Origin Story: A Big History of Everything by David Christian
H. G. Wells wrote a history of humanity as a response to the carnage of World War I. There can be no peace now, we realize, but a common peace in all the world; no prosperity but a general prosperity. But there can be no common peace and prosperity
Without common historical ideas.… With nothing but narrow, selfish, and conflicting nationalist traditions, races and peoples are bound to drift towards conflict and destruction.
Wells understood something else, too: If you want to teach the history of humanity, you probably need to teach the history of everything. That’s why his Outline of History turned