The History of Mankind

Abstract

THE student of anthropology will welcome this handsome English edition of Prof.Ratzel's “Volkerkunde' as an invaluable work of reference for the numerous and scattered branches of his study. Perhaps no department of science embraces so large a field as the study of man and the history of civilisation, and in proportion to its complexity the greater is the necessity for some general guide to the subject. On the first publication of the work in the years 1885-88 it was at once recognised as the most comprehensive survey of the state of our knowledge of the lower races of mankind that had hitherto appeared, and since that time it has maintained its position in Germany as the standard popular work on the subject. The present English translation has been made from the second German edition, and may therefore be regarded as in all essentials abreast of recent research. In his Introduction, Prof. Tylor has called attention to the large number and accuracy of the illustrations with which the book is furnished, and which he well remarks surpass in excellence any that have yet been issued in similar works intended for general circulation. The importance of good illustrations in contrasting the successive stages of the development of the human race cannot be over-estimated, for they convey far more to the general reader than long descriptions and strings of technical terms.

The History of Mankind.

By Prof. Friedrich Ratzel. Translated from the second German edition by A. J. Butler, M.A.; with Introduction by E. B. Tylor, D.C.L., F.R.S. With coloured plates, maps, and illustrations. Three volumes. Pp. xxiv + 486 + 562 + 599. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1896.)