The Outline of History, subtitled either "The Whole Story of Man" or "Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind", is a work by H. G. Wells chronicling the history of the world from the origin of the Earth to the First World War. It appeared in an illustrated version of 24 fortnightly installments beginning on 22 November 1919 and was published as a single volume in 1920.[1][2] It sold more than two million copies, was translated into many languages, and had a considerable impact on the teaching of history in institutions of higher education.[3] Wells modelled the Outline on the Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot.[4]
Many revised versions were published during Wells's lifetime, and the author kept notes on factual corrections which he received from around the world. The last revision which was published during his lifetime was published in 1937.
In 1949, an expanded version was produced by Raymond Postgate, who extended the narrative so it could include the Second World War, and later, he published another version which extended the narrative up to 1969. Postgate wrote that "readers wish to hear the views of Wells, not those of Postgate," and he endeavoured to preserve Wells's voice throughout the narrative. In later editions G. P. Wells, the author's son, updated the early chapters about prehistory in order to make them reflect current theories: previous editions had, for instance, given credence to Piltdown Man before it was exposed as a hoax. The final edition appeared in 1971, but earlier editions are still in print.
Organization of the work
The third revised and rearranged edition is organized in chapters whose subjects are as follows:
From Neolithic times (12,000–10,000 years ago, by Wells's estimation) "[t]he history of mankind ... is a history of more or less blind endeavours to conceive a common purpose in relation to which all men may live happily, and to create and develop a common stock of knowledge which may serve and illuminate that purpose."[5]
Recurrent conquest of civilization by nomads
Wells was uncertain whether to place "the beginnings of settled communities living in towns" in Mesopotamia or Egypt.[6] He was equally unsure whether to consider the development of civilization as something that arose from "the widely diffused Heliolithic Neolithic culture" or something that arose separately.[7] Between the nomadic cultures that originated in the Neolithic Age and the settled civilizations to the south, he discerned that "for many thousands of years there has been an almost rhythmic recurrence of conquest of the civilizations by the nomads."[8] According to Wells, this dialectical antagonism reflected not only a struggle for power and resources, but a conflict of values: "Civilization, as this outline has shown, arose as a community of obedience, and was essentially a community of obedience. But ... [t]here was a continual influx of masterful will from the forests, parklands, and steppes. The human spirit had at last rebelled altogether against the blind obedience of the common life; it was seeking ... to achieve a new and better sort of civilization that should also be a community of will."[9] Wells regarded the democratic movements of modernity as an aspect of this movement.[10]
Development of free intelligence
Wells saw in the bards who were, he believed, common to all the "Aryan-speaking peoples" an important "consequence of and a further factor in [the] development of spoken language which was the chief factor of all the human advances made in Neolithic times. ... they mark a new step forward in the power and range of the human mind," extending the temporal horizons of the human imagination.[11] He saw in the ancient Greeks another definitive advance of these capacities, "the beginnings of what is becoming at last nowadays a dominant power in human affairs, the 'free intelligence of mankind'."[12] The first individual he distinguishes as embodying free intelligence is the Greek historian Herodotus.[13] The Hebrew prophets and the tradition they founded he calls "a parallel development of the free conscience of mankind."[14] Much later, he singles out Roger Bacon as a precursor of "a great movement in Europe ... toward reality" that contributed to the development of "intelligence".[15] But "[i]t was only in the eighties of the nineteenth century that this body of inquiry began to yield results to impress the vulgar mind. Then suddenly came electric light and electric traction, and the transmutation of forces, the possibility of sending power ... began to come through to the ideas of ordinary people."[16]
Rejection of racial or cultural superiority
Although a few passages in The Outline of History reflect racialist thinking, Wells firmly rejected all theories of racial and civilizational superiority. On the subject of race, Wells writes that "Mankind from the point of view of a biologist is an animal species in a state of arrested differentiation and possible admixture ... [A]ll races are more or less mixed.".[17] As for the claim that Western minds are superior, he states that upon examination "this generalization ... dissolves into thin air."[18]
Omitted aspects of world history
A number of themes are downplayed in The Outline of History: Ancient Greek philosophy and Roman law figure among these. Others are altogether absent, in spite of Wells's own intellectual attachment to some of them: romanticism, the concept of the Age of Enlightenment and feminism, for example.
Composition of the work
Wells's methodology
In the years leading up to the writing of The Outline of History, Wells was increasingly preoccupied by history, as many works testify. (See, for example, The New Machiavelli, Marriage, An Englishman Looks at the World, The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman, Mr. Britling Sees It Through, etc.) During World War I, he tried to promote a world history to be sponsored by the League of Nations Union, of which he was a member. But no professional historian would commit to undertake it, and Wells, in a financially sound position thanks to the success of Mr. Britling Sees It Through and believing that his work would earn little, resolved to devote a year to the project. His wife Catherine (Jane) agreed to be his collaborator in typing, research, organization, correspondence, and criticism. Wells relied heavily on the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed., 1911), and standard secondary texts. He made use of the London Library, and enlisted as critical readers "a team of advisers for comment and correction, chief among them Ernest Barker, Harry Johnston, E. Ray Lankester, and Gilbert Murray. The sections were then rewritten and circulated for further discussion until Wells judged that they had reached a satisfactory standard."[19] The bulk of the work was written between October 1918 and November 1919.
In 1927 a Canadian, Florence Deeks, sued Wells for infringement of copyright and breach of trust. She claimed that he had plagiarized much of the content of The Outline of History from her work, The Web of the World's Romance. She had submitted her manuscript to the Canadian publisher Macmillan Canada, which was Wells's Canadian publisher. Macmillan Canada had the manuscript for nearly nine months before rejecting it.
At trial in the Supreme Court of Ontario, Deeks called called three literary academics as experts, who testified that the content and structure of the two books showed that Wells must have relied on Deeks's manuscript in writing The Outline of History. Wells testified, and denied that he had ever seen Deeks's manuscript, while representatives from Macmillan testified that the manuscript had never left Canada. The trial judge rejected Deeks's expert evidence and dismissed the case.[20] An appeal to the Ontario Appellate Division was dismissed,[21] as was a final appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council,[22] at that time the highest court of appeal for the British Empire.[23]
In 2000, A. B. McKillop a professor of history at Carleton University, Ottawa, wrote a book entitled The Spinster & the Prophet: Florence Deeks, H. G. Wells, and the Mystery of the Purloined Past, which examined the legal case brought by Deeks. McKillop's thesis was that Deeks did not receive fair treatment from the courts, which he argued heavily favoured men at that time, both in Canada and in Britain.[24]
In 2004 Denis N. Magnusson, professor emeritus in the Faculty of Law, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, published an article on Deeks v. Wells in the Queen's Law Journal. He took issue with McKillop's position, arguing that Deeks had a weak case that was not well presented, and though she may have met with sexism from her lawyers, she did receive a fair trial. He argued that the law applied in the case was essentially the same law that would be applied to a similar case in 2004.[23]
Reception
The Outline of History has inspired responses from the serious to the parodic.
Edward Shanks described The Outline as "a wonderful book". However, he also criticized what he saw as Wells's "impatience" and stated "it is an unfortunate fact that Mr. Wells often seems to find himself in the position of scold to the entire human race".[26]
In 1926 Hilaire Belloc wrote "A Companion to Mr. Wells's Outline of History". A devout Catholic, Belloc was deeply offended by Wells's treatment of Christianity in The Outline of History. Wells wrote a short book in rebuttal called Mr. Belloc Objects to "The Outline of History". In 1926, Belloc published his reply, Mr. Belloc Still Objects.[29]
Mr. H. G. Wells's The Outline of History was received with unmistakable hostility by a number of historical specialists. ... They seemed not to realize that, in re-living the entire life of Mankind as a single imaginative experience, Mr. Wells was achieving something which they themselves would hardly have dared to attempt ... In fact, the purpose and value of Mr. Wells's book seem to have been better appreciated by the general public than by the professional historians of the day.[30]
Toynbee went on to refer to The Outline several times in A Study of History, offering his share of criticism but maintaining a generally positive view of the book.
After Wells's death The Outline was still the object of admiration from historians A. J. P. Taylor (who called it "the best" general survey of history) and Norman Stone, who praised Wells for largely avoiding the Eurocentric and racist attitudes of his time.[32]
In his autobiography Christopher Isherwood recalled that when he and W. H. Auden encountered Napoleon's tomb on a 1922 school trip to France, their first reaction was to quote The Outline's negative assessment of the French ruler.[33]
Malham Wakin, head of the philosophy department at the United States Air Force Academy, encouraged his students to consider and challenge a statement made by Wells in The Outline of History: "The professional military mind is by necessity an inferior and unimaginative mind; no man of high intellectual quality would willingly imprison his gifts in such a calling."[34][35]
In Dashiell Hammett's 1930 book The Maltese Falcon Casper Gutman says, "These are facts, historical facts, not schoolbook history, not Mr. Wells's history, but history nevertheless."
In Virginia Woolf's posthumously published 1941 novel Between the Acts the character Lucy Swithin reads a book entitled The Outline of History.
In John Huston's 1941 film The Maltese Falcon Kasper Gutman played by Sydney Greenstreet says "These are facts, historical facts, not schoolbook history, not Mr. Wells's history, but history nevertheless."[37]
In Fredric Brown's 1949 science-fiction novel What Mad Universe the protagonist finds himself transported to an alternate universe. Finding a copy of Wells's Outline of History, it turns out to be identical to the one he knows until 1903, at which point the alternate Wells records the invention of anti-gravity, a fast human expansion into space, a brutal war for the conquest of Mars which Wells strongly denounces, followed by a titanic conflict with Arcturus.
In Satyajit Ray's 1959 film The World of Apu the book, wrapped in a white cloth cover with only the title visible, is seen on the bookshelf of the protagonist Apurba Roy.
In John Updike's 1961 story "Pigeon Feathers" the young protagonist finds a copy of Outline of History and is surprised and disturbed by Wells's descriptions of Jesus. Updike describes Wells's account of Jesus as:
He had been an obscure political agitator, a kind of hobo, in a minor colony of the Roman Empire. By an accident impossible to reconstruct, he (the small h horrified David) survived his own crucifixion and presumably died a few weeks later. A religion was founded on the freakish incident. The credulous imagination of the times retrospectively assigned miracles and supernatural pretensions to Jesus; a myth grew, and then a church, whose theology at most points was in direct contradiction of the simple, rather communistic teachings of the Galilean.[38]
William Golding used Wells's description of the Neanderthals as a basis in creating his own Neanderthal tribe in his 1955 novel, The Inheritors.[39]
↑ Michael Sherborne, H.G. Wells: Another Kind of Life (Peter Owen, 2010), p. 252.
↑ Michael Sherborne, H.G. Wells: Another Kind of Life (Peter Owen, 2010), p. 252-53; David C. Smith, H.G. Wells: Desperately Mortal: A Biography (Yale University Press, 1986), pp. 258–60.
↑ H.G. Wells, World Brain, Garden City, Doubleday Doran, 1938 (p. 20).
↑ H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, 3rd ed. rev. (NY: Macmillan, 1921), p. 104 (Ch. XI, §6).
↑ H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, 3rd ed. rev. (NY: Macmillan, 1921), p. 131 (Ch. XIV, §1).
↑ H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, 3rd ed. rev. (NY: Macmillan, 1921), pp. 131–32 (Ch. XIV, §1).
↑ H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, 3rd ed. rev. (NY: Macmillan, 1921), p. 246 (Ch. XX, §3).
↑ H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, 3rd ed. rev. (NY: Macmillan, 1921), p. 843 (Ch. XXVI, §5).
↑ H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, 3rd ed. rev. (NY: Macmillan, 1921), pp. 842–43 (Ch. XXVI, §5).
↑ H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, 3rd ed. rev. (NY: Macmillan, 1921), p. 243 (Ch. XX, §2).
↑ H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, 3rd ed. rev. (NY: Macmillan, 1921), p. 204 (Ch. XVIII, §3) (emphasis in original).
↑ H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, 3rd ed. rev. (NY: Macmillan, 1921), p. 202 (Ch. XVIII, §3).
↑ H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, 3rd ed. rev. (NY: Macmillan, 1921), p. 234 (Ch. XIX, §4).
↑ H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, 3rd ed. rev. (NY: Macmillan, 1921), pp. 729–33 (Ch. XXXIV, §6).
↑ H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, 3rd ed. rev. (NY: Macmillan, 1921), p. 927 (Ch. XXXVIII, §1).
↑ H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, 3rd ed. rev. (NY: Macmillan, 1921), p. 110 (Ch. XII, §§1–2).
↑ H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, 3rd ed. rev. (NY: Macmillan, 1921), p. 556 (Ch. XXX, §8).
↑ Michael Sherborne, H.G. Wells: Another Kind of Life (Peter Owen, 2010), p. 252.
1 2 Magnusson, Denis N. (Spring 2004). "Hell Hath No Fury: Copyright Lawyers' Lessons from Deeks v. Wells". Queen's Law Journal. 29: 680, 684.
↑ A.B. McKillop, The Spinster and the Prophet (Four Walls Eight Windows, 2000).
↑ Michael Sherborne, H.G. Wells: Another Kind of Life (Peter Owen, 2010)
↑ Edward Shanks, "The Work of Mr. H.G. Wells". London Mercury, March–April 1922. Reprinted in Patrick Parrinder, H.G. Wells: The Critical Heritage. London; Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1997. ISBN0415159105 (p.255-257)
↑ Michael Sherborne, H.G. Wells: Another Kind of Life (Peter Owen, 2010)
↑ Dale, Alzina Stone, The Outline of Sanity: A Biography of G.K. Chesterton Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1982. ISBN9780802835505 (p. 248)
↑ Michael Sherborne, H.G. Wells: Another Kind of Life (Peter Owen, 2010).
↑ Toynbee, A.J. A Study of History, Vol I, Oxford University Press, 1934.
↑ Nehru, Jawaharlal. Glimpses of World History, vii. New York City: John Day Company, 1942.
↑ Michael Sherborne, H.G. Wells: Another Kind of Life (Peter Owen, 2010)
↑ Isherwood, Christopher, Lions and Shadows, 1938. New English Library edition, 1974, pg. 18.
↑ Updike, John (2003). The Early Stories 1953–1975. New York: Random House. p.14. ISBN0-345-46336-6. Note, however, that Wells does not assert (at least in the 3rd revised edition of The Outline of History) that Jesus "survived his own crucifixion and presumably died a few weeks later"; rather, Wells says that after Jesus's death and burial "presently came a whisper among [the disciples] and stories, rather discrepant stories..." (see Ch. XXIX, §4).
Alexander Brian McKillop, known as A. B. McKillop or Brian McKillop, is Distinguished Research Professor and former Chancellor's Professor and Chair of the history department (2005–2009) of Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
A Modern Utopia is a 1905 novel by H. G. Wells.
This Misery of Boots is a 1907 political tract by H. G. Wells advocating socialism. Published by the Fabian Society, This Misery of Boots is the expansion of a 1905 essay with the same name. Its five chapters condemn private property in land and means of production and calls for their expropriation by the state "not for profit, but for service."
Mr. Belloc Objects to "The Outline of History" is a 1926 short book written by the British novelist H. G. Wells as a rebuttal of the criticism of historian Hilaire Belloc. In 1926, Belloc published his A Companion to Mr. Wells's "Outline of History" as a critique of Wells' earlier historical textbook, The Outline of History. A devout Roman Catholic, Belloc was deeply offended by Wells' treatment of Christianity in The Outline.
The Wonderful Visit is an 1895 novel by H. G. Wells. With an angel—a creature of fantasy unlike a religious angel—as protagonist and taking place in contemporary England, the book could be classified as contemporary fantasy, although the genre was not recognised in Wells's time. The Wonderful Visit also has strong satirical themes, gently mocking customs and institutions of Victorian England as well as idealistic rebellion itself.
A Short History of the World is an account of human history by English author H. G. Wells. It was first published in 1922 by Cassell & Company (London) and The Macmillan Company. The book was preceded by Wells's fuller 1919 work The Outline of History, and was intended "to meet the needs of the busy general reader, too driven to study the maps and time charts of that Outline in detail, who wishes to refresh and repair his faded or fragmentary conceptions of the great adventure of mankind."
The Story of a Great Schoolmaster is a 1924 biography of Frederick William Sanderson (1857–1922) by H. G. Wells. It is the only biography Wells wrote. Sanderson was a personal friend, having met Wells in 1914 when his sons George Philip ('Gip'), born in 1901, and Frank Richard, born in 1903, became pupils at Oundle School, of which Sanderson was headmaster from 1892 to 1922. After Sanderson died, while giving a lecture at University College London, at which he was introduced by Wells, the famous author agreed to help produce a biography to raise money for the school. But in December 1922, after disagreements emerged with Sanderson's widow about his approach to the subject, Wells withdrew from the official biography and published his own work separately.
The Passionate Friends is a 1913 coming of age novel by H. G. Wells detailing the life and travels of a young man. It is notable as the first introduction of Wells's notion of an "open conspiracy" of individuals to achieve a world state.
The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman is a 1914 novel by H. G. Wells.
An Englishman Looks at the World is a 1914 essay collection by H. G. Wells containing journalistic pieces written between 1909 and 1914. The book consists of twenty-six pieces ranging from five to sixty-two pages in length. An American edition was published the same year by Harper and Brothers under the title Social Forces in England and America.
Bealby: A Holiday is a 1915 comic novel by H. G. Wells.
The Undying Fire, a 1919 novel by H. G. Wells, is a modern retelling of the story of Job. Like the Book of Job, it consists of a prologue in heaven, an exchange of speeches with four visitors, a dialogue between the protagonist and God, and an epilogue in which the protagonist's fortunes are restored. The novel is dedicated "to All Schoolmasters and Schoolmistresses and every Teacher in the World."
Experiment in Autobiography is an autobiographical work by H. G. Wells, originally published in two volumes. He began to write it in 1932, and completed it in the summer of 1934.
A Year of Prophesying collects 55 newspaper columns written by H. G. Wells in 1923 and 1924.
The Bulpington of Blup is a 1932 novel by H. G. Wells. It is a character study analyzing the psychological sources of resistance to Wellsian ideology, and was influenced by Wells's acquaintance with Carl Gustav Jung and his ideas.
Joan and Peter, a 1918 novel by H. G. Wells, is at once a satirical portrait of late-Victorian and Edwardian England, a critique of the English educational system on the eve of World War I, a study of the impact of that war on English society, and a general reflection on the purposes of education. Wells regarded it as "one of the most ambitious" of his novels.
Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human Life and Thought, generally known as Anticipations, was written by H.G. Wells at the age of 34. He later called the book, which became a bestseller, "the keystone to the main arch of my work." His most recent biographer, however, calls the volume "both the starting point and the lowest point in Wells's career as a social thinker."
Mankind in the Making (1903) is H.G. Wells's sequel to Anticipations (1901). Mankind in the Making analyzes the "process" of "man's making," i.e. "the great complex of circumstances which mould the vague possibilities of the average child into the reality of the citizen of the modern state." Taking an aggressive tone in criticizing many aspects of contemporary institutions, Wells proposed a doctrine he called "New Republicanism," which "tests all things by their effect upon the evolution of man."
Florence Amelia Deeks (1864–1959) was a Canadian teacher and writer. She is known for accusing British writer H. G. Wells of having plagiarized her work when he wrote The Outline of History. The case was eventually taken to the Judicial Committee of the British Privy Council, the highest court of appeal for in the British Empire, which rejected her claim.
Deeks v Wells was a Canadian court case between a Canadian writer, Florence Deeks, and the English writer, H.G. Wells. Deeks alleged that Wells had plagiarised from her draft book, The Web of the World's Romance, in writing his own book, The Outline of History, thereby breaching her copyright. She also alleged breach of trust by the Canadian, American, and British Macmillan publishing companies. The case was finally decided in favour of Wells by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, at that time the highest court of appeal for the British Empire, including Canada.
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