Have you ever tried standing between two mirrors? You should. Behind every 'Once upon a time' there is always another. And so it goes on, further and further back.

After all, we say: 'They are old.' But they too had grandfathers and grandmothers, and they, too, could say: 'Once upon a time'. Your father and mother were also small once, and so was your grandfather, and your grandmother, a much longer time ago, but you know that too. You won't remember that, but you know it’s true. Do you remember? Your own history might begin like this: 'Once upon a time there was a small boy' - or a small girl - 'and that small boy was me.' But before that you were a baby in a cradle. Once you were so small that, even standing on tiptoes, you could barely reach your mother's hand.

Read an excerpt from A Little History of the World:Īll stories begin with 'Once upon a time.' And that's just what this story is all about: what happened, once upon a time. She tells Liane Hansen more about her grandfather and his books. Leonie Gombrich, granddaughter of the author, wrote an introduction to the new edition. This fall, the first English edition of the book was published by Yale University Press. Then, before Gombrich died in 2001 - at the age of 92 - he began to update and translate the original. Yet for many years, Little History was not translated into English. The book tells the story of human kind from the stone age to the atomic bomb and has been translated into 17 languages.Ī more popular work for young people, The Story of Art, was published in 1950 and sold 6 million copies for the author. The late Sir Ernst Gombrich wrote A Little History of the World in 1936, in German. 'Unfortunately grown-ups don't behave any better.' Gombrich's view of history as an adventure will appeal to all ages, but perhaps this book's best recommendation is that it was banned by the Nazis for being 'too pacifist'.Sir Ernst Gombrich reads to his grandchildren, Carl and Leonie, in a 1972 photograph. 'Schoolchildren are often intolerant,' he explains. Yet in a final chapter, recalling the rise of Hitler, an older and wiser Gombrich concedes that his optimism was misplaced and that in the last century humanity took 'a painful step backwards', betraying the ideals of the Enlightenment. The book's civilising and humanising mission is never in doubt as history unfolds up to the 'tolerance, reason and humanity' of the Enlightenment. Like all the best teachers, Gombrich simplifies but never patronises, adding a good measure of humour and charm.

He was still working on an English version when he died aged 92. T he German version of this marvellous history for children was written in a mere six weeks in 1935 by an unknown 26-year-old art history graduate who later became known as the distinguished art historian EH Gombrich.

A brief history of the world gombrich