To catch and pin down in words that is, to describe directly the life, not only of humanity, but even of a single people, appears to be impossible. Tolstoy, War and Peace, epilogue, part II, ch. All history is modern history. Wallace Stevens, Opus Posthumous. History abhors determinism but cannot tolerate chance.
History is more or less bunk.
Henry Ford, interview with Charles Wheeler, Chicago Tribune, May 25, 1916. Lord Acton, Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, April 5, 1887. Writers the most learned, the most accurate in details, and the soundest in tendency, frequently fall into a habit which can neither be cured nor pardoned the habit of making history into the proof of their theories. Lord Acton, Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, April 5, 1887. This hypertext version of the World Civilization class manual contains multiple links to on-line museums, research databases, virtual tours of important historic sites, full text versions of many of the assigned readings as well as other readings relevant to items which appear on your outlines, and many other resources.