipitate wrecker of splendid possibilities, Alexander the Great, has been so magnified and dressed up for the admiration of careless and uncritical readers. There is a type of scholar who, to be plain, sits and invents marvellous world policies for the more conspicuous figures in history with the merest scraps of justification or no justification at all. We are told that Alexander planned the conquest of Carthage and Rome and the complete subjugation of India, and that only his death shattered these schemes. What we know for certain is that he conquered the Persian Empire, and never went far beyond its boundaries; and that when he was supposed to be making these vast and noble plans, he was in fact indulging in such monstrous antics as his mourning for his favorite Hephaestion, and as his main occupation he was drinking himself to death" (523).

"Some writers, even American writers, impressed by the artificial splendours of the European courts and by the tawdry and destructive exploits of a Frederick the Great or a Great Catherine display a snobbish shame of something home-spun about these makers of America. They feel that Benjamin Franklin at the court of Louis XVI, with his long hair, his plain clothes, and his pawky manner, was sadly lacking in aristocratic distinction. But stripped to their personalities, Louis XVI was hardly gifted enough or noble-minded enough to be Franklin's valet" (989).

"Human History becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe."

"The Professional military mind is by necessity an inferior and unimaginative mind; no man of high intellectual quality would willingly imprison his gifts in such a calling."

"Our true State, this state that is already begining, this state to which every man owes his utmost political effect, must be now this nascent Federal World State to which human necessities point. Our true God now is the God of all men. Nationalism as a God must follow the tribal gods to limbo. Our true nationality is mankind."

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