Hendrik William Van Loon - The Story of Mankind - mp3+pdf)[MP3] download

When I picked up the first newbery medal book, The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem Van Loon it was not what I expected. My first thought was how huge the book was and how it could possibly be written for a childrens audience. After sitting down and reading the first few chapters I began to understand it's writing style and unique way of representing history.

He did a good job covering what he did in the very large timeframe he had to work with, which was the time from which man (or a creature more or less resembling man) has been on this earth. I imagine it must have taken a lot of time and patience to cover all of this material, not to mention the numerous hand drawn illustrations and maps.

In the foreward the author talks of a visit to the tower of Old St. Lawrence in Rotterdam that he took in his younger years. After climbing to the top of the tower he looks down and remembers all the history making moments that happened in the busy streets below where people were going about their business in their normal fashion. He finds this trip very rewarding and returns many more times. He then gives us the "key" that will open the door of history for us.

The first half of this book is a lot easier to read than the second half. It made me remember a lot of history stories I had learned from school and I also learned many other facts and stories I did not know before.

This book reads more like a story than a history book. The book does not try to give an account of everything that has happend in the history of mankind. It tries to explains certain significant events, that without them the world would not be how it is today. The books talks about how we have become who we are today, from being men and women concerned only about finding food and shelter to using our brain to make tools. It talks about the origin of writing and the importance of being able to write down thoughts and ideas. This book focuses on how and and most importantly why things happened the way they did.

I enjoyed reading how man has evolved into the present day. I particularly enjoyed the chapters about the revolutions and how people over came the rich and corrupt governments to become independent people and nations.

Most of the chapters read just like a story. There are others however, like National Independence and Colonial Expansion and War, that are very confusing and you have to be very focused on reading them so you don't miss anything. When I say confusing I mean that there are too many people, dates, and countries to remember and this makes it difficult (even as an adult) to follow.

The goal of this book is to try to give you a taste of history and I believe the author has done just that. He really tries not to let his own views and perspectives bias the book, and he does a good job of making history fun for the most part. Overall it's a good read but I really doubt many children would pick it up and read it.

“Why should I ever read fairy stories, when the truth of history is so much more interesting and entertaining?”

Imagine my surprise when I first went in search of Hendrik Willem Van Loon’s The Story of Mankind, the first winner of the Newbery Award, and stumbled onto a history tome of 500+ pages (in its “updated” state). I was not prepared for this. My brief dalliance with the Newbery Award has always been with fiction and considering the seeming shortage of children’s nonfiction I never appreciated the idea that the Newbery list may be more expansive.

First published in 1921, The Story of Mankind is a children’s history beginning with the first cells that would contribute to the initial plants and animals on Earth through the beginning of the United Nations. The Story of this work is that it’s largely written in a narrative style that reads very much as verbatim classroom lecture or simply as an adult explaining aspects of history to a child. Nearly every page is decorated with a map, illustrated timeline, or simple sketch to further enlighten the passages. Perhaps this doesn’t appear too impressive compared to modern children’s history texts, but I’m sure it was quite a staggering accomplishment for the period.

Seth Lerer describes The Story of Mankind as “rich with engaging anecdotes, clear judgments, and precise chronology” and “It gives us history that is accurate, clear, and organized.” And all of these things are true but it is the “clear judgments” that I find most troubling. Though I am only up to the chapter on the English revolution, it’s blatant that The Story of Mankind is not the most objective work of nonfiction and threads of racism and intolerance trickle throughout the texts. (Admittedly Van Loon passed prior to post-colonial studies developing into a force to be reckoned with.)

It’s ironic though that within the book Van Loon dedicates space to the idea of intolerance, “For tolerance (and please remember this when you grow older), is of very recent origin and even the people of our own so-called ‘modern world’ are apt to be tolerant only upon such matters a do not interest them very much.” I would still give Van Loon a great deal of credit on writing a children’s history that during the time must have very much complimented other historical and nonfiction writings. It’s an idealist book that focuses exclusively on the events that leads the reader unquestioningly to the development of the modern United States. Throughout the text the reader is not often required to consider the “rightness” or “wrongness” of situations as Van Loon provides a “clear judgment” of events.


This book is problematic for the modern reader in part because it was originally published in 1921 and, like every other book attempting an all-encompassing view of history, it promises more than it can ever possibly deliver. Van Loon is a subjective writer and certain racist, hegemonic, and imperialist attitudes crop up throughout the book. And as other authors writing such a vast history, it just doesn’t work. The Story of Mankind is the story of historical events that led to the formation of the modern United Nations and doesn’t spend a great deal of time outside of Europe and the United States of America (unless other countries were briefly useful in colonization that led to the formation of the United Nations).

The Story of Mankind does work in its narrative features to deliver history and what in 1921 would have been the rather progressive look at using illustrations to instruct and enliven history for children. I was asked by Julie regarding current (if any) usage of The Story of Mankind, and while I would never argue for sole usage of this text a comparative look between this and a more recent study of history would certainly have some validity.

I must say that I am still intrigued by the presence of The Story of Mankind on the Newbery list and particularly as it was the first book to win the award. Returning to Children’s Literature, Seth Lerer describes some of the books attributes for the Newbery category: “rich with engaging anecdotes, clear judgments, and precise chrononology,” a “history that is accurate, clear, and organized,” it “is history as a social lesson,” it’s a vivid book written with clarity and optimism that from “hard work and struggle” leads to “a good feeling of success.” And I suppose that it is these categorizes that continue to filter down through the years when selecting the Newbery titles.

https://www.zxproxy.com/browse.php?u=f392007594b041d028cOi8vYnAzLmJsb2dnZXIuY29tL19NMGc4UkFwR19INC9TRmdlXzRndXZpSS9BQUFBQUFBQUFYTS9yNHZlNHlidDVxNC9zNDAwL3Rzb20uanBn&b=6The Story of Mankind" />
No, I'm not talking about a history of the internet. Here are a couple of links to online editions of the first Newbery winner - The Story of Mankind, by Hendrik Willem van Loon, which won the medal in 1922 - at this Prize-Winning Books Online page produced by a University of Pennsylvania librarian. The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, by Hugh Lofting (1923 winner) and several early Newbery Honors books can also be found through this link, along with lots of early Pulitzer and Nobel prize winners.

is the title of an interesting article by Michelle F. Bayuk, who did what we're doing now: she read all of the Newbery winners. And it only took her twenty months!

I nodded and chuckled over her likes and dislikes, and wondered how I missed the bit about glaciers in The Story of Mankind. (I have to check that out next time I'm at the library).

I actually found this article while Googling for reviews and more information on my latest least favorite Newbery Award winner: James Daugherty's Daniel Boone (the 1940 medalist, on which Bayuk also made a few choice comments). But I'm going to save my comments on Daugherty's Boone for my review.

As I just wrote to a fellow Newbery Project member, the best thing about this book is knowing that it's all downhill from here. I can't imagine any of the other winners will be such a drag! Others have already given this a thorough review. I concur with their sentiments. But also, being a compulsive type, I couldn't participate in the project without starting at the beginning and reading every freaking word of it.

Mission accomplished. Onward and upward.

I had high hopes for this book - my undergraduate and graduate degrees before my MLS were in European History, so this seemed like a natural to me. And overall I enjoyed the book and learned a few tidbits from history which were presented in a way that children might enjoy and understand. IF they could get through the whole, long, long litany of facts. The lighthearted, cautionary, teaching style that I liked in the book were often abandoned for lengthy litanies of dates and names - the very things that turn most children off in History class.

But like earlier posts, I had a great time finding my favorite quotes and I hope you will indulge me in my own list:

Nile Valley: The history of man is the record of a hungry creature in search of food. (22). And I thought that was only my history!

Moses: no quote - just one word - peregrinations (38) - I must admit I need to look this one up.

Greek Life: The Greeks, before everything else, wanted to be "free," both in mind and in body. That they might maintain their librerty, and be truly free in spirit, they reduced their daily needs to the lowest possible point. (70)

The Medieval World: Dates are a very useful invention. We could not do without them but unless we are very careful, they will play tricks with us. They are apt to make history too precise. And later: On the other hand, when you grow up you will discover that some of the people in this world have never passed beyond the stage of the cave-man. (191)

The Renaissance: The Renaissance was not a political or religious movement. It was a state of mind. (206)

The Renaissance: Let us be happy and cheerful for the mere joy of existence. (215)

The Age of Expression: I loved the discussion of Brother Thomas and his work "Imitation of Christ" and while I think I have read parts of this work before, I asked my husband to check it out for me at our main library. The quote from the book is: And it was the work of a man whose highest ideal of existence was expressed in the simple wish that "he might quietly spend his days sitting in a little corner with a little book." (221)

Religious Warfare: For tolerance (and please remember this when you grow older), is of very recent origin and even the people of our own so-called "modern world" are apt to be tolerant only upon such matters as do not interest them very much. (264) And ain't that the truth?!

The Holy Alliance: (my favorite) I want you to learn something more from this history than a mere succession of facts. I want you to approach all historical events in a frame of mind that will take nothing for granted. Don't be satisfied with the mere statement that "such and such a thing happened then and there." 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 truly satisfactory way of living. (370)

The Age of the Engine: Indeed one of the most interesting chapters of history is the effort of man to let some one else do his work for him ... (403)

The Age of Science: Indeed it has come to pass that many of the ills of this world, which out ancestors regarded as inevitable "acts of God," have been exposed as manifestations of our own ignorance and neglect. (431) Will we never learn this??

Art: People begin to understand that Rembrandt and Beethoven and Rodin are the true prophets and leaders of their race and that a world without art and happiness resembles a nursery without laughter. (445)

A New World: But it is very difficult to give a true account of contemporary events. The problems that fill the minds of the people with whom we pass through life, are our own problems, and they hurt us too much or they please us too well to be described with that fairness which is necessary when we are writing history and not blowing the trumpet of propaganda. (458) This brings me to another question - in a graduate history class on the Old South, we argued whether or not it was possible to write history about another race and have it be valid and true??? If not, then is van Loon correct about current history?

The United States Comes of Age: No history of America's role in world affairs can overlook the Judas kiss given this country by our motion pictures. By portraying and glorifying our riches and our free-and-easy ways these pictures built in the minds of the common people everywhere an exaggerated concept of America that was to come home to roost. (485) I am not sure we can blame this kiss solely on the movie industry - maybe our own arrogance is more the problem.

Isolationism and Appeasement: Speaking of the Munich agreement which allowed Germany to invade Czechoslovakia in 1938. One of the most shameful betrayals in history was cheered at the time by millions with sighs of relief. (503) (truest statement in the book! - or the closest to my heart)

Now for just one or two final comments in closing. I must admit that the final chapters not written by van Loon were disappointing. I mean how do you discuss World War II without a full discussion of the Holocaust - I do not remember seeing anything about it in this book. Even so, I loved the grandfatherly tone of the book and thought individual chapters might be useful - even today - to present historical events in a different light. All in all, an interesting week's read.

Flusi

First, I've got a load of information about Hendrik Van Loon from that Newbery and Caldecott Trivia book by Claudette Hegel, so you're all going to get some of it.

According to Hegel, The Story of Mankind won the Newbery in 1922 by a popular vote. It "was the landslide winner with 163 votes while 14 other books received a combined total of 49 votes" (p. 48). However, "Libraries in at least half of the states refused to stock The Story of Mankind because of author Hendrik Van Loon's discussion of evolution" (p. 53). Ha ha, that gives it something in common with this year's winner, what with the great scrotum brouhaha.

Hendrik Van Loon made friends with Franklin Delano Roosevelt while both were at Harvard (Van Loon was later a guest at the White House), and he became an American citizen the same year that The Story of Mankind was published. TSoM was a huge success for Van Loon - it was apparently the second best-selling nonfiction book of 1922, and 9th in the list for 1923. Hegel also mentions that it probably made about half a million dollars for Van Loon, or the equivalent of several million today. My "new and enlarged edition", published in 1962, includes six chapters written by Willem Van Loon (Hendrik's son) in 1951, covering the years from 1923-1950.

Anyway, I think I liked this book more than most of the other reviewers. Partially because I only skimmed many of the chapters in the middle, and partially because I have a fairly high tolerance for outdated history (as befits someone who used to work as an archaeologist?).

TSoM was terribly sexist and Eurocentric. It was all about 'man'; even famous women (like Elizabeth I of England) were rarely mentioned, although there was a passage about mothers passing on culture to their children. I guess that isn't too surprising for 1922, though. Van Loon's view of history was largely an account of 'man discovers this and that', which always reminds me of Clan of the Cave Bear (Ayla discovers riding and agriculture and penicillin and I can't remember what else). My favorite description of this in TSoM is the description of the origin of cooking:

"And then one evening a dead chicken fell into the fire. It was not rescued until it had been well roasted. Man discovered that meat tasted better when cooked and he then and there discarded one of the old habits which he had shared with the other animals and began to prepare his food" (p. 16...and wouldn't you think that women might have had something to do with the evolution of cooking? A dead chicken fell into the fire??).

The rest of Van Loon's history is diffusion - of people and ideas and tools. From archaeology, I know this idea was big in the 20's. I did think it was curious that he put Egypt earlier than Mesopotamia - not what is known today, but maybe the dating was off back then. Neither the Americas nor Asia nor Africa get any credit for any social, political, or economic evolution of their own (i.e., "civilization"), though historians and archaeologists in these areas today concentrate much of their efforts on understanding the independent processes of such things. In fact, in the chapter on the American Revolution (which summarizes the European colonization of North America), Van Loon actually says that "Only a very small part of this vast domain was inhabited" (p. 329). Well, except for all those Indians who don't bear mention.

But again, I think this shows how differently people thought about these things in the 20's. One of the passages I really liked describes this very issue:

It is very difficult to understand the people of by-gone ages. Your own grandfather, whom you see every day [note this major difference from today! SD], is a mysterious being who lives in a different world of ideas and clothes and manners. I am now telling you the story of some of your grandfathers who are twenty-five generations removed, and I do not expect you to catch the meaning of what I write without re-reading this chapter a number of times (p. 162).

No one has really described the drawings - also by Van Loon - which were as quirky and sometimes charming as the rest of the book. I think Van Loon liked the pictures himself, since he includes a quote from Alice in Wonderland on the page after the title page (with a picture!):

"What is the use of a book without pictures?" said Alice.

Some of the his cartoonish illustrations were quite modern, if a bit dark - I particularly liked "Propaganda", in the chapter on WWI.

The index was rather disappointing - for instance, there was no entry for slavery or slaves, but there was one for emancipation. But at least it had an index, which I think is important in a 500+ page non-fiction book.

I liked the short chapters. Although (like both Bekah and Catherine) I simply cannot imagine either of my children reading this, at least without major coercion or bribery, I can imagine my grandfather reading this to my father in the 1930's - maybe a chapter every evening. I'm not sorry that I took a look at it, although I was a bit taken aback by Van Loon's conclusion - rather surprising for a history book:

This does not mean that we are absolutely certain about the road that now lies before us. Most likely we will follow a dozen wrong tracks before we find the right direction. And in the meantime we are fast learning one very important lesson - that the future belongs to the living and that the dead ought to mind their own business.

I'm working (slowly!) on a post about The Story of Mankind, but meanwhile I thought I'd post about a related book that I got from inter-library loan today: Newbery and Caldecott Trivia and More for Every Day of the Year, by Claudette Hegel (2000). I've been busy sticking post-its in all the spots where there is something interesting about Hendrik Van Loon, like the entry for October 23:

Hendrik Van Loon (The Story of Mankind, 1922 Newbery Medal) was once seriously injured in a boat explosion.

In addition to the daily trivia (three facts for every day of the year: one about a Caldecott winner, one about a Newbery winner, and one on some other famous piece of children's literature , and a "born on this day" author if there is one), the book has a very detailed name index, title index, references for all of the facts provided, and two appendices: one listing all the Newbery winners and Honor books (formerly known as "runners up"), and one listing all the Caldecott winners and Honor books. I just wish that the book was more recent and covered the books and authors from the last seven years. And that it was more widely available - my copy came from a university library on the other side of the state.

Here's the entry for today, February 22:

Illustrator Wesley Dennis was asked to alter his illustration of the Newgate Jail in King of the Wind (1949 Newbery Medal) because it looked too nice, "like a library." Dennis cheerfully revised the illustrations that he previously had been afraid to make too scary.

Author Arthur Yorinks used his profits from Hey, Al! (1987 Caldecott Medal) to buy property in rural Nova Scotia. Many birds inhabit the area.

J.M. Barrie sent the manuscript for Peter Pan to his publisher in an untidy brown-paper parcel without even a cover letter saying the work was for publication.

I'll try and post some trivia in the comments for each book as long as I'm allowed to keep Hegel's book. Heck, I might have to buy it - I've been fascinated by the bits and pieces that I've just read today. And Wesley Dennis is one of my favorite illustrators ever - here's a post I did last year, gushing about him, with examples of his work. I actually remember reading King of the Wind (and most of the other Marguerite Henry books) as a child. I think I might pick that for my next read.

I trudged through TSOM because that is just the kind of nerd that I am. Mostly I found the book painfully anachronistic. But some parts do parlay onto today's events in a sort of semi-humorous way. I doubt either of my kids will ever read it (unless participating in a NP of his or her own). The book is so inundated with van Loon's personality -- I bet he was really something. I wonder if he strove to be a hero* or if he was just happy to memorialize historical "heroes".


"For history is like life. The more things change, the more they remain the same." (Chapter, Charlemagne)

"After more than two thousand years, the mothers of India still frighten their naughty children by telling them that 'Iskander will get them,' and Iskander is none other than Alexander the Great, who visited India in the year 330 before the birth of Christ, but whose story lived through all these ages." (Chapter, Pope vs. Emperor)

"But there were other smells of the barnyard variety--odors of decaying refuse which had been thrown into the street--of pig-sties surrounding the Bishop's palace--of unwashed people who had inherited their coats and hats from their grandfathers and who never learned the blessing of soap." (Chapter, The Medieval City)

Savonarola's Tale (Chapter, The Renaissance)

"Again I wish that I could make this book a thousand pages long." (Chapter, The Great Discoveries)

"And the sea once more shall be the undisturbed home of the little fishes, who once upon a time shared their deep residence with the earliest ancestors of the human race." (Chapter, The Great Discoveries)

"People began to ask questions. And questions, when they cannot be answered, often cause a great deal of trouble." (Chapter, The Reformation)

"Philip was the son of Charles and a Portuguese princess who had been first cousin to her own husband. The children that are born of such a union are apt to be rather queer." (Chapter, Religious Warfare)

"If you can export more to your neighbor than he exports to your own country, he will owe you money and will be obliged to send you some of his gold." (Chapter, The Mercantile System)

"[W]e begin to understand those anxious British mothers who used to drive their children to bed with the threat that 'Bonaparte, who ate little girls and boys for breakfast, would come and get them if they were not very good.'" (Chapter, Napoleon)

Illustration of "The Monroe Doctrine" (Chapter, National Independence). Best considered with: "The Prophet promised that those who fell, facing the enemy, would go directly to Heaven . . . it explains why even to-day Moslem soldiers will charge into the fire of European machine guns quite indifferent to the fate that awaits them and why they are such dangerous and persistent enemies." (Chapter, Mohammed)

"[R]evolutionary weather-cock of Europe . . ." (Chapter, National Independence)

"[A] new coat of glory-paint." (Chapter, National Independence)

"Oscar Wilde once quipped, 'As long as war is regarded as wicked it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.' If he had substituted the word 'unprofitable' for 'vulgar' he would have come even closer to the truth." (Chapter, The United Nations)

*"And the moral of the story is a simple one. The world is in dreadful need of men who will assume the new leadership . . . Some day, a man will arise who will bring the vessel safely to port, and he shall be the hero of the ages." (Chapter, A New World)

The author states that it is important for children to know what came before in order that they can understand what they read in the newspapers today. This is as true now as at any time, and I find van Loon's goals commendable in other ways. Seeing history as a story is valuable for children; knowing that history is the story of ourselves should cause us to relate to the characters as living players rather than vague and strange names written on a page. In some of the early chapters, this is done more or less succesfully. As history progresses, though, man becomes more competent at keeping records, leaving us more names, and more confusion.

I think what this book suffers from, is that it tries to do too much. The span is too great, or it tries to tell about too many people in a particular era, or tries to simplify the context too greatly. For my children, I would choose a book with this sort of purpose (to create a fluid referential timeline in story form) for pretty young elementary children. But this book strangely drops names that that age would not identify, with little background with which to incorporate them into the story. Perhaps children in the 20's would have already known these names. But I rather doubt it. So, instead the age appropriateness of the book shifts into a range in which I would desire a deeper analysis of either particular periods of history, or particular individuals.

There is also a general feeling of disdain for religion that I don't find appealing for children, as well as editorializing interjected into the flow of events that end up convoluting the story by placing the end into the middle.

However, if as an adult, you received a sort of peicemeal approach to history, instead of flowing from early events into the modern, you may indeed find some value in this book, if only read in a cursory way. It does give you a world-wide scope of what is going on in many places at the same time.

If this had been the first Newbery book I'd read, I think I would have formed the opinion that the award was purposed to lead children to the books adults believe they should be reading, rather than books that are of outstanding quality that children desire to read. For my children, my goal is to encourage them to enjoy reading, while giving them quality and enjoyable literature. This book may be quality, but if I gave it to my kids (the nearly 10 and 7yos), I fear they'd cry!

Julie's experience with The Story of Mankind got me thinking about this whole Newbery award. Who was Newbery? Why did they start the award? What are they (who are they?) looking for in a Newbery book?

Inquiring minds want to know. (At least, my inquiring mind wanted to know.)

So, to save you all the legwork, I did a bit of it myself.

John Newbery (1713-1767) was a jack of all trades, mostly involving books. He operated a bookshop in London called The Bible and Sun (love that name!). He published books, he commissioned books, he founded magazines. He even wrote a book in 1744: A Little Pretty Pocket-Book. This became the first in a series of books aimed at entertaining and educating young people. By the end of his life, he'd written several more.

But he didn't found the Newbery award.

That honor goes to Frederic G. Melcher, a co-editor of Publisher's Weekly in the early 1900s. In 1920, he started publishing issues devoted to children's books, and in 1921, he proposed to the American Library Association in 1921 that they give out an award to honor children's books. In his original proposal, the purpose of the Newbery was

"To encourage original creative work int he field of books for children. To emphasize to the public that contributions to the literature for children deserve similar recognition to poetry, plays or novels. To give those librarians, who make it their life work to serve children's reading interests, and opportunity to encourage good writing in this field."

(As an interesting side note, Melcher also came up with the Caldecott medal idea, too.)

The award criteria for a Newbery Medal is as follows: The committee members need to consider the interpretation of the theme or concept; the presentation of the information; the development of plot; the delineation of characters; delineation of setting; an appropriateness of style. (Though not necessarily in all of the elements, but it should be excellent in all the qualities pertaining to the book -- the reason why poetry and biography books can win.) They need to consider excellence of presentation for a child audience. They need to consider each book as a contribution to literature. And, my favorite part: "The award is not for didactic intent or for popularity."(I found this information here.)

So. There you have it. I thought it would clear up why The Story of Mankind won. It doesn't, though, does it? All I can do is assume that standards of excellence and presentation for a child audience were different in 1922 then they are today.