كتاب رائع حاول تلخيص تاريخ العالم كله من بداية الكون حتى الحرب العالمية الثانيه وان كان تركيزه اكثر على اوروبا وان كنت ارى ان الكتاب ينقصة بشده الخرائط التوضيحية

Didn't end up getting through it. This book is great if you want an insight into how scientists and one of the fathers of sci-fi understood the history of the world in 1922. Wells does a great job of being properly skeptical of the known facts about the physical nature of the universe and acknowledges when more is yet to be discovered. Yet he doesn't seem to extend this level of critical thought to people. He easily concludes and implies that Aztec civilization developed twisted or mad compared to Europe. He also concluded that many in his day and age are ruled by their emotions and only a few are able to rise to true reason. His ethnocenteicism and classism (concious or unconscious) suffocates his understanding of people's motives, culture, and ways of being in the world. But maybe, (emphasize on maybe) I'm judging a 20th century man with a 21st century lense too harshly. I'll let you decide.

I use this book for entertainment while I am waiting in line, or shaving, etc., so I never get through more than a page or two at a time. I skipped over the early earth history section (geology etc.) because I felt certain it would be too far out of date to even be worth reading. Instead I began with the earliest civilizations. I greatly enjoyed the brisk tour of human history, a nice quick review of the Romans, Greeks, and the rest of the ancient world, and a brief introduction to many phases in history I never learned about like the struggles among European rulers hoping to carry the mantle of the Holy Roman Empire.

I did get an uneasy feeling of implied racism here and there throughout the book. First, Wells has a tendency to keep describing the arc of history as sort of a giant ebb-and-flow among the races. He refers often to the "Brunet" peoples, "Aryans", etc. I never thought of the Greeks as Aryans, but if I recall correctly, that was his usage. He seems to constantly have his eye on which race is "winning".

There were also a couple of phrases that made me very uncomfortable for their implied racism. The Romans adopted a barbaric sacrifice from the "dusky Etruscans". Later in colonial America, there was a fear of being overrun by the "barbaric Blacks" (or was it Negros?).

Beginning in the early 20th century, his writing seems to become dramatically more political and opinionated. I do find this section enlightening, but I am not enjoying it as much as the rest of the book. There is plenty of fussing over particular economic decisions that were made, etc. -- it's starting to feel unpleasantly like a grouchy letter-to-the-editor.

Nevertheless the midsection of the book is an enjoyable read.

A Short History of the World is a powerful, comprehensive account of our entire species up to its publication in 1922. Although more than a century out-of-date, the topics it documents remain remarkably accurate and significant. As a human among the first wave of millennials, it was extremely interesting viewing the world through the lens of a time before World War II, the Soviet Union, television, computers, the Cold War, space exploration, the JFK assassination, the Islamic Revolution in Iran, intermodal shipping, and every other global milestone that shaped the world my generation was born into. It's nearly impossible for anyone alive today to wrap their heads around civilization before these events, given their tectonic impacts and the unprecedented technological advancement of the 20th century, though H.G. Wells nails it and I think it's the reason this book remains so important in 2024.

The book begins with the barest of bare basics, the formation of our solar system and each planet's distance from the sun and from one another. This predates both the discovery of Pluto and its relatively recent expulsion from planetary classification. It explains the formation of Earth step-by-step from its molten origin, to its cooling and crust-formation, to the development of the first single-celled organisms in shallow waters that eventually led to the evolution of all known life in the entire universe. The breakdown of the first primates has been considerably refined by newer studies and discoveries, but the important details are still true, particularly homosapien's superior communication ability being the most-responsible attribute for us outliving other similar human species. And from there it moves onto the first hunter-gatherer groups, the first permanent settlements, the first recorded history, and so forth.

After covering the settlements of the Levant, the book's pace noticeably slows down after the birth of the Roman Empire and their much better-preserved records. Although it touches on Judaism prior to these chapters, it's during Roman times where Wells first starts digging into religion's applications towards conventional governments and societal development. It compares Abrahamic religions to the more ancient "dreamlike" religions of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and some of the legends Judaism and Christianity adopted from them. It's also interesting to note how long all these religions existed before the printing press was invented, or even before paper was available in the Middle East and Europe. It's a lot of content that gives the reader cause to pause and reflect. Soon after the fall of the Roman Empire, it moves onto the rise of Islam and its unprecedentedly rapid spread. The book focuses a lot on the development of religion, which shouldn't be surprising considering how much power over man all of them obtained throughout the next two millennia.

Much of the 2nd half of the book spotlights Europe, moving away from the Middle East and South Asia where it begins. Although the United States and Canada are touched on, it's important to remember how small both countries' global footprints still were in the early 20th century. Most of the USA's chronology is centered on the "convenient" development of steamboats and railroads, which paved the way for a rapid continental expansion never-before-seen at any point in human history. It also touches on slavery and its declining demand after the development of machinery, which at the time of the book's publication, was still the most advanced technology in the world besides automobiles and airplanes (which were both still very new). My generation grew up believing slavery was abolished on account of the fact it is morally reprehensible, though H.G. Wells suggests it was more because it simply wasn't the most practical solution anymore. Although that's very likely, it still doesn't make it any less eerie.

The most powerful chapter in the entire book is H.G.'s synopsis of "The Great War", or as we call it today, "World War I". Not only does he condemn the League of Nations and the Treaty of Versailles, but he hits the nail on the head when he predicts a "larger and similar conflict" in the near future. This of course was unequivocally correct, right down to his "15-20 years" estimation. His explanation makes you wonder how many others of the time foresaw the same thing and how on earth it could have possibly happened. This book wasn't an obscure publication and H.G. Wells was already very famous and inspirational by 1922, it was even recommended by Albert Einstein in the early 1930's. I really couldn't shake that impression and it left me furious knowing how many people perished for not taking it more seriously. The greatest irony is our species' ability to outlast other human species because we communicated better, but couldn't even prevent mass slaughter and the largest conflict in history even though we could write, mass publish, and read books that warned us it was likely well in advance.

If H.G. Wells was still alive today to publish a sequel, one could assume the next 102 years of human history would fill a book as large as this one, although it doesn't make this one any less important. I still consider this very essential reading for anyone interested in history of any sorts. It doesn't explain everything completely, but it gives readers a sense of where to jump of the train to explore more thoroughly elsewhere.

عند مطالعتي لهذا الكتاب لم اكن اتوقع الا انني اطالع كتاب تاريخ وللاسف جورج ويلز هنا لا يزال كاتب الخيال العلمي ولم يتخلص من شخصيته ، عند قراءة مقدمة المترجم سوف يبهرك با حديثه عن قيم جورج ويلز وحبه للانسانية ونبذه للعنصرية ، أجل فهو لم يقدم الا مختصرا لحضارة الشرق وجل كتابه عن الحضارة الغربية ، لم يذكر في الكتاب اليمن بتاتا ، واليمن هي اليمن (لست يمنيا) وهناك شيئ كنت انتظره وهوا تعليقه عن رمي القنبلة الذرية على هيروشيما وناجازاكي للاسف سرد الخبر ولم يعلق ولم يكلف نفسه حتى عناء ذكر الخسائر : المادية على الاقل ، هناك شيئ مهم با النسبة للثقافة الاوربية وهذا الشيئ نحن من يدفع ثمنه با استمرار ، الا وهو النزعة الانانية التى تركتها نظرية النشوء و الارتقاء ، فهمي تجع من هذا الكوكب كله مسخر للجنس الاقوى الجنس الاري (هذا في نظرهم انهم اصحاب السلطان على هذا الكوكب) ، بما اننا نتحدث عن التاريخ وكتب التاريخ انا اكتب هذه المراجعة بعد عام كامل طوفان الاقصى المبارك ، ولا تزال امتنا العربية تغط في نومها ، لكم تمنيت من قلبي ان يكون التخاذل منا نحن عامة المجتمع لكان والله الخطب هين ، ما حز في نفسي ان من تخاذل وباع اخواننا هم المشائخ وعلى رأسهم مشائخ ال سعود ربيع المدخلي وصالح الفوزان ، اتمنى من هربرت جورج ويلز اضافة مراجعتي لكتابه فهي ايضا للتاريخ

العالم غريب فعلا
تحس ان التاريخ فيه يعاد....وان تمعنت تحس ان الحياة متغيرة جدا وانه قد يبدو لك بلا تفاصيل انه يعاد

لكنه في الحقيقة متغير...تغيرات طفيفة على المدار القريب كبيرة عالمدار البعيد

لابد ان كل منا اهتم بقضية تاريخية معينة وقرأ فيها بشكل مستفيض...لابد وان المناهج التعليمية تجعلك تشعر ان دولتك هي محور الكون وان التاريخ لم يكن قبلها ولن يكون بعدها


لكن من الممتع جدا ان تقرأ عن التاريخ بشكل عام وكامل منذ بداية تسجيله او منذ اول نقطة يمكن للبشري الوصول اليها لمعرفة التاريخ

هذا الكتاب المكون من 460 صفحة اعترف انه كان من اكثر الكتب الممتعة التي قرأتها في حياتي خصوصا ان حجمه ليس صغير وفي نفس الوقت موضوعه ثقيل ليس حكاية اندمج فيها...لكن اسلوب الكاتب نجح في شد القارئ وفي جعله يبدو كحكايات الجدات

مشكلة الكتاب هي عدم حيادية كاتبه...ولأنه يقصه كحكاية فهو يقصه على اساس ان هناك ابطال واشرار...وليس احداث تاريخية...مشكلة الكتاب ايضا ان كاتبه غير مؤمن باي دين وبالتالي يؤرخ كل ما يخص الاديان بمعلومات مغلوطة كما انه مؤمن جدا بالنظرية الدارونية فيؤرخ كل ما قبل التدوين على هذا الاساس.

المشكلة الثانية للكتاب انه ينتهي في وسط الحرب العالمية الثانية فهذا هو الوقت الذي كتب فيه الكاتب كتابه...فلدينا مخزون تاريخي كبير بعد نهاية الكتاب ....كما ان الاجزاء التي كتبها عن الحرب العالمية الاولى والثانية كانت ساذجة جدا اتضح كثير من اخطاءها فيما بعد

الكتاب به العديد من المعلومات المغلوطة والتوجيه والراي الشخصي للكاتب في احداث كثيرة ولكنه حقا كتاب ممتع يحول لك كل ما جرى فالعالم كحكاية خرافية متصلة وطويلة

شخصية مثلي تسأم بسرعة وليس لديها خريطة تاريخية واضحة يفيدها جدا مثل هذا الكتاب لاعرف معالم الكون التاريخية ثم ابدأ اركز في تفاصيل كل واقعة على حدى وهذا هو حقا المهم في هذا الكتااب


الكتاب منظم جدا ومقسم بشكل مفيد ومريح واخر 60 صفحة تشبه الشجرة التاريخية قبل الميلاد وبعد الميلاد لكل التواريخ المهمة كترتيب ممتع ومريح
الترجمة ايضا كانت قوية وممتعة

تناول المؤلف في الكتاب.:

-tالكون كبداية وبعض النظريات العلمية (وان كانت قديمة)
-tثم تناول بداية واصل الحياة ( من وجهة النظر الداورينية) وان اول كائن حي كانت الاسماك وان الحية بدأت بحرا ثم انتقلت برا...ثم انتقل للزواحف ثم الطيور ثم الثديات ثم القرود ثم القرود العليا ثم البشر
-tانواع البشر منذ البداية والفكر البدائي وكيف بدأت الزراعة والعصر الحجري وكيف بدأت المراكب في البحر والفراعنة وآشور وبابل
-tالفصول الخاصة باليهود والمسيحين والمسلمين كانت مليئة بالمغالطات...تكلم عن الاغريق والفرس والاسكندر وبوذا وآسوكا وكونفوشيوس ثم الرومان ثم المسيح ثم البيزنطيين ثم الاسلام والعرب ثم الحروب الصليبية
-tانتقل الى المغول ومنه الى الفكر الاوربي الكنائسي ثم شارل الخامس – الجمهوريات والبرلمانات ومن ثم الى اكتشاف الامريكتين
-tحياة الامريكتين من بداية احتلالها وحتى حرب استقلالها ومن ثم دخل على المانيا ثم اختراع السفن البخارية والقطارات ومن ثم الطائرات ...ثم العدوان على اسيا ثم نهوض اليابان ثم الحرب العالمية الاولى
-tوينتهي الكتاب على وصف بداية الحرب العالمية الثانية

سعيدة اني كنت محظوظة بالحصول على نسخة ورقية من هذا الكتاب النادر واستفدت كثيرا بقراءته

This is by no means an in depth history of the world and is certainly outdated, however it is a fascinating read and there are still many interesting things to be learned from it.

As a student of history myself, I enjoy reading historical texts written in other time periods for a number of reasons, but the most relevant and interesting to me is what such a text can teach you about the time in which it is written, in this case Victorian England. There is much information to be gleaned about the England that Wells inhabited even when he is discussing other historical periods.

The cliche "History is told by the victors" is very true, but it is also told in voice of the teller. That is to say, history is a very "political" endeavor, always hued in whatever colours the teller favours. A United Empire Loyalist writes a very different account of the American Revolution than a revolutionary patriot. A Darwinist sees a different origin of our species than a Christian and so different events will have differing significance to each. Everything from our politics to our religion combine with our place and period to taint the histories we encounter which means the way histories are told can give us remarkable insight into the people telling it.

Give this book a read if you are a fan of history, HG Wells or Victorian England. It is a very fascinating read in my opinion.

This book's main drawback is that it misses out the last 100 years or so - and I mean that as a compliment to Wells, who couldn't really help that. It's still extremely useful in making sense of what happened in the billion or so years leading up to the First World War, with several chapters at the beginning devoted to prehistory. The chapters are short, and the writing is excellent, drawing out the key points without getting bogged down in detail. Wells's intention is not simply to provide an overview of history but to tell a story of the progress of civilisation from Cro-Magnon Man to the confused, uneasy world of his own time, full of possibilities both thrilling and terrifying. This makes the book far more readable than a dry recitation of names and dates would have been, and if sometimes Wells's brush seems broad, it probably needs to be to attack the vastness of the canvas.

For the bits of history I didn't know about, I was happy to accept Wells's version of events - and it was useful to join up the isolated bits of knowledge I had. For those bits I did know about, I was interested to know what Wells's take on them would be. He always has a take.

The picture he paints of the Romans is a case in point. Despite acknowledging their practical achievements, Wells believes that Roman culture was somehow empty. And this was because their empire, built on slavery, lacked what we might loosely call a soul. As Wells puts it:

"The free will and the free mind were nowhere to be found. The great roads, the ruins of splendid buildings, the tradition of law and power it left for the astonishment of succeeding generations must not conceal from us that all its outer splendour was built upon thwarted wills, stifled intelligence, and crippled and perverted desires."

Sweeping statements, perhaps, but Wells clearly believes that part of the point of studying history is to make some sort of moral judgement on it.

When Wells comes to modern European imperialism it is harder for him to offer such clarity of judgement, except in isolated, egregious cases such as the exploitation of the Belgian Congo. After all, the sun had not quite set on the British Empire, and Wells had determined to steer clear of live controversies. He does, however, make very clear his intense disapproval of the stitch-up that followed the First World War:

"The Treaty of Versailles was intended to be exemplary and vindictive; it provided tremendous penalties for the vanquished; it sought to provide compensations for the wounded and suffering victors by imposing enormous debts upon nations already bankrupt, and its attempts to reconstitute international relations by the establishment of a League of Nations against war, were manifestly insincere and inadequate."

Wells was spot-on in his reading of the geopolitical situation, believing that another war was more or less inevitable. He was also surely correct that the most horrifying thing about the First World War (and you could say the same about the Second, perhaps) was not that there were people who were prepared to precipitate it, but that there were far more people who did nothing to stop it happening.

Though the book is a product of its time, Wells shows far less of that time’s prejudices than we might expect. While it it is a bit of a stretch to claim (as Norman Stone does in the Introduction) that the book is “not Euro-centric", it treats Chinese and Japanese cultures as equals to European ones. However, sub-Saharan Africa is hardly mentioned, the indigenous populations of North America, Australia and New Zealand might as well not have existed, and the ancient cultures of South America that were wiped out by the conquistadors are virtually wiped out of Wells’s history. Serious omissions certainly, but one is inclined to cut Wells some slack because of the time he lived in and the daunting task of compression he set himself.

More surprising than the omissions, is the discovery that a 100-odd-year-old history - now in itself part of history - has so much to offer today. On a simple level, it still does very well what it sets out to do, in providing a readable potted history of human civilisation. But it also has considerable value as one man’s subjective, imperfect, but intelligent and persuasive view of the human story - one with which we can feel free to disagree, but which is sure to provoke a lively intellectual response, rather as a book like Yuval Harari’s Sapiens has done in our own time.

The promising oxymoron in the title coupled with the author's reputation compelled me to give this a long luxurious read ... and look what it did to me ... Nothing. Its a good compendium of what we've been up to last few hundred years but this book is more of a novelty than a textbook, riddled with eurocentric evangelism and whatever comes along with it. Perhaps they should consider renaming the book to indicate its finite content for it comes to an abrupt end right after the first world war, missing some of our juiciest debauchery .

A great primer for anyone interested in world history from the dawn of life up to the early 20th century. Each period is broken down into individual chapters that are no more than 3 pages. Would recommend to young people who have neither the desire or the attention span to read tombs of history.

كتاب موجز تاريخ العالم
طبعه اقلام عربية 2017
الكتاب فى 430 صفحة

عمر ما جالى ملل من اول ما بدات اقرا زى ما جالى من الكتاب ده
توقعت ان الكتاب هيكون رحلة فى تاريخ العالم بالاحداث والتواريخ يخلينى اغوص فى الحدث
انما الكتاب قايم على الحدس وبعض التواريخ والمرور على التواريخ والاحداث مرور الكرام
بيتكلم عن فكرة انشاء العالم وحدفنا ل 500 مليون سنة وسرحت معه
قالى اول حاجه الاسماك وبعدين قد يحرك الاحداث تحريك عقلى باستخدام بعض الحقائق كعلم الجيولوجيا وان النشوء والتطور هو اللى ساهم فى وجود الانسان الحالى اللى هو احنا قعدنا نتطور
دخل الجزء الدينى برضه مرور الكرام بس تعمق فى دور الكنيسه والبابوية ونط على سيرة الاسلام بسرعه شديدة
ممكن تكون الاستفادة من الكتاب ان تحول ترسم صورة عامة قريبة من اللى قاله الكاتب عن بعض الهجارت الجرمانية وقيام الدول واهم جزء قاله هو الحرب العالمية التانية اللى هى اصلا مكنتش خلصت لما الكاتب قعد يهبد فى الكتاب بتاعه
تجربة لا اتمناها لالد اعدائى الكتاب مش وحش اوى كده بس فعلا حاسس انى كبرت اوى اوى وظهرى وجعنى من ام الخيال والتفسير اللى بيقوله الكاتب من وحى خياله
حلو التقييم 2 الاحلى انى خلصت بقالى خمسين سنة بقرا فى الكتاب ده
لقد هرمنا من اجل تلك اللحظة والله

A gentle wind woke it up after sleeping for thousands of a thousand years; a gentle wind swept away its dust and revealed its curious appearance; a gentle wind took me to its side to talk to it. Look through a " A Short History of the World" , a historical analysis book, from one word, one sentence, one page from the Spring and Autumn Period, the Warring States Period, and then to the Qin Dynasty. A few strokes gently outlined have brought over the rise and fall of several countries and the change of dynasties. Looking at this magical empire with a history of more than 5,000 years in China, the connection between its political ruling system and its religious system is well worth exploring. As one of the most powerful countries in the world today, compared with many European countries, China has a great degree of inclusion of religious beliefs. The country allows its people to have the right to freely choose their religion, such as Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, or Catholicism. However, the main and respected religion in China is still Confucianism. So what has contributed to China's now-unique religious system? Looking back at the long river of history, there are several unique historical characteristics of China in the history: 1. Since the Qin Dynasty, China has had a selective recruitment of the bureaucratic class. That is, people became officials to be promoted through the imperial examination.2. China's tradition has a very strong "paternalism," that is, a very serious class system.3. China's position as a general in the court has always been under civil officials. And Confucianism perfectly meets these characteristics and even combines political power and people's conscious power into one. It gives the ruler the legal power to convince people and respect the ruler, and at the same time to regulate the words and deeds of the ruler to make it rule the country in the right way. Especially when Dong Zhongshu and others codified Confucianism, that is, they added the concepts of the three cardinal principles and the five permanent principles to Confucianism. This move has exacerbated the rationalization of the uneven distribution of power. So " Confucianism is a belief made almost entirely for the country. And the country is a symbiotic relationship."On the other hand, Buddhism, Taoism, and other religions, because of their weak ideas and ideas with the state, are not so cohesive in China, so they cannot affect the order of the state and will not interfere in politics. This is one of the reasons why China greatly embraces people's religious choices. I stood on the rocks of time, looking at the distant east when the wind moved when the heart.