I easily imagined that I was a child listening to Grandfather Gombrich telling me history stories at bedtime Ralph Cosham does his usual fine reading here: nothing fancy, just an appealing and accurate and fluid manner and voice. However, it is so well-written and so engaging and so humane that reading it will make readers think more about what it means to be human and will inspire readers to become interested in history. This is a concise book! There are many absences! England and America and Asia are not given nearly as much coverage compared to Europe. And the introduction by his granddaughter interestingly recounts how Gombrich came to write A Little History and The Story of Art. The last chapter is fascinating and moving, covering as it does Gombrich's changing awareness of the history he experienced as a Jewish citizen of Austria who had to emigrate to England, the aftermath of World War I and the horror of World War II.
He also vividly expresses the vast scale of pre-history and the small scale of human history to make readers appreciate their bracingly tiny places in the big scheme of things. He also does a fine job of demonstrating the subjectivity of history by showing the different sides people have taken of the same events (as in the aftermath of World War I). He effectively tells both the positive and negative sides to the famous historical figures and cultures he describes. He presents complicated situations and difficult concepts in simple terms without over-simplifying, as when he explains Buddha's enlightenment or the Protestant Reformation. I found A Little History to be an excellent introductory history book for children (and adults), because it is filled with Gombrich's deep humanity, curious mind, wide-ranging knowledge, disarming candor, charming humor, avuncular voice, and passionate commitment to history and learning. A note about that religious history: in the context of an already short book, Gombrich's discussion of non-Western religious traditions is by no means skimpy: it's an outline, but a relaxed and anecdotal outline, and it shows a decidedly sympathetic and open mind.Ī Humane and Engaging Introduction to History Ralph Cosham is the perfect narrator for this, so much so that I kept confusing him in my mind with the author. It's particularly useful in emphasizing aspects of European history that many other short histories of the world gloss over or rush through. But if you go into it knowing what it is, it's a gem of a book, presenting the history of those areas of the world in a lucid, engaging, and graceful manner. There's a bit about India and China, mostly in the context of religious history (Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism) but it's mostly about the Mediterranean and western and northern Europe. It's true, as others have said here, that this is mainly a history of the WESTERN world.
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