“The Story of Mankind” by Hendrick Van Loon is an original and valuable contribution to education. Those who have read little or no history will find here a well-drawn picture of the life of the world and its people from the earliest times we know of. And those who have read much of these things will find the book an acute survey of the whole—a survey which sets off individual races and periods and changes in definite perspective.
Mr. Van Loon’s viewpoint of history and its presentation varies very radically from that of the average historian. History to him is no long list of wars and kings and papal edicts; it is primarily dramatic. Here before you are the greatest plots, intrigues, heroes, heroines, villains that you could ever imagine—now playing a comedy, now a tragedy, now a farce. No wonder you are startled to find your attention so completely held by “an old history book”.
But beneath this we find a more fundamental viewpoint. In the author’s own words you are to “try to discover the hidden motives behind every action and then you will understand the world around you much better and you will have a greater chance to help others, which (when all is said and done) is the only true satisfactory way of living”. Here we have Mr. Van Loon’s ideal as an historian; and the spirit which runs through the book proves how well he lived up to it.
As I turn back over the pages the treatment of three or four subjects is particularly significant. Another of the author’s precepts—“it is more important to ‘feel history’ than to know it”—perhaps explains why the chapters on the religions of the world are so impressive. That on Joshua of Nazareth, when the Greeks called Jesus, is indeed a unique presentation of the story of Christ. And for the first time in my life I feel that Mohammed and Buddha and Confucius have ceased to be names—have become very wise men who actually lived and whose words one may well listen to. Napoleon is criticized very severely, but with unprejudiced insight into his character. The last chapters—those on the Great War and the New World—sum up all that has gone before. Mr. Van Loon turns from his backward glance into the ages and looks with all his optimistic philosophy to the greater drama that is still to be enacted. In all you feel the man’s sympathetic touch; he believes in mankind—in its past and in its future.
W. E. H., JR.
Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard. By Eleanor Farjeon. (Frederick A. Stokes Company.)
In these enlightened days when the past is a memory only and life but the illusion of our daily experience, it is rather startling to have a “grown-up person” talk to us of fairies, and magic spells, and the beauty of an apple orchard. Such things are all very well in the nursery, but really, now that we have grown wise enough to put away childish things—. So let this be a warning to all who by chance might read the first page of “Martin Pippin”, for he who once exposes himself to the magic spell of this fairy tale may well find himself an object for mockery by his scornful companions. At least, here is one man’s experience, and he speaks for many others. Mr. J. D. Beresford, who read the manuscript, writes in the introduction: “Before I had read five pages ... I had forgotten who I was or where I lived. I was transported into a world of sunlight, of gay inconsequence, of emotional surprise, a world of poetry, delight, and humor. And I lived and took my joy in that rare world until all too soon my reading was done.” A better expression could not be found for the fancy, the whimsy, the delicate beauty of this fairy tale. Its spirit touches in us a chord that is rarely awakened in our modern environment or in the literature of to-day.
To clothe her richness of imagination, Miss Farjeon possesses a richness of language most worthy of so high a service. Quite unconsciously you run across striking metaphors, most subtle bits of philosophy. You may look far before discovering quite as beautiful a combination of language and imagination as this:
“‘I am not so old, young shepherd, that I do not remember the curse of youth.’