authoritative; in short, the best-known treatment of the subject.

Meanwhile the general survey, being thus relieved from the necessity of
constant explanation, expansion, and digression, is enabled to flow
straight onward with its story, rapidly, simply, entertainingly. Indeed,
these opening sketches, written especially for this series, and in a
popular style, may be read on from volume to volume, forming a book in
themselves, presenting a bird's-eye view of the whole course of earth,
an ideal world history which leaves the details to be filled in by the
reader at his pleasure. It is thus, we believe, and thus only, that
world history can be made plain and popular. The great lessons of
history can thus be clearly grasped. And by their light all life takes
on a deeper meaning.

The body of each volume, then, contains the Great Events of the period,
ranged in chronological order. Of each event there are given one,
perhaps two, or even three complete accounts, not chosen hap-hazard, but
selected after conference with many scholars, accounts the most accurate
and most celebrated in existence, gathered from all languages and all
times. Where the event itself is under dispute, the editors do not
presume to judge for the reader; they present the authorities upon both
sides. The Reformation is thus portrayed from the Catholic as well as
the Protestant standpoint. The American Revolution is shown in part as
England saw it; and in the American Civil War, and the causes which
produced it, the North and the South speak for themselves in the words
of their best historians.

To each of these accounts is prefixed a brief introduction, prepared for
this work by a specialist in the field of history of which it treats.
This introduction serves a double purpose. In the first place, it