The history of the world from the first men to the aftermath of the Great War, written for children by a Dutch émigré who drew the pictures himself and refused to list dates and battles. Van Loon's book took the first Newbery Medal in 1922 and was revised by him for twenty years afterwards as the world kept moving. He is opinionated, sometimes wrong, and always writing to a reader he assumes will grow up to be responsible for something. Its 87 original illustrations have been carefully restored and coloured for this edition.