Author: Jawaharlal Nehru
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2004-07-01
Language: English
Pages: 1192
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0143031058
Description
Glimpses remain the best introduction to the story of man for young and growing people all over the world. The New York Times hails this work: It is one of the most remarkable books ever written...Everything is more or less impromptu. Yet there is a coherence, a design, that must set Westerners gasping.
On New Year's Day, 1931, Jawaharlal Nehru began a remarkable series of letters on the history of the world to his daughter Indira, then thirteen years old. Over the next thirty months, Nehru wrote nearly two hundred letters in this series, which were later published as Glimpses of World History.
With its panoramic sweep and its gripping narrative flow, all the more remarkable for being written in prison where Nehru had no recourse to reference books or a library, Glimpses of World History covers the rise and fall of empires and civilizations from Greece and Rome to China and West Asia; great figures such as Ashoka and Chengiz Khan, Gandhi and Lenin; wars and revolutions, democracies and dictatorships. An enduring classic, this book is dazzling testimony to the breadth of Nehru's world view, his grasp of the lessons of history and of the forces and personalities that shape it.
REVIEW
It is one of the most remarkable books ever written Nehru makes even H G Wells seem singularly insular One is awed by the breadth of Nehru's culture.
-The New York Times
Contents
List of Maps
Foreword to the 2004 Edition
Foreword
Preface to Original Edition
A Chronology of World History
FROM CENTRAL PRISON, NAINI
A Birthday Letter
A New Year's Gift
The Lesson of History
Inqilab Zindabad
Asia and Europe
The Old Civilizations and Our Inheritance
The Hellenes
The Greek City-States
Empires in Western Asia
The Burden of Old Tradition
The Village Republics of Ancient India
A Thousand Years of China
The Call of the Past
Where Do Riches Go To?
The Sixth Century Before Christ, and Religion
Persia and Greece
The Glory that was Hellas
A Famous Conqueror but a Conceited Young Man
Chandragupta Maurya and the Arthashastra
FROM ON BOARD SS. CRACOVIA IN THE ARABIAN SEA
Three Months !
The Arabian Sea
FROM DISTRICT GAOL, BAREILLY
A Holiday and A Dream Journey
Man's Struggle for a Living
A Survey
Ashoka, the Beloved of the Gods
The World of Ashoka's Time
The Ch'ins and the Hans
Rome against Carthage
The Roman Republic becomes an Empire
South India Overshadows the North
The Borderland Empire of the Kushans
Jesus and Christianity
The Roman Empire
The Roman Empire splits up and finally becomes a Ghost
The Idea of the World State
Parthia and the Sassanids
South India Colonizes
Hindu Imperialism under the Guptas
The Huns come to India
India's Control of foreign Markets
The Ups and Downs of Countries and Civilizations
China Flourishes under the Tangs
Chosen and Dai Nippon
Harsha-Vardhana and Hiuen Tsang
South India Produces many Kings and Warriors and a Great Man
India in the Middle Ages
Angkor the Magnificent and Sri Vijaya
Rome Relapses into Darkness
The Coming of Islam
The Arabs Conquer from Spain to Mongolia
Baghdad and Harunal-Rashid
From Harsha to Mahmud in North India
The Countries of Europe Take Shape
The Feudal System
China Pushes the Nomads to the West
The Shogun Rules in Japan
FROM DISTRICT GAOL, DEHRA DUN
The Quest of Man
The End of the First Millennium after Christ
Another Look at Asia and Europe
The Maya Civilization of America
A Jump Back to Mohenjo Daro
Cordoba and Granada
The Crusades
Europe at the Time of the Crusades
The Rise of European cities
The Afghans Invade India
The Slave Kings of Delhi
Chengiz Khan Shakes up Asia and Europe
The Mongols Dominate the World
Marco Polo, the Great Traveller
The Roman Church becomes Militant
The Fight against Authoritarianism
The Passing of the Middle Ages
The Discovery of the Sea Routes
The Break-up of the Mongol Empires
India Begins to Tackle a Difficult Problem
The Kingdoms of South India
Vijayanagar
The Malaysian Empires of Madjapahit and Malacca
Europe Begins to Grab in Eastern Asia
An Age of Peace and Prosperity in China
Japan Shuts Herself Up
Europe in Turmoil
The Renaissance
The Protestant Revolt and the Peasants' War
Autocracy in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe
The Netherlands Fight for Freedom
England Cuts Off the Head of her King
Babar
Akbar
The Decline and Fall of the Moghal empire in India
The Sikhs and The Marathas
The English Triumph over their Rivals in India
A Great Manchu Ruler in china
A Chinese Emperor Writes to an English King
The War of Ideas in Eighteenth-Century Europe
Europe of the Eve of Great Change
The coming of the Big Machine
The Industrial Revolution Begins in England
America Breaks A way from England
The Fall of the Bastille
The French Revolution
Revolution and Counter-Revolution
The Ways of Governments
Napoleon
More about Napoleon
A Survey of the World
The Hundred Years before the World War
The Nineteenth Century Continued
Wars and Revolt in India
The Indian Artisan Goes to the Wall
The Village, the Peasant, and the Landlord in India
How Britain Ruled India
The Reawakening of India
Britain Forces Opium on China
China in Difficulties
Japan Rushes Ahead
Japan Defeats Russia
China becomes a Republic
Farther India and the East Indies
Another New Year's Day
The Philippines and the United States of America
Where Three continents Meet
A Look Back
The Persistence of Iran's Old Traditions
Imperialism and Nationalism in Persia
About Revolutions Generally, and especially those of Eighteen Forty-eight in Europe
Italy becomes a United and Free Nation
The Rise of Germany
Some Famous Writers
Darwin and the Triumph of Science
The Advance of Democracy
The coming of Socialism
Karl Marx and the Growth of Workers' Organization
Marxism
The Victorian Age in England
England becomes the World's Money-lender
Civil War in America
The Invisible Empire of America
Seven Hundred Years of Conflict between Ireland and England
Home Rule and Sinn Fein in Ireland
Britain Seizes and Holds on to Egypt
Turkey becomes the "Sick Man of Europe"
The Russian Revolution of 1905 that failed
The End of an Epoch
The World War Begins
India on the Eve of the War
War 1914-1918
The Course of the War
The Passing Away of Tsardom in Russia
Bolsheviks Seize Power
The Soviets Win Through
Japan Bullies China
India during War-Time
The New Map of Europe
The Post-War World
Ireland's Fight for a Republic
A New Turkey Rises from the Ashes
Mustafa Kemal Breaks with the Past
India Follows Gandhi
India in the Nineteen-Twenties
Peaceful Rebellion in India
Egypt's Fight for Freedom
What Independence under the British Means
Western Asia Re-enters World Politics
Palestine and Trans-Jordan
Arabia-A Jump from the Middle Ages
Iraq and the Virtues of Aerial Bombing
Afghanistan and Some Other Countries of Asia
The Revolution that Did Not come Off
A New Way of Paying Old Debts
The Strange Behaviour of Money
Move and counter-Move
Mussolini and fascism in Italy
Democracy and Dictatorships
Revolution and Counter-Revolution in china
Japan Defies the World
The Union of Socialist Soviet Republics
The Piatiletka, or Russia's Five Year Plan
The Soviet Union's Difficulties, Failures and Successes
Science Goes Ahead
The Good and Bad Applications of Science
The great Depression and World Crisis
What Caused the Crisis
The Struggle of America and England for Leadership
The dollar, the Pound, and the Rupee
The Capitalist World Fails to Pull Together
Revolution in Spain
The Nazi Triumph in Germany
Disarmament
President Roosevelt to the Rescue
The Failur5e of Parliaments
A Final Look Round the World
The Shadow of War
The Last Letter
Postscript
Index