“There is one criticism that I should like to make. Mr Wells has written political history and overlooked economic facts.... One cannot help wishing that Mr Wells had restrained his enthusiasm a little by omitting Book 1, and thus clipping off several hundred million years from the period which he was seeking to cover. He might also have eliminated Book 2 on ‘The making of man.’ I am glad that there was someone in the English-speaking world brave enough and earnest enough and with enough leisure time to write it.” Scott Nearing
+ − N Y Call p8 N 29 ’20 1500w
“It is eminently readable. Mr Wells could not write dull if he tried to. The first impression made by his volumes is deepened by their study. It is that Mr Wells has undertaken a task too great for his powers and equipment. Mr Wells has, of course, read widely and industriously. Yet his sources are plainly meagre. They are almost exclusively English.”
− + N Y Times p1 N 14 ’20 2550w
“Certain sections—the early chapters upon the origin of the earth and of man upon the earth, the part dealing with the rise and spread of Buddhism, for examples—are excellent when read by themselves.” E. L. Pearson
+ Review 3:558 D 8 ’20 60w
“Most of us think of history only in terms of the records of particular nations, races or periods. Mr Wells ventures on a far bolder conception—viewing all human history as one whole. If the work did nothing more than to fix definitely this new viewpoint it would be worth while.”
+ R of Rs 63:111 Ja ’21 220w
“High-school history teachers and students will read the work with profit. They certainly come more nearly being world-history than any previous work in the field.”
+ School R 29:155 F ’21 900w + Spec 122:698 N 22 ’19 190w