forty books; and we have been making history rather rapidly since
Diodorus' time. Of the many who have more recently attempted his task,
few have improved upon his methods; and the best of these works only
shows upon a larger scale the same dreariness that we have found in
other masters.

Let us then be frank and admit that no one man can make a thoroughly
good world history. No one man could be possessed of the almost infinite
learning required; none could have the infinite enthusiasm to delight
equally in each separate event, to dwell on all impartially and yet
ecstatically. So once more we are forced back upon the same conclusion.
We will take what we already have. We will appeal to each master for the
event in which he did delight, the one in which we find him at his best.

This also has been attempted before, but perhaps in a manner too
lengthy, too exact, too pedantic to be popular. The aim has been to get
in everything. Everything great or small has been narrated, and so the
real points of value have been lost in the multiplicity of lesser facts,
about which no ordinary reader cares or needs to care. After all, what
we want to know and remember are the Great Events, the ones which have
really changed and influenced humanity. How many of us do really know
about them? or even know what they are? or one-twentieth part of them?
And until we know, is it not a waste of time to pore over the lesser
happenings between?

Yet the connection between these events must somehow be shown. They must
not stand as separate, unrelated fragments. If the story of the world is
indeed one, it must be shown as one, not even broken by arbitrary
division into countries, those temporary political constructions, often
separating a single race, lines of imaginary demarcation, varying with