''The Story of Mankind'' is a book written and illustrated by Dutch-American journalist, professor, and author

Hendrik Willem van Loon Hendrik Willem van Loon (January 14, 1882 – March 11, 1944) was a Dutch-American historian, journalist, and children's book author. Life He was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, the son of Hendrik Willem van Loon and Elisabeth Johanna Hanken. ...

. It was published in 1921. In 1922, it was awarded the

Newbery Medal The John Newbery Medal, frequently shortened to the Newbery, is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), to the author of "the most distinguished cont ...

for an outstanding contribution to

children's literature Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader. Children's ...

. This was the first year the Newbery Medal was awarded. Written for Van Loon's children, ''The Story of Mankind'' tells in brief chapters the

history of Western civilization Western civilization traces its roots back to Europe and the Mediterranean. It is linked to ancient Greece, the Roman Empire and with Medieval Western Christendom which emerged from the Middle Ages to experience such transformative episodes as ...

, beginning with primitive man, covering the development of

writing Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically inscribed, mechanically transferred, or digitally represented symbols. Writing systems do not themselves constitute h ...

, art, and

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

, the rise of major religions, and the formation of the modern

nation-state A nation state is a political unit where the state and nation are congruent. It is a more precise concept than "country", since a country does not need to have a predominant ethnic group. A nation, in the sense of a common ethnicity, may in ...

. Van Loon explains in the book how he selected what and what not to include by subjecting all materials to the question "Did the person or event in question perform an act without which the entire history of civilization would have been different?". Van Loon published an updated edition in 1926 which included an extra essay, "After Seven Years", about the effects of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

and another update in 1938 with a new

epilogue An epilogue or epilog (from Greek ἐπίλογος ''epílogos'', "conclusion" from ἐπί ''epi'', "in addition" and λόγος ''logos'', "word") is a piece of writing at the end of a work of literature, usually used to bring closure to the ...

. Since Van Loon's death in 1944, extensive additions were included in ''The Story of Mankind'', initially by van Loon's son, Gerrit van Loon. The 2014 version () by Robert Sullivan covers events up to the early 2010s.

Adaptation

In 1957, a feature film with the same title was released, based on the book. It stars

Ronald Colman Ronald Charles Colman (9 February 1891 – 19 May 1958) was an English-born actor, starting his career in theatre and silent film in his native country, then immigrating to the United States and having a successful Cinema of the United States, ...

and an all-star cast, featuring, among others, the

Marx Brothers The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act that was successful in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in motion pictures from 1905 to 1949. Five of the Marx Brothers' thirteen feature films were selected by the American Film Institute (AFI) ...

References

External links

Plain text.
''The Story of Mankind''
available at

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

. Scanned, illustrated books. * 1921 children's books 20th-century history books Children's books adapted into films Children's history books Newbery Medal–winning works Universal history books {{child-hist-book-stub