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1. Introductory

History is a narrative of what civilized men have thought or done in past times — whether a day, a year, a century, or a millennium ago. Since men do not live in isolation, but everywhere in association, history is necessarily concerned with social groups and especially with states and nations. Just as biography describes the life of individuals, so history relates the rise, progress, and decline of human societies.

History does not limit its attention to a fraction of the community to the exclusion of the rest. It does not deal solely with rulers and warriors, with forms of government, public affairs, and domestic or foreign wars. More and more, history becomes an account of the entire culture of a people. The historian wants to learn about their houses, furniture, costumes, and food; what occupations they followed; what schools they supported; what beliefs and superstitions they held; what amusements and festivals they enjoyed. Human progress in invention, science, art, music, literature, morals, religion, and other aspects of civilization is what chiefly interests the historical student of today.

Civilization is a recent thing, almost a thing of yesterday. It began not more than five or six thousand years ago in the river valleys of Egypt and western Asia. The Egyptians and Babylonians by this time were cultivating the soil, laying out roads and canals, working mines, building cities, organizing stable governments, and keeping written records. All the rest of the world was then I