65 pages • 2 hours read
E.H. GombrichA Little History of the World
Nonfiction | Book | YA | Published in 1936A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Inevitability of Change
While his history details many events that were intentionally set in motion, Gombrich pays equal attention to the uncontrollable force of change. Often, he describes the power and enormity of change by comparing it to nature. In Chapter 18, “The Storm,” he uses the sensation of encroaching weather as a metaphor for change. Like a thunderstorm, one anticipates its arrival, but cannot affect it: “We have already heard its rumblings […] but now the storm had come” (105). Extending his metaphor, he describes the so-called Dark Ages as a “starry night” and the Renaissance as a dawn. The inevitability, beauty, and power of natural phenomena create a useful analogy for the overarching changes in a seemingly stable world.
Gombrich also emphasizes the futility of attempting to suppress change. He particularly focuses on the ideas of the Enlightenment and the attempts of those in power to stamp them out. Of Galileo’s forced recanting of his theories, for example, he notes that these ideas and discoveries spread despite all attempts otherwise. After the violence of the French Revolution, European powers blamed the Enlightenment philosophy that had inspired the uprising and attempted to revert to a world without these ideas. Gombrich evaluates this effort as a complete failure and even connects it back to the Church’s attempt to silence Galileo:
There was one Enlightenment idea that Metternich could not suppress [...] This was the idea Galileo had had of a rational, mathematical approach to the study of nature [...] And it so happened that this hidden aspect of the Enlightenment led to a far greater revolution and dealt a far more deadly blow to the old forms and institutions than the Parisian Jacobins ever did with their guillotine (240).
By the same token, the societal change that the advent of industrial invention signified could be foreseen but not avoided, as disadvantaged workers attempted to undo their damage: “They broke into factories and wrecked the looms, but it made no difference” (244).
In concluding his history, Gombrich describes the passage of time as a river, reinforcing the natural, fluid force of change, as well as the futility of trying to control it: “The world is now so utterly different from what it was in 1918, and yet so many of the changes that occurred happened so imperceptibly that we now take them completely for granted” (274). Like the night sky or the current of a river, there is no one moment that one can point to in history that changes everything because change itself can be imperceptible while one is experiencing it.
The Persistence of Inequality
In all periods of prosperity, there is a group that suffers at prosperity’s expense. Gombrich explores this tension frequently as a theme of history. In his description of the Egyptian pyramids, he stresses that these glorious natural wonders were built by people working under extreme duress and describes in detail the violent nature of such a project. Similarly, he departs from his depiction of knighthood to point out that the castles in which they lived were built by those who had no hope of ever becoming a knight: “Instead, take a look at the walls and towers and spare a thought for the people who built them. Towers perched high on tops of mountain crags, walls hung between precipices. All made by peasant serfs, men deprived of liberty” (139). He defines the character of Spartans by their relationship with the native peoples they had enslaved, ascribing their culture of vigilance and battle-readiness to the constant threat of revolt from the slaves who outnumbered them: “Had they not lived in fear—fear of their own slaves—the Spartans might never have become so warlike and brave” (46).
Far from accepting inequality as an inevitability, Gombrich praises Enlightenment ideas for embracing the inherent equality of human beings and even apologizes in his final chapter for assuming that the Enlightenment had eradicated the subjugation of fellow man:
At the time that I wrote that it seemed to me inconceivable that anyone might ever again stoop to persecuting people of a different religion, use torture to extract confessions, or question the rights of man. But what seemed unthinkable to me happened all the same (280).
Still, he stakes his belief in the future, as well as his faith in mankind, on the journey toward equal prosperity and ends his book on a hopeful note:
Whenever an earthquake, a flood or a drought in a far-off place leaves many victims, thousands of people in wealthier countries put their money and their efforts into providing relief. And that, too, used not to happen. Which proves that we still have the right to go on hoping for a better future (284).
The Universality of Human Experience
Gombrich accompanies his discussions of historical periods with reminders that the people who lived during them were as alive as the reader, with lives as vivid and rich. Sometimes, this reminder is explicit. In the first chapter, Gombrich says that people lived 10,000 years ago and points out, “Even in those days there were children who liked good things to eat” (2). He concludes his chapter on prehistoric humans by asking the reader to consider just how different these people really were: “Do you think much has changed since then? They were people just like us. […] There hasn’t been enough time for us to change!” (9). Human nature serves as a thread that ties together his summary of our sprawling history and is one of the most important messages of the book. He warns against the fallacious idea that those in the past were lesser while also pointing out that this misconception, too, is a universal one, in his chapter on the Renaissance, he notes:
People change their opinions without even noticing. And then all of a sudden they become aware of it, as you do when you look at your old school books. Then they announce with pride: ‘We are the new age.’ And they often add: ‘People used to be so stupid! (163).
Gombrich frequently asks the reader to imagine the lives of people in the past, offering detailed imagery and creating a dynamic scene. This technique, too, serves to place the reader in the shoes of historical figures. Of the beautiful life at court during the Hundred Years’ War, Gombrich says:
How unhappy they must have been in the smoke-filled halls of those ancient fortresses! Now they lived in castles that were spacious and airy, with turrets and battlements and thousands of windows, in rooms hung with brightly coloured tapestries, where the conversation was elegant and refined. And when a nobleman led his lady into the banqueting hall, to the feast laid out in all its splendour, he would hold her hand lightly with just two fingers, spreading the others as widely as he could (161).
Rich stories like this, full of sensory description, humanize the seemingly faraway people of the past.
