Indespensible Resource

H.G. Wells' superb Outline of History is available online as a big Word file on Scribd. Although a little out of date and certainly guilty of an Anglo-centric bias, it is no less guilty of presenting a passionate humanist world view. Here is an example. See how history repeats itself.

All Europe and America, stirred by the first promise of a new age, was waiting for him. Not France alone. France was in his hand, his instrument, to do with as he pleased, willing for peace, but tempered for war like an exquisite sword. There lacked nothing to this great occasion but a noble imagination. And failing that, Napoleon could do no more than strut upon the crest of this great mountain of opportunity like a cockerel on a dunghill. The figure he makes in history is one of almost incredible self-conceit, of vanity, greed, and cunning, of callous contempt and disregard of all who trusted him, and of a grandiose aping of Caesar, Alexander, and Charlemagne, which would be purely comic if it were not caked over with human blood.

That's good stuff.