Gombrich's A Little History Of The World

Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich, the author of the book, A Little History of the World, wrote the book with a reason. He didn’t create the book because the idea just popped into his mind; he had a purpose to write this book. It was because he loved history and his passion towards the subject made this book interesting. However, how reliable is his book?

E. H. Gombrich (1909-2001) was borned in Vienna, Austria. Gombrich attended the University of Vienna (1928-1933), where his major was the art history. Later in 1936, Gombrich arrived in London, England, where he became the research assistant in Warburg Institute. This proves his reliability of the information he has put in the book, as he attended a well known university in Vienna and was a research assistant in England.

Ernst Gombrich’s works wouldn’t be popular right away, if Gombrich himself was not popular. A Little History of the World was one of the earliest works, Gombrich became to be known of. After this book became popular, selling over 500,000 books which is impressive for a university press. After this book, Gombrich has sold the most popular book he has ever made in 1950, The Story of Art, which was translated into 34 languages and was accepted by the universities as a textbook. There were over 6 million copies sold in 2011. This shows how Gombrich’s books are acknowledged and recommended by millions of people to be read. Therefore, A Little History of the World is coming from a reliable source, as most of the author’s books are acknowledged by the people.

Although there were some downs on the progress, like the Dark Ages, where the “good Roman laws were forgotten and the beautiful Greek statues had been smashed to pieces (Gombrich 110), Gombrich has proven that there was more progress in human’s potentials.

What makes a difference between humans and the rest of the animals are that humans are capable of using tools for the benefits. Gombrich has presented the progress in technology, by using an example of the earliest tools ever found. Those were the tools made by prehistoric people in the Stone Age. This was the revolutionary stage of the progress in technology, as we, the humans, were the first ones, to ever use tools for their own benefit. However, all these inventions came out naturally. Compared to other animals, humans had a larger brain. Therefore, primitive people began to question how to live better, which then resulted in creating the tools. As the author of the text has said, “Isn’t it amazing thought that, one day, a prehistoric man… must have realised that meat from wild animals was easier to chew if it was held over a fire?” (Gombrich 6-7) These tools that were made unintentionally from the primitive people, opened an era of technological achievements. Tools were made accidently as prehistoric men tried to live more comfortably. Because of the positive progress in technology, “when we are talking, or eating some bread, using tools or warming ourselves by fire, we should remember those early people with gratitude, for they were the greatest inventors of all time.” (Gombrich