On the Comprehensive View of the World Historian

Speaking about the comprehensive view of the World Historian, Professor Freeman writes:

“My position is that in all our studies of history…we must cast away all distinctions of ‘ancient’ and ‘modern’, of ‘dead’ and ‘living’, and must boldly grapple with the great fact of the unity of history. As man is the same in all ages, the history of man is one in all ages. No…period of history can be understood in its fullness; none can be clothed with its highest interest…if it be looked at wholly in itself, without reference to its bearing on those…other periods of history, which join with it to make up the great whole of human…being.”

Excerpted from: The Historians' History of the World: Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia edited by Henry Smith Williams, Volume 1, 1907. (4-5)