Foreword, and Chapter 1 through Chapter 10 Summary and Analysis

In the "Foreword", Van Loon tells readers of a trip he took with his uncle to the tower of Old St. Lawrence in Rotterdam. He sees history as a tower of experience. In "The Setting of the Stage", Van Loon discusses the earth as a large mass of rock and water from which the first cells of life begin to develop into plants and dinosaurs. Mammals soon evolve, become bipedal, and can hunt, survive various climates, and begin to learn language. In "Our Earliest Ancestors", Loon tells of ancient humans who do not have fire, and fight each day for food and survival, through which man begins to develop language. In "Prehistoric Man", man finds himself in the midst of a climate change where ice covers the world. As a result, he is...