A Little History of the World Read online

  E. H. GOMBRICH

  * * *

  A LITTLE HISTORY

  of

  THE WORLD

  TRANSLATED BY CAROLINE MUSTILL

  YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

  NEW HAVEN AND LONDON

  Für Ilse

  Wie Du stets Dir’s angehört

  Also stets Dir’s angehört

  CONTENTS

  PREFACE

  1 ONCE UPON A TIME

  The past and memory – Before there were any people – Dragon-like creatures – Earth without life – Sun without earth – What is history?

  2 THE GREATEST INVENTORS OF ALL TIME

  The Heidelberg jaw – Neanderthal man – Prehistory – Fire – Tools – Cavemen – Language – Painting – Making magic – The Ice Age and the Early Stone Age – Pile dwellings – The Bronze Age – People like you and me

  3 THE LAND BY THE NILE

  King Menes – Egypt – A hymn to the Nile – Pharaohs – Pyramids – The religion of the ancient Egyptians – The Sphinx – Hieroglyphs – Papyrus – Revolution in the old kingdom – Akhenaton’s reforms

  4 SUNDAY, MONDAY

  Mesopotamia today – The burial sites at Ur – Clay tablets and cuneiform script – Hamurabi’s laws – Star worship – The origin of the days of the week – The Tower of Babel – Nebuchadnezzar

  5 THE ONE AND ONLY GOD

  Palestine – Abraham of Ur – The Flood – Moses’ bondage in Egypt and the year of the departure from Egypt – Saul, David, Solomon – The division of the kingdom – The destruction of Israel – The prophets speak – The Babylonian Captivity – The Return – The Old Testament and faith in the Messiah

  6 I C-A-N R-E-A-D

  Writing with the alphabet – The Phoenicians and their trading posts

  7 HEROES AND THEIR WEAPONS

  The songs of Homer – Schliemann’s excavations – Sea-raider kings – Crete and the labyrinth – The Dorian migration – The songs of the heroes – Greek tribes and their colonies

  8 AN UNEQUAL STRUGGLE

  The Persians and their faith – Cyrus conquers Babylon – Cambyses in Egypt – Darius’s empire – The Ionian revolt – The first Punitive Expedition – The second Punitive Expedition and the Battle of Marathon – Xerxes’ campaign – Thermopylae – The Battle of Salamis

  9 TWO SMALL CITIES IN ONE SMALL LAND

  The Olympic Games – The Delphic Oracle – Sparta and Spartan education – Athens – Draco and Solon – The People’s Assembly and tyrants – The time of Pericles – Philosophy – Sculpture and painting – Architecture – Theatre

  10 THE ENLIGHTENED ONE AND HIS LAND

  India – Mohenjo-Daro, a city from the time of Ur – The Indian migrations – Indo-European languages – Castes – Brahma and the transmigration of souls – ’This is you’ – Prince Gautama – The Enlightenment – Release from sufffering – Nirvana – The followers of the Buddha

  11 A GREAT TEACHER OF A GREAT PEOPLE

  China in the time before Christ – The emperor of China and the princes – The meaning of Chinese writing – Confucius – The importance of practices and customs – The family – Ruler and subject – Lao-tzu – The Tao

  12 THE GREATEST ADVENTURE OF ALL

  The Peloponnesian War – The Delphic War – Philip of Macedon – The Battle of Chaeronea – The decline of the Persian empire – Alexander the Great – The destruction of Thebes – Aristotle and his knowledge – Diogenes – The conquest of Asia Minor – The Gordion Knot – The Battle of Issus – The conquest of Tyre and the conquest of Egypt – Alexandria – The Battle of Gaugamela – The Indian expedition – Porus – Alexander, ruler of the Orient – Alexander’s death and his successors – Hellenism – The library of Alexandria

  13 NEW WARS AND NEW WARRIORS

  Italy – Rome and the myth of Rome’s foundation – Class warfare – The twelve tablets of the law – The Roman character – Rome’s capture by the Gauls – The conquest of Italy – Pyrrhus – Carthage – The First Punic War – Hannibal – Crossing the Alps – Quintus Fabius Maximus – Cannae – The last call to arms – Scipio’s victory over Hannibal – The conquest of Greece – Cato – The destruction of Carthage

  14 AN ENEMY OF HISTORY

  The Emperor Shih Huang-ti of Ch’in – The burning of the books – The princes of Ch’in and the naming of China – The Great Wall of China – The Han ruling family – Learned officials

  15 RULERS OF THE WESTERN WORLD

  Roman provinces – Roads and aqueducts – Legions – The two Gracchi – Bread and circuses – Marius – The Cimbri and the Teutones – Sulla – Gladiators – Julius Caesar – The Gallic Wars – Victory in the civil war – Cleopatra – The reform of the calendar – Caesar’s murder – Augustus and the empire – The arts

  16 THE GOOD NEWS

  Jesus Christ – The teachings of the Apostle Paul – The Cross – Paul preaching to the Corinthians – The cult of the emperor – Nero – Rome burns – The first Christian persecutions – The catacombs – Titus destroys Jerusalem – The dispersal of the Jews

  17 LIFE IN THE EMPIRE AND AT ITS FRONTIERS

  Tenements and villas – Therms – The Colosseum – The Germans – Arminius and the battle in Teutoburg forest – The Limes – Soldiers and their gods – Trajan’s expeditions in Dacia – Marcus Aurelius’s battles near Vienna – Warrior-emperors – The decline of Italy – The spread of Christianity – Diocletian’s reforms – The last Christian persecution – Constantine – The founding of Constantinople – The division of the empire – Christianity becomes the religion of the state

  18 THE STORM

  The Huns – The Visigoths – The Migrations – Attila – Leo the Great – Romulus Augustulus – Odoacer and the end of antiquity – The Ostrogoths and Theodoric – Ravenna – Justinian – The Pandects of Justinian and the Agia Sophia – The end of the Goths – The Lombards

  19 THE STARRY NIGHT BEGINS

  ‘The Dark Ages’? – Belief and superstition – Stylites – Benedictines – Preserving the inheritance of antiquity – The importance of the northern monasteries – Clovis’s baptism – The role of the clergy in the Merovingian kingdom – Boniface

  20 THERE IS NO GOD BUT ALLAH, AND MUHAMMAD IS HIS PROPHET

  The Arabian desert – Mecca and the Kaaba – Muhammad’s background and life – Persecution and flight – Medina – The battle with Mecca – The last sermon – The conquests of Palestine, Persia and Egypt – The burning of the Alexandrian library – The siege of Constantinople – The conquests of North Africa and Spain – The battles of Tours and Poitiers – Arab culture – Arabic numerals

  21 A CONQUEROR WHO KNOWS HOW TO RULE

  The Merovingians and their stewards – The kingdom of the Franks – Charlemagne’s battles in Gaul, Italy and Spain – The Avars – Battles with the Saxons – The Heldenlieder – The crowning of the emperor – Harun al-Rashid’s ambassadors – The division and decline of the Carolingian empire – Svatopluk – The Vikings – The kingdoms of the Normans

  22 A STRUGGLE TO BECOME LORD OF CHRISTENDOM

  East and West in Carolingian times – The blossoming of culture in China – The Magyar invasion – King Henry – Otto the Great – Austria and the Babenbergs – Feudalism and serfdom – Hugh Capet – The Danes in England – Religious appointments – The Investiture Controversy – Gregory VII and Henry IV – Canossa – Robert Guiscard and William the Conqueror

  23 CHIVALROUS KNIGHTS

  Horsemen and knights – Castles – Bondsmen – From noble youth to knight: page, squire, dubbing – A knight’s duties – Minstrelsy – Tournaments – Chivalrous poetry – The Song of the Nibelungen – The First Crusade – Godfrey of Bouillon and the conquest of Jerusalem – The significance of the crusades

  24 EMPERORS IN THE AGE OF CHIVALRY

  Frederick Barbarossa – Barter and the money-based economy – Italian towns – The empire – The resistance and defeat of Milan – The dubbing feast at Mainz – The Third Crusade – Frederick II – Guelphs and Ghibellines – Innocent III – The Magna Carta – Sicily’s rulers – The end of the Hohenstaufens – Ghengis Khan and the Mongol invasion – The lack of an emperor and ‘fist-law’ – The Kyffhäuser legend – Rudolf of Habsburg – Victory over Otakar – The power of the House of Habsburg is established

  25 CITIES AND CITIZENS

  Markets and towns – Merchants and knights – Guilds – Building cathedrals – Mendicant friars and penitential priests – The persecution of Jews and heretics – The Babylonian Captivity of the popes – The Hundred Years War with England – Joan of Arc – Life at court – Universities – Charles IV and Rudolf the Founder

  26 A NEW AGE

  The burghers of Florence – Humanism – The rebirth of antiquity – The flowering of art – Leonardo da Vinci – The Medici – Renaissance popes – New ideas in Germany – The art of printing – Gunpowder – The downfall of Charles the Bold – Maximilian, the Last Knight – Mercenaries – Fighting in Italy – Maximilian and Dürer

  27 A NEW WORLD

  The compass – Spain and the conquest of Granada – Columbus and Isabella – The discovery of America – The modern era – Columbus’s fate – The conquistadores – Hernando Cortez – Mexico – The fall of Montezuma – The Portuguese in India

  28 A NEW FAITH

  The building of the Church of St Peter – Luther’s theses – Luther’s forerunner, Hus – The burning of the papal bull – Charles V and his empire – The sack of Rome – The Diet of Worms – Luther at the Wartburg – The translation of the Bible – Zwingli – Calvin – Henry VIII – Turkish conquests – The division of the empire

  29 THE CHURCH AT WAR

  Ignatius of Loyola – The Council of Trent – The Counter-Reformation – The St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre – Philip of Spain – The Battle of Lepanto – The revolt of the Low Countries – Elizabeth of England – Mary Stuart – The sinking of the Armada – English trading posts in America – The East India Companies – The beginnings of the British empire

  30 TERRIBLE TIMES

  The Defenestration of Prague – The Thirty Years War – Gustavus Adolphus – Wallenstein – The Peace of Westphalia – The devastation of Germany – The persecution of witches – The birth of a scientific understanding of the world – Nature’s laws – Galileo and his trial

  31 AN UNLUCKY KING AND A LUCKY KING

  The Stuart king, Charles I – Cromwell and the Puritans – The rise of England – The year of the Glorious Revolution – France’s prosperity – Richelieu’s policies – Mazarin – Louis XIV – A king’s lever – Versailles – Sources of the government’s wealth – The peasants’ misery – Predatory wars

  32 MEANWHILE, LOOKING EASTWARDS…

  Turkish conquests – Insurrection in Hungary – The siege of Vienna – Jan Sobieski and the relief of Vienna – Prince Eugene – Ivan the Terrible – Peter the Great – The founding of St Petersburg – Charles XII of Sweden – The race to Stralsund – The expansion of Russian might

  33 A TRULY NEW AGE

  The Enlightenment – Tolerance, reason and humanity – Critique of the Enlightenment – The rise of Prussia – Frederick the Great – Maria Theresa – The Prussian army – The Grand Coalition – The Seven Years War – Joseph II – The abolition of serfdom – Overhasty reforms – The American War of Independence – Benjamin Franklin – Human rights and negro slaves

  34 A VERY VIOLENT REVOLUTION

  Catherine the Great – Louis XV and Louis XVI – Life at court – Justice and the landowning nobility – The Rococo – Marie Antoinette – The convocation of the Estates-General – The storming of the Bastille – The sovereignty of the people – The National Assembly – The Jacobins – The guillotine and the Revolutionary Tribunal – Danton – Robespierre – The Reign of Terror – The sentencing of the king – The foreigners defeated – Reason – The Directory – Neighbouring republics

  35 THE LAST CONQUEROR

  Napoleon in Corsica – To Paris – The siege of Toulon – The conquest of Italy – The Egyptian expedition – The coup d’état – The consulate and the Code Napoléon – Emperor of the French – Victory at Austerlitz – The end of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation – Francis I – The Continental System – Victory over Russia – Spain and the War of Spanish Resistance – Aspern and Wagram – The German uprising – The Grande Armée – The retreat from Moscow – The Battle of Leipzig – The Congress of Vienna – Napoleon’s return from Elba – Waterloo – St Helena

  36 MEN AND MACHINES

  The Biedermeier era – Steam engines, steamships, locomotives, the telegraph – Spinning machines and mechanical looms – Coal and iron – Luddites – Socialist ideas – Marx and his theory of class war – Liberalism – The revolutions of 1830 and 1848

  37 ACROSS THE SEAS

  China before 1800 – The Opium war – The Taiping Rebellion – China’s submission – Japan in 1850 – Revolution in support of the Mikado – Japan’s modernisation with foreign assistance – America after 1776 – The slave states – The North – Abraham Lincoln – The Civil War

  38 TWO NEW STATES IN EUROPE

  Europe after 1848 – The Emperor Franz Josef and Austria – The German Confederation – France under Napoleon III – Russia – Spain’s decline – The liberation of the peoples of the Balkans – The fight for Constantinople – The kingdom of Sardinia – Cavour – Garibaldi – Bismarck – The reform of the army in defiance of the constitution – The Battle of Königgrätz – Sedan – The founding of the German empire – The Paris Commune – Bismarck’s social reforms – Dismissal of the Iron Chancellor

  39 DIVIDING UP THE WORLD

  Industry – Markets and sources of raw materials – Britain and France – The Russo-Japanese War – Italy and Germany – The race to mobilize – Austria and the East – The outbreak of the First World War – New weapons – Revolution in Russia – The American intervention – The terms of peace – Scientific advance – End

  40 THE SMALL PART OF THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD WHICH I HAVE LIVED THROUGH MYSELF: LOOKING BACK

  The growth of the world’s population – The defeat of the central-European powers during the First World War – The incitement of the masses – The disappearance of tolerance from political life in Germany, Italy, Japan and Soviet Russia – Economic crisis and the outbreak of the Second World War – Propaganda and reality – The murder of the Jews – The atomic bomb – The blessings of science – The collapse of the Communist system – International aid efforts as a reason for hope

  PREFACE

  c. 1935.

  My grandfather, Ernst Gombrich, is best known as an art historian. Besides many important academic publications, his popular introduction to art history, The Story of Art, has made him known to millions of readers around the world. But had it not been for A Little History of the World, The Story of Art would never have been written.

  To understand how it happened – and why this, his very first book, has never appeared in English until now despite being available in eighteen other languages – we need to start in Vienna in 1935, when my grandfather was still a young man.

  After Ernst Gombrich had finished his studies at the University of Vienna, he was unemployed and, in those difficult times, without prospect of a job. A young publisher with whom he was acquainted asked him to take a look at a particular English history book for children, with a view to translating it into German. It was intended for a new series called Wissenschaft für Kinder (’Knowledge for Children’) and had been sent by a mutual friend who was studying medicine in London.

  My grandfather was not impressed by what he read: so little so that he told the publi sher – Walter Neurath who later founded the publishing house Thames & Hudson in England – that it was probably not worth translating. ‘I think I could write a better one myself,’ he said. To which Neurath responded that he was welcome to submit a chapter.

  It so happened that, in the final stages of writing his doctoral thesis, my grandfather had been corresponding with a little girl who was the daughter of some friends. She wanted to know what was keeping him so busy, and he enjoyed trying to explain his subject to her in ways she would understand. He was also, he said later, feeling a little impatient with academic writing, having waded through so much of it in the course of his studies, and was convinced that it should be perfectly possible to explain most things to an intelligent child without jargon or pompous language. So he wrote a lively chapter on the age of chivalry and submitted it to Neurath – who was more than happy with it. ‘But,’ he said, ‘in order to meet the schedule that was intended for the translation, I will need a finished manuscript in six weeks’ time.’