Excerpt from A Short History of the World 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 elabora tions and complications. It has been amply illustrated and every thing 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 neces sary 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 the 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. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.