Wow, where to start? This book was originally published in 1921, and covers a very general history of the world up to that time. There were a lot of things that surprised me about it. For one thing, I assumed the author would have different (more "old-fashioned") ideas. I expected some slant, but the direction of the slant was a surprise. The author comes across as what we would probably describe today as fairly liberal. He clearly disagreed with the US's decision to enter WWI; and was not impressed with President Wilson's "Fourteen Points". He seemed to think that the peace treaty was forced upon Europe by the US. I found this view interesting.

Having recently finished listening to a series of lectures on CD called "Everything You've Been Taught is Wrong" (based on the book Lies My Teacher Told Me by Prof. James Loewen), I kind of expected to see a lot of what he calls "bad history" and "bad sociology" - as most people writing history books have tended to base their research on other historians' work rather than doing research with primary materials, some pieces of information got passed along as fact that were not true. However, I did not see much of this that I recognized in this book, possibly because it focuses on the world in general, rather than the US specifically. Except for the claim that Columbus discovered America (p. 301); and even that is followed up by van Loon noting the fact that Vikings were here centuries before Columbus.

Some things I found quite relevant to today, and I found it interesting that the author chose to include them in his work. Some examples:

p. 79: "The Greeks, before everything else, wanted to be 'free,' both in mind and body. That they might maintain their liberty, and be truly free in spirit, they reduced their daily needs to the lowest possible point." What a lovely thought, and something to strive for, at least for me!
P 175-176: Discusses the importance of progress and not being "sentimental about the Good Old Days."
P 254: Firmly states that no one believed the earth was flat - going back to Dr. Loewen - this is one of those things I was taught in elementary school and it's just not true. I was happy to see that van Loon, at least, did not perpetuate this myth.
p 239-240: van Loon predicts that dependence on sea travel will soon change to dependence on air travel
P 250: [Christians of the western world] "came to the easy conclusion that these strange divinities were just plain devils who ... did not deserve the respect of the true sons of the Church... That system had certain very definite disadvantages. It has left us an unpleasant heritage of ill-will which promises litttle good for the immediate future." This was specifically referring to Buddhism and Confucianism, but can't it easily be applied to other non-Christian religions?

I found this book very interesting, though it took me a while to get through it! It was written in an engaging and appealing style that was not too dry and boring. I enjoyed the drawings too.

I read an updated edition that came out in 1984. However, I didn't read all the extra chapters, since they weren't in the edition that received the Newbery Medal!