Excerpt from Old World Background to American History: An Elementary History for the Grades or Junior High School With or without a League of Nations, the Great War has forced us all to think more internationally. It has been a world war in the number and distribution of its participants, and it has left us an inescapable legacy of world problems. To the schools comes the task of preparing the rising generation to play its part worthily in the new conditions. Without lessening the emphasis on our national ideals and duties, and the instruction which makes for sturdy Americanism, the boys and girls who will be the citizens of the future must be led to see the Old World background against which our New World problems are projected. To accomplish this there is no means so good as a brief but comprehensive survey of European history, from the earliest dawn of civilization to the present time. The present book is a version and adaptation of an earlier one, first published in 1912, under the title The Story of Europe, and planned along the lines recommended by the Committee of Eight for the Sixth Grade. The new book differs from the old in part by the addition, at the beginning, of a chapter dealing with man's earliest history, and of three chapters at the end surveying the course of the last three centuries, culminating in the Great War. It is hoped that in the new form and under the new needs the book may prove as successful as formerly in meeting the old needs. For the convenience of schools which may wish to deal with the stories of Greece and Rome in an earlier grade, the separation of parts is clearly marked in the table of contents. S. B. H. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.