History of Human Society

_The Human Trail_.--The trail of human life beginning in the mists of the past, winding through the ages and stretching away toward an unknown future, is a subject of perennial...

_How Mankind Goes Forward on the Trail_.--Although civilization cannot exist without it, progress is something different from the sum-total of the products of civilization. It m...

_Difficulty of Measuring Progress_.--In its larger generalization, progress may move in a straight line, but it has such a variety of expression and so many tributary causes tha...

_The Origin of Man Has not Yet Been Determined_.--Man's origin is still shrouded in mystery, notwithstanding the accumulated knowledge of the results of scientific investigation...

_The Efforts of Man to Satisfy Physical Needs_.--All knowledge of primitive man, whether derived from the records of cultures he has left or assumed from analogy of living tribe...

_The Character of Primitive Social Life_.--Judging from the cultures of prehistoric man in Europe and from analogies of living races that appear to have the same state of cultur...

_The Origin of Language Has Been a Subject of Controversy_.--Since man began to philosophize on the causes of things, tribes and races and, indeed, philosophers of all times hav...

_Man Is a Part of Universal Nature_.--He is an integral part of the universe, and as such he must ever be subject to the physical laws which control it. Yet, as an active, think...

_The First Nations with Historical Records in Asia and Africa_.--The seats of the most ancient civilizations are found in the fertile valleys of the Euphrates and the Nile. Thes...

_The Governments of the Early Oriental Civilizations_.--In comparing the Oriental civilizations which sprang up almost independently in different parts of Asia and Africa with E...

_America Was Peopled from the Old World_.--The origin of the people of America has been the subject of perennial controversy. Gradually, however, as the studies of the human rac...

_The Old Greek Life Was the Starting Point of Western Civilization_.--Civilization is a continuous movement--hence there is a gradual transition from the Oriental civilization t...

_The Transition from Theology to Inquiry_.--The Greek theology prepared the way for the Ionian philosophy. The religious opinions led directly up to the philosophy of the early...

_The Struggle for Greek Equality and Liberty_.--The greater part of the activity of Western nations has been a struggle for social equality and for political and religious liber...

_The Romans Differed in Nature from the Greeks_.--Instead of being of a philosophic, speculative nature, the Romans were a practical, even a stoical, people of great achievement...

_Important Factors in the Foundation of Western Civilization_.--When the European world entered the period of the Middle Ages, there were a few factors more important than other...

_The Coming of the Barbarians_.--The picture usually presented by the historical story-tellers of the barbarian hordes that invaded the Roman Empire is that of bold pirates, plu...

_Feudalism a Transition of Social Order_.--Feudalism represents a change from the ancient form of imperialism to the newer forms of European government. It arose out of the ruin...

The dissemination of knowledge, customs, habits, and laws from common centres of culture has been greatly augmented by population movements or migrations, by great empires estab...

_What Brought About the Crusades_.--We have learned from the former chapters that the Arabs had spread their empire from the Euphrates to the Strait of Gibraltar, and that the C...

_The Cost of Popular Government_.--The early forms of government were for the most part based upon hereditary authority or upon force. The theories of government first advanced...

_Social Evolution Is Dependent Upon Variation_.--The process by which ideas are born and propagated in human society is strangely analogous to the methods of biological evolutio...

Perhaps the most important branch of the revival of learning is that which is called humanism, or the revival of the study of the masterpieces of Greek and Latin literature. The...

_The Character of the Reformation_.--The Reformation, or Protestant Revolution, as it is sometimes called, was a movement of such extended relations as to be difficult to define...

_Progress in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries_.--It is not easy to mark in brief space the steps of progress in the complex activities of the great movements of society...

_Political Liberty in the Eighteenth Century_.--Looking backward from the standpoint of the close of the eighteenth century and following the chain of events in the previous cen...

_Industries Radiate from the Land as a Centre_.--In primitive civilizations industry was more or less incidental to life. The food quest, protection of the body from storm and s...

_The Evolutionary Processes of Society_.--Social activity is primarily group activity. Consequently the kind and nature of the group, the methods which brought its members toget...

_Science Is an Attitude of Mind Toward Life_.--As usually defined, science represents a classified body of knowledge logically arranged with the purpose of arriving at definite...

_Universal Public Education Is a Modern Institution_.--The Greeks valued education and encouraged it, but only those could avail themselves of its privileges who were able to pa...

_Commerce and Communication_.--The nations of the world have been drawn together in thought and involuntary co-operation by the stimulating power of trade. The exchange of goods...

_The Economic Outlook_.--The natural resources of forest, mines, and agriculture are gradually being depleted. The rapidity of movement in the economic world, the creation of we...