= The_Outline_of

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= The_Outline_of_History =
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Introduction
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'The Outline of History', subtitled either "The Whole Story of Man" or
"Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind", is a work by H. G. Wells
chronicling the history of the world from the origin of the Earth to
the First World War. It appeared in an illustrated version of 24
fortnightly installments beginning on 22 November 1919 and was
published as a single volume in 1920. It sold more than two million
copies, was translated into many languages, and had a considerable
impact on the teaching of history in institutions of higher education.
Wells modelled the 'Outline' on the 'Encyclopédie' of Denis Diderot.

Revised editions
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Many revised versions were published during Wells's lifetime, and the
author kept notes on factual corrections which he received from around
the world. The last revision which was published during his lifetime
was published in 1937.

In 1949, an expanded version was produced by Raymond Postgate, who
extended the narrative so it could include the Second World War, and
later, he published another version which extended the narrative up to
1969. Postgate wrote that "readers wish to hear the views of Wells,
not those of Postgate," and he endeavoured to preserve Wells's voice
throughout the narrative. In later editions G. P. Wells, the author's
son, updated the early chapters about prehistory in order to make them
reflect current theories: previous editions had, for instance, given
credence to Piltdown Man before it was exposed as a hoax. The final
edition appeared in 1971, but earlier editions are still in print.

Organization of the work
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The third revised and rearranged edition is organized in chapters
whose subjects are as follows:

History as a quest for a common purpose
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From Neolithic times (12,000-10,000 years ago, by Wells's estimation)
"[t]he history of mankind . . . is a history of more or less blind
endeavours to conceive a common purpose in relation to which all men
may live happily, and to create and develop a common stock of
knowledge which may serve and illuminate that purpose."

Recurrent conquest of civilization by nomads
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Wells was uncertain whether to place "the beginnings of settled
communities living in towns" in Mesopotamia or Egypt. He was equally
unsure whether to consider the development of civilization as
something that arose from "the widely diffused Heliolithic Neolithic
culture" or something that arose separately. Between the nomadic
cultures that originated in the Neolithic Age and the settled
civilizations to the south, he discerned that "for many thousands of
years there has been an almost rhythmic recurrence of conquest of the
civilizations by the nomads." According to Wells, this dialectical
antagonism reflected not only a struggle for power and resources, but
a conflict of values: "Civilization, as this outline has shown, arose
as a community of obedience, and was essentially a community of
obedience. But . . . [t]here was a continual influx of masterful will
from the forests, parklands, and steppes. The human spirit had at last
rebelled altogether against the blind obedience of the common life; it
was seeking . . . to achieve a new and better sort of civilization
that should also be a community of will." Wells regarded the
democratic movements of modernity as an aspect of this movement.

Development of free intelligence
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Wells saw in the bards who were, he believed, common to all the
"Aryan-speaking peoples" an important "consequence of and a further
factor in [the] development of spoken language which was the chief
factor of all the human advances made in Neolithic times. . . . they
mark a new step forward in the power and range of the human mind,"
extending the temporal horizons of the human imagination. He saw in
the ancient Greeks another definitive advance of these capacities,
"the beginnings of what is becoming at last nowadays a dominant power
in human affairs, the 'free intelligence of mankind'." The first
individual he distinguishes as embodying free intelligence is the
Greek historian Herodotus. The Hebrew prophets and the tradition they
founded he calls "a parallel development of the free conscience of
mankind." Much later, he singles out Roger Bacon as a precursor of "a
great movement in Europe . . . toward reality" that contributed to the
development of "intelligence". But "[i]t was only in the eighties of
the nineteenth century that this body of inquiry began to yield
results to impress the vulgar mind. Then suddenly came electric light
and electric traction, and the transmutation of forces, the
possibility of sending 'power' . . . began to come through to the
ideas of ordinary people."

Rejection of racial or cultural superiority
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Although a few passages in 'The Outline of History' reflect racialist
thinking, Wells firmly rejected all theories of racial and
civilizational superiority. On the subject of race, Wells writes that
"Mankind from the point of view of a biologist is an animal species in
a state of arrested differentiation and possible admixture . . . [A]ll
races are more or less mixed.". As for the claim that Western minds
are superior, he states that upon examination "this generalization . .
. dissolves into thin air."

Wells's methodology
=====================
In the years leading up to the writing of 'The Outline of History',
Wells was increasingly preoccupied by history, as many works testify.
(See, for example, 'The New Machiavelli', 'Marriage', 'An Englishman
Looks at the World', 'The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman', 'Mr. Britling
Sees It Through', etc.) During World War I, he tried to promote a
world history to be sponsored by the League of Nations Union, of which
he was a member. But no professional historian would commit to
undertake it, and Wells, in a financially sound position thanks to the
success of 'Mr. Britling Sees It Through' and believing that his work
would earn little, resolved to devote a year to the project. His wife
Catherine (Jane) agreed to be his collaborator in typing, research,
organization, correspondence, and criticism. Wells relied heavily on
the 'Encyclopædia Britannica' (11th ed., 1911), and standard secondary
texts. He made use of the London Library, and enlisted as critical
readers "a team of advisers for comment and correction, chief among
them Ernest Barker, Harry Johnston, E. Ray Lankester, and Gilbert
Murray. The sections were then rewritten and circulated for further
discussion until Wells judged that they had reached a satisfactory
standard." The bulk of the work was written between October 1918 and
November 1919.

Rejected allegations of plagiarism
====================================
In 1927 a Canadian, Florence Deeks, sued Wells for infringement of
copyright and breach of trust. She claimed that he had plagiarized
much of the content of 'The Outline of History' from her work, 'The
Web of the World's Romance'. She had submitted her manuscript to the
Canadian publisher Macmillan Canada, which was Wells's Canadian
publisher. Macmillan Canada had the manuscript for nearly nine months
before rejecting it.

At trial in the Supreme Court of Ontario, Deeks called called three
literary academics as experts, who testified that the content and
structure of the two books showed that Wells must have relied on
Deeks's manuscript in writing 'The Outline of History'. Wells
testified, and denied that he had ever seen Deeks's manuscript, while
representatives from Macmillan testified that the manuscript had never
left Canada. The trial judge rejected Deeks's expert evidence and
dismissed the case. An appeal to the Ontario Appellate Division was
dismissed, as was a final appeal to the Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council, at that time the highest court of appeal for the
British Empire.

In 2000, a professor of history at Carleton University, Ottawa, wrote
a book entitled 'The Spinster & the Prophet: Florence Deeks, H. G.
Wells, and the Mystery of the Purloined Past', which examined the
legal case brought by Deeks. McKillop's thesis was that Deeks did not
receive fair treatment from the courts, which, he argued, heavily
favoured men at that time, both in Canada and in Britain.

In 2004 Denis N. Magnusson, professor emeritus in the Faculty of Law,
Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, published an article on 'Deeks
v. Wells' in the 'Queen's Law Journal'. He took issue with McKillop's
position, arguing that Deeks had a weak case that was not well
presented, and though she may have met with sexism from her lawyers,
she did receive a fair trial. He argued that the law applied in the
case was essentially the same law that would be applied to a similar
case in 2004.

Reception
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'The Outline of History' has inspired responses from the serious to
the parodic.

* In 1921 Algonquin Round Table member Donald Ogden Stewart achieved
his first success with a satire entitled 'A Parody Outline of
History'.
* 'The Outline of History' was praised on publication by E. M. Forster
and Beatrice Webb.
*Edward Shanks described 'The Outline' as "a wonderful book". However,
he also criticized what he saw as Wells's "impatience" and stated "it
is an unfortunate fact that Mr. Wells often seems to find himself in
the position of scold to the entire human race".Edward Shanks, "The
Work of Mr. H.G. Wells". 'London Mercury', March-April 1922. Reprinted
in Patrick Parrinder, 'H.G. Wells : The Critical Heritage'.
London; Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1997. (p.255-257)
* American historians James Harvey Robinson and Carl Becker lauded the
'Outline' and hailed Wells as "a formidable ally".
* In 1925 G. K. Chesterton, wrote 'The Everlasting Man', a critique of
'The Outline of History' from a Catholic perspective.Dale, Alzina
Stone, 'The Outline of Sanity : A Biography of G.K. Chesterton'
Grand Rapids, Mich. : Eerdmans, 1982. (p. 248)
* In 1926 Hilaire Belloc wrote "A Companion to Mr. Wells's 'Outline of
History'". A devout Catholic, Belloc was deeply offended by Wells's
treatment of Christianity in 'The Outline of History'. Wells wrote a
short book in rebuttal called 'Mr. Belloc Objects to "The Outline of
History".' In 1926, Belloc published his reply, 'Mr. Belloc Still
Objects'.
* In 1934 Arnold J. Toynbee dismissed the criticism of 'The Outline of
History' and praised Wells's work in his 'A Study of History': Mr. H.
G. Wells's 'The Outline of History' was received with unmistakable
hostility by a number of historical specialists. . . . They seemed not
to realize that, in re-living the entire life of Mankind as a single
imaginative experience, Mr. Wells was achieving something which they
themselves would hardly have dared to attempt ... In fact, the purpose
and value of Mr. Wells's book seem to have been better appreciated by
the general public than by the professional historians of the day.
Toynbee went on to refer to 'The Outline' several times in 'A Study of
History', offering his share of criticism but maintaining a generally
positive view of the book.
*Also in 1934 Jawaharlal Nehru stated that 'The Outline of History'
was a major influence on his own work, 'Glimpses of World History'.
* After Wells's death 'The Outline' was still the object of admiration
from historians A. J. P. Taylor (who called it "the best" general
survey of history) and Norman Stone, who praised Wells for largely
avoiding the Eurocentric and racist attitudes of his time.
* In his autobiography Christopher Isherwood recalled that when he and
W. H. Auden encountered Napoleon's tomb on a 1922 school trip to
France, their first reaction was to quote 'The Outline's' negative
assessment of the French ruler.
*Malham Wakin, head of the philosophy department at the United States
Air Force Academy, encouraged his students to consider and challenge a
statement made by Wells in 'The Outline of History': "The professional
military mind is by necessity an inferior and unimaginative mind; no
man of high intellectual quality would willingly imprison his gifts in
such a calling."

Censorship
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'The Outline of History' was one of the first of Wells' books to be
banned in Nazi Germany.

In popular culture
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* In Dashiell Hammett's 1930 book 'The Maltese Falcon' Casper Gutman
says, "These are facts, historical facts, not schoolbook history, not
Mr. Wells's history, but history nevertheless." The line was repeated
by Sydney Greenstreet playing Kasper Gutman in John Huston's 1941 film
'The Maltese Falcon'.
* In Virginia Woolf's posthumously published 1941 novel 'Between the
Acts' the character Lucy Swithin reads a book entitled 'The Outline of
History'.
* In Fredric Brown's 1949 science-fiction novel 'What Mad Universe'
the protagonist finds himself transported to an alternate universe.
Finding a copy of Wells's 'Outline of History', it turns out to be
identical to the one he knows until 1903, at which point the alternate
Wells records the invention of anti-gravity, a fast human expansion
into space, a brutal war for the conquest of Mars which Wells strongly
denounces, followed by a titanic conflict with Arcturus.
* In Satyajit Ray's 1959 film 'The World of Apu' the book, wrapped in
a white cloth cover with only the title visible, is seen on the
bookshelf of the protagonist Apurba Roy.
* In John Updike's 1961 story "Pigeon Feathers" the young protagonist
finds a copy of 'Outline of History' and is surprised and disturbed by
Wells's descriptions of Jesus. Updike describes Wells's account of
Jesus as:
He had been an obscure political agitator, a kind of hobo, in a minor
colony of the Roman Empire. By an accident impossible to reconstruct,
he (the small h horrified David) survived his own crucifixion and
presumably died a few weeks later. A religion was founded on the
freakish incident. The credulous imagination of the times
retrospectively assigned miracles and supernatural pretensions to
Jesus; a myth grew, and then a church, whose theology at most points
was in direct contradiction of the simple, rather communistic
teachings of the Galilean.
* William Golding used Wells's description of the Neanderthals as a
basis in creating his own Neanderthal tribe in his 1955 novel, 'The
Inheritors'.

See also
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* 'A Short History of the World' (Wells book)
* 'Guns, Germs, and Steel' (Jared Diamond)

Further reading
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* Dawson, Christopher. "H. G. Wells and the Outline of History"
'History Today' (Oct 1951) 1#10 pp 28-32

External links
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*[http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/sherwood/Wells-Outline/Outline_of_History.htm
Full text of the 1920 edition of 'The Outline of History']
*PDF versions of the 1971 edition of the text:
[https://archive.org/details/hgwellsoutlinehistoryvol1 Volume One],
[https://archive.org/details/hgwellsoutlinehistoryvol2 Volume Two] via
Internet Archive
*The Outline of History at Project Gutenberg
*[http://www.salon.com/books/review/2002/11/07/mckillip/ Salon.com's
review] of A. B. McKillop's examination of the Deeks/Wells plagiarism
case, 'The Spinster and the Prophet'.

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