Hendrik van Loon

A CHAPTER OF ART

WHEN a baby is perfectly healthy and has had enough to eat and has slept all it wants, then it hums a little tune to show how happy it is. To grown-ups this humming means nothing. It sounds like ``goo-zum, goo-zum, goo-o-o-o-o,'' but to the baby it is perfect music. It is his first contribution to art.

MEANWHILE THE INDO-EUROPEAN TRIBE OF THE HELLENES WAS TAKING POSSESSION OF GREECE

HOW CHARLEMAGNE, THE KING OF THE FRANKS, CAME TO BEAR THE TITLE OF EMPEROR AND TRIED TO REVIVE THE OLD IDEAL OF WORLD-EMPIRE

HOW THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE ``DIVINE RIGHT'' OF KINGS AND THE LESS DIVINE BUT MORE REASONABLE ``RIGHT OF PARLIAMENT'' ENDED DISASTROUSLY FOR KING CHARLES II

CAESAR, the earliest explorer of north-western Europe, had crossed the Channel in the year 55 B.C. and had conquered England. During four centuries the country then remained a Roman province. But when the Barbarians began to threaten Rome, the garrisons were called back from the frontier that they might defend the home country and Britannia was left without a government and without protection.

A CHAPTER WHICH OUGHT TO GIVE YOU A GREAT DEAL OF POLITICAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE LAST FIFTY YEARS, BUT WHICH REALLY CONTAINS SEVERAL EXPLANATIONS AND A FEW APOLOGIES

THE GREEK CITIES THAT WERE REALLY STATES

WE modern people love the sound of the word ``big.'' We pride ourselves upon the fact that we belong to the ``biggest'' country in the world and possess the ``biggest'' navy and grow the ``biggest'' oranges and potatoes, and we love to live in cities of ``millions'' of inhabitants and when we are dead we are buried in the ``biggest cemetery of the whole state.''

WHY THE PEOPLE OF THE TENTH CENTURY PRAYED THE LORD TO PROTECT THEM FROM THE FURY OF THE NORSEMEN

IN the third and fourth centuries, the Germanic tribes of central Europe had broken through the defences of the Empire that they might plunder Rome and live on the fat of the land. In the eighth century it became the turn of the Germans to be the ``plundered-ones.'' They did not like this at all, even if their enemies were their first cousins, the Norsemen, who lived in Denmark and Sweden and Norway.

IN FRANCE ON THE OTHER HAND THE ``DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS'' CONTINUED WITH GREATER POMP AND SPLENDOUR THAN EVER BEFORE AND THE AMBITION OF THE RULER WAS ONLY TEMPERED BY THE NEWLY INVENTED LAW OF THE ``BALANCE OF POWER''

THE GREAT WAR WHICH WAS REALLY THE STRUGGLE FOR A NEW AND BETTER WORLD

THE Marquis de Condorcet was one of the noblest characters among the small group of honest enthusiasts who were responsible for the outbreak of the great French Revolution. He had devoted his life to the cause of the poor and the unfortunate. He had been one of the assistants of d'Alembert and Diderot when they wrote their famous Encyclopedie. During the first years of the Revolution he had been the leader of the Moderate wing of the Convention.

by Hendrik van Loon