EBOOK ANCIENT MAN ***
Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Sjaani and PG Distributed Proofreaders
ANCIENT MAN
THE BEGINNING OF CIVILIZATIONS
BY HENDRIK WILLEM VAN LOON
1922
DEDICATION To HANSJE AND WILLEM.
My darling boys,
You are twelve and eight years old. Soon you will be grown up. You will
leave home and begin your own lives. I have been thinking about that
day, wondering what I could do to help you. At last, I have had an idea.
The best compass is a thorough understanding of the growth and the
experience of the human race. Why should I not write a special
history for you?
So I took my faithful Corona and five bottles of ink and a box of
matches and a bale of paper and began to work upon the first volume. If
all goes well there will be eight more and they will tell you what you
ought to know of the last six thousand years.
But before you start to read let me explain what I intend to do.
I am not going to present you with a textbook. Neither will it be a
volume of pictures. It will not even be a regular history in the
accepted sense of the word.
I shall just take both of you by the hand and together we shall wander
forth to explore the intricate wilderness of the bygone ages.
I shall show you mysterious rivers which seem to come from nowhere and
which are doomed to reach no ultimate destination.
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