Moving Toward World Federation
15. Integrating a World Economy
16. Conserving our Natural Environment
17. Re-vamping the Social Life of the Planet
18. Man Could Change Human Nature
19. Man Could Break Out of the Age-Long Prison-House
of Civilization and Enter a New World
PREFACE
LEARNING FROM HISTORY
Human history may be viewed from various angles. The easiest history to
write concerns the doings of a few well known people and their
involvement in some memorable events. History may also concern itself
with inventions and discoveries: the use of fire, of the wheel or
smelting metals. It may center around sources of food, means of shelter,
or the making of records. It may be concerned with the construction and
decoration of cities, kingdoms and empires.
Social history enters the picture with travel, transportation,
communication, trade. Human beings group themselves in families, clans
and tribes, in voluntary associations; they compete, plunder, conquer,
enslave, exploit; they co-operate for construction and destruction.
Political history is but one aspect of man's group contacts and group
projects.
There have been histories of particular civilizations and of
civilization as a field of historical research. With minor exceptions
none of the authors that I have consulted has attempted an analytical
treatment of civilization as a sociological phenemenon.
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