Author: Jawaharlal Nehru
Foreword/Introductio: Priyanka Gandhi Vadra
Publisher: Penguin/Puffin
Year: 2004/15
Language: English
Pages: 156
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9780670058165
Description
When Indira Gandhi was a little girl of ten, she spent the summer in Mussoorie, while her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, was busy working in Allahabad. Over the summer, Nehru wrote her a series of letters in which he told her the story of how and when the earth was made, how human and animal life began, and how civilizations and societies evolved all over the world.
Written in 1928, these letters remain fresh and vibrant, and capture Nehru's love for people and for nature, whose story was for him `more interesting than any other story or novel that you may have read'.
From Author's Letter:
I am going to write you short accounts of the story of our earth and the many countries, great and small, into which it is divided…I hope [these] will make you think of the world as a whole and of other people in it as our brothers and sisters . . .' —Jawaharlal Nehru
Contents
Foreword
Preface to third edition
Preface to Second edition
Foreword to First edition
The Book Of Nature
How early history was written
the Making of the Earth
The First Living Things
The Animals Appear
The Coming of Man
How Different Races were Formed
The Races and Languages of Mankind
The Relational ships of Languages
What is Civilization ? The Formation of Tribes
How religion Began and Division of Labour
The Changes Brought about by Agriculture
The Patriarch - How He Began
The Patriarch - How He Developed
The Patriarch Becomes the King
The Early Civilizations
The Great Cities of the Ancient World
Egypt and Crete
China and India
Sea Voyages and Trade
Language writing and Numerals
Different Classes of People
kings and Temples and Priests
A Look Back
Fossils and Ruins
The Aryans Come to India
What were the Aryans in India like ?
The Ramayana and the Mahabharata