italianopf.blogg.se

Gombrich's goal in the book is summarized in his following words, which appear in the foreword to the book's Turkish edition: Later, the book was banned during the National Socialist (Nazi) regime for being too pacifistic.

Somewhat miraculously, he delivered the text on time, and the book appeared to the public in 1936. He chose his themes based on what seemed to him to be the most influential events in history from a modern perspective, and based upon what remains best remembered. He spent his mornings and afternoons reading in his home and at the library and reserved his evenings for composition. He set himself to the task of writing a chapter a day (with the exception of Sundays, when he would read his work to Ilse Heller, later his wife).

Unsure of his ability to satisfy such a demand, Gombrich, after some convincing, promised to try. Excited about the text, but somewhat pressed for time, Neurath asked Gombrich to produce a complete script in six weeks, so that the book could be printed. Convinced that an intelligent child could understand even seemingly complicated ideas in history, if they were put into intelligible terms, Gombrich composed a sample chapter on the " Ritterzeit" (Time of the Knights), and sent it to the publisher Walter Neurath. It was a great pleasure for Gombrich to explain his doctoral work to the girl, using only words and concepts that children could understand.

Leonie Gombrich explains in the introduction to the English-language edition that Gombrich, writing the last phases of his doctoral thesis, had corresponded with the young daughter of some friends, who wanted to know what he was spending all of his time on at work. Additionally, the book describes the beliefs of many major world religions, including Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam, and incorporates these ideas into its narrative presentation of historical people and events. The short history chronicles human development from the inventions of cavemen to the results of the First World War. It was published in 2005 by Yale University Press. After his death, the translation was completed, according to his wishes, by Caroline Mustill, an assistant to Gombrich from 1995 until his death, and his granddaughter Leonie Gombrich. Gombrich insisted that only he translate the book into English. He was rewriting it for English readers when he died in 2001, at 92, in London. It was written in 1935 in Vienna, Austria, when Gombrich was 26 years old. JSTOR ( December 2009) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)Ī Little History of the World (originally in German, Eine kurze Weltgeschichte für junge Leser) is a history book by Ernst Gombrich.Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources.įind sources: "A Little History of the World" – news This article relies excessively on references to primary sources.