《人类的故事》(The Story of Mandind)是一部以通俗的手法描写人类文明发展史的历史巨著,由荷兰裔美国**历史学家、作家房龙著作而成。该书一度被美国中学选为历史教科书,还曾获得美国***的儿童文学奖“纽伯瑞奖”,在全世界有近百个版本,涉及多种语言,至今畅销不衰,仅美国**就高达一千多万册。作者以轻松平易的风格及幽默风趣的语言,由人类的起源、史前人类、佛祖、孔子、古希腊。罗马帝国、十字军、文艺复兴,一直到近代,为读者展示了人类历史的浩荡长卷。
这本英汉双语版的经典读本,无论作为通俗的人类文明发展史读本,还是作为语言学习的课外读物,对当代中国的读者都将产生积极的影响。为了使读者能够了解每段历史慨况,提高阅读速度和阅读水平,在每篇英文故事的开始部分增加了中文导读。

2. 我们*早的祖先Our Earliest Ancestors
人类学家研究埋藏在土里的化石,推测了人类的祖先。
人类的祖先是一种矮小的,长着毛的哺乳动物,长着像猴子一样的爪子,类似野兽的下颚。牙齿是他的工具。他不穿衣服,也不会用���。他在森林中寻找食物。夜晚,野兽给他带来恐惧。严寒酷暑折磨着他,伤病给他带来灾难。
早期的人类慢慢学会了用喉咙里的声音与同伴交流,这大概是语言的起源。
但是,关于人类的祖先,我们所知甚少,早期的人类只留下了化石,剩下的谜尚未解开。


We know very little about the first “true” men. We have never seen their pictures. In the deepest layer of clay of an ancient soil we have sometimes found pieces of their bones. These lay buried amidst the broken skeletons of other animals that have long since disappeared from the face of the earth. Anthropologists (learned scientists who devote their lives to the study of man as a member of the animal kingdom) have taken these bones and they have been able to reconstruct our earliest ancestors with a fair degree of accuracy.
The great-great-grandfather of the human race was a very ugly and unattractive mammal. He was quite small, much smaller than the people of today. The heat of the sun and the biting wind of the cold winter had coloured his skin a dark brown. His head and most of his body, his arms and legs too, were covered with long, coarse hair. He had very thin but strong fingers which made his hands look like those of a monkey. His forehead was low and his jaw was like the jaw of a wild animal which uses its teeth both as fork and knife. He wore no clothes. He had seen no fire except the flames of the rumbling volcanoes which filled the earth with their smoke and their lava.
He lived in the damp blackness of vast forests, as the pygmies of Africa do to this very day. When he felt the pangs of hunger he ate raw leaves and the roots of plants or he took the eggs away from an angry bird and fed them to his own young. Once in a while, after a long and patient chase, he would catch a sparrow or a small wild dog or perhaps a rabbit. These he would eat raw for he had never discovered that food tasted better when it was cooked.
During the hours of day, this primitive human being prowled about looking for things to eat.
When night descended upon the earth, he hid his wife and his children in a hollow tree or behind some heavy boulders, for he was surrounded on all sides by ferocious animals and when it was dark these animals began to prowl about, looking for something to eat for their mates and their own young, and they liked the taste of human beings. It was a world where you must either eat or be eaten, and life was very unhappy because it was full of fear and misery.
In summer, man was exposed to the scorching rays of the sun, and during the winter his children would freeze to death in his arms. When such a creature hurt itself, (and hunting animals are forever breaking their bones or spraining their ankles) he had no one to take care of him and he must die a horrible death.
Like many of the animals who fill the Zoo with their strange noises, early man liked to jabber. That is to say, he endlessly repeated the same unintelligible gibberish because it pleased him to hear the sound of his voice. In due time he learned that he could use this guttural noise to warn his fellow beings whenever danger threatened and he gave certain little shrieks which came to mean“there is a tiger!”or“here come five elephants.” Then the others grunted something back at him and their growl meant,“I see them,”or“let us run away and hide.”And this was probably the origin of all language.
But, as I have said before, of these beginnings we know so very little. Early man had no tools and he built himself no houses. He lived and died and left no trace of his existence except a few collar-bones and a few pieces of his skull. These tell us that many thousands of years ago the world was inhabited by certain mammals who were quite different from all the other animals—who had probably developed from another unknown ape-like animal which had learned to walk on its hind-legs and use its fore-paws as hands—and who were most probably connected with the creatures who happen to be our own immediate ancestors.
It is little enough we know and the rest is darkness.

1. 舞台布景 / The Setting of the Stage.............................................1
2. 我们*早的祖先 / Our Earliest Ancestors..................................6
3. 史前人类 / Prehistoric Man............................................................9
4. 象形文字 / Hieroglyphics.............................................................12
5. 尼罗河谷地 / The Nile Valley.........................................................17
6. 埃及的故事 / The Story of Egypt.................................................21
7. 两河流域 / Mesopotamia..............................................................24
8. 苏美尔人 / The Sumerians............................................................26
9. 摩西 / Moses...................................................................................30
10. 腓尼基人 / The Phoenicians......................................................33
11. 印欧人 / The Indo-Europeans.....................................................35
12. 爱琴海 / The Aegean Sea.............................................................37
13. 古希腊人 / The Greeks.................................................................40
14. 古希腊城市 / The Greek Cities...................................................43
15. 古希腊的自治 / Greek Self-Government.................................46
16. 古希腊生活 / Greek Life.............................................................49
17. 古希腊戏剧 / The Greek Theatre...............................................53
18. 波斯战争 / The Persian Wars.......................................................56
19. 雅典对斯巴达 / Athens vs. Sparta.............................................61
20. 亚历山大大帝 / Alexander the Great.......................................64
21. 小结 / A Summary..........................................................................67
22. 罗马与迦太基 / Rome and Carthage........................................70
23. 罗马的崛起 / The Rise of Rome..................................................81
24. 罗马帝国 / The Roman Empire...................................................84
25. 拿舍勒的约书亚 / Joshua of Nazareth.....................................93
26. 罗马的覆亡 / The Fall of Rome..................................................97
27. 教会的崛起 / Rise of the Church...............................................102
28. 穆罕默德 / Mohammed............................................................108
29. 查理曼大帝 / Charlemagne.....................................................114
30. 北欧人 / The Norsemen..............................................................119
31. 封建社会 / Feudalism...............................................................122
32. 骑士制度 / Chivalry..................................................................126
33. 教皇对皇帝 / Pope vs. Emperor...............................................129
34. 十字军东征 / The Crusades.....................................................134
35. 中世纪的城市 / The Mediaeval City......................................139
36. 中世纪的自治 / Mediaeval Self-Government.......................148
37. 中世纪世界 / The Mediaeval World.........................................153
38. 中世纪的贸易 / Mediaeval Trade...........................................160
39. 文艺复兴 / The Renaissance...................................................166
40. 表现的时代 / The Age of Expression.......................................177
41. 大发现 / The Great Discoveries.................................................182
42. 佛陀与孔子 / Buddha and Confucius.....................................193
43. 宗教改革 / The Reformation......................................................201
44. 宗教战争 / Religious Warfare..................................................211
45. 英国革命 / The English Revolution.........................................224
46. 势力均衡 / The Balance of Power.............................................237
47. 俄罗斯的崛起 / The Rise of Russia..........................................242
48. 俄罗斯对瑞典 / Russia vs. Sweden..........................................248
49. 普鲁士的崛起 / The Rise of Prussia.........................................252
50. 重商主义 / The Mercantile System...........................................256
51. 美国革命 / The American Revolution......................................260