H.G.威尔斯（Herbert George Wells
1866-1946），英国著名作家、奇人，一生著作等身，经历奇绝，尤以科幻小说和通俗历史读物的创作获得世界性声誉和影响。1895年，威尔斯出版《时间机器》，一举而成名，此后接连推出《莫洛博士岛》、《隐身人》、《星际战争》等书，为20世纪科幻小说的创作立一高标。据说，二战期间，爱因斯坦等科学家提醒罗斯福总统起动生产原子弹的曼哈顿计划，当初也是源自威尔斯的一部叫做《获得自由的世界》的科幻小说。
威尔斯的另一重要成就便是通过《世界史纲》、《世界简史》等历史读物的创作冲破长久以来史学界以西方文明为中心的狭隘观念，通览世界各民族所创造的优秀文化遗产，为20世纪的学术界确立了大历史观.
目錄：
I. THE WORLD IN SPACE
II. THE WORLD IN TIME
III. THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE
IV. THE AGE OF FISHES
V. THE AGE OF THE COAL SWAMPS
VI. THE AGE OF REPTILES
VII. THE FIRST BIRDS AND THE FIRST MAMMALS
VIII. THE AGE OF MAMMALS
IX. MONKEYS, APES AND SUB-MEN
X. THE NEANDERTHALER AND THE RHODESIAN MAN
XI. THE FIRST TRUE MEN
XII. PRIMITIVE THOUGHT
XIII. THE BEGINNINGS OF CULTIVATION
XIV. PRIMITIVE NEOLITHIC CIVILIZATIONS
XV. SUMERIA, EARLY EGYPT AND WRITING
XVI. PRIMITIVE NOMADIC PEOPLES
XVII. THE FIRST SEA-GOING PEOPLES
XVIII. EGYPT, BABYLON AND ASSYRIA
XIX. THE PRIMITIVE ARYANS
XX. THE LAST BABYLONIAN EMPIRE AND THE EMPIRE OF DARIUS I
XXI. THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE JEWS
XXII. PRIESTS AND PROPHETS IN JUDEA
XXIII. THE GREEKS
XXIV. THE WARS OF THE GREEKS AND PERSIANS
XXV. THE SPLENDOUR OF GREECE
XXVI. THE EMPIRE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
XXVII. THE MUSEUM AND LIBRARY AT ALEXANDRIA
XXVIII. THE LIFE OF GAUTAMA BUDDHA
XXIX. KING ASOKA
XXX. CONFUCIUS AND LAO TSE
XXXI. ROME COMES INTO HISTORY
XXXII. ROME AND CARTHAGE
XXXIII. THE GROWTH OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
XXXIV. BETWEEN ROME AND CHINA
XXXV. THE COMMON MAN''S LIFE UNDER THE EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE
XXXVI. RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS UNDER THE ROMAN EMPIRE
XXXVII. THE TEACHING OF JESUS
XXXVIII. THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINAL CHRISTIANITY
XXXIX. THE BARBARIANS BREAK THE EMPIRE INTO EAST AND WEST
XL. THE HUNS AND THE END OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE
XLI. THE BYZANTINE AND SASSANID EMPIRES
XLII. THE DYNASTIES OF SUY AND
……
內容試閱：
I. The World in Space
THE STORY of our world is a story that is still very imperfectly
known. A couple of hundred years ago men possessed the history of
little more than the last three thousand years. What happened
before that time was a matter of legend and speculation. Over a
large part of the civilized world it was believed and taught that
the world had been created suddenly in 4004 B.C., though
authorities differed as to whether this had occurred in the spring
or autumn of that year. This fantastically precise misconception
was based upon a too literal interpretation of the Hebrew Bible,
and upon rather arbitrary theological assumptions connected
therewith. Such ideas have long since been abandoned by religious
teachers, and it is universally recognized that the universe in
which we live has to all appearances existed for an enormous period
of time and possibly for endless time. Of course there may be
deception in these appearances, as a room may be made to seem
endless by putting mirrors facing each other at either end. But
that the universe in which we live has existed only for six or
seven thousand years may be regarded as an altogether exploded
idea.
The earth, as everybody knows nowadays, is a spheroid, a
sphere slightly compressed, orange fashion, with a diameter of
nearly 8,000 miles. Its spherical shape has been known at least to
a limited number of intelligent people for nearly 2,500 years, but
before that time it was supposed to be flat, and various ideas
which now seem fantastic were entertained about its relations to
the sky and the stars and planets. We know now that it rotates upon
its axis which is about 24 miles shorter than its equatorial
diameter every twenty-four hours, and that this is the cause of
the alternations of day and night, that it circles about the sun in
a slightly distorted and slowly variable oval path in a year. Its
distance from the sun varies between ninety-one and a half millions
at its nearest and ninety-four and a half million
miles.
About the earth circles a smaller sphere, the moon, at an
average distance of 239,000 miles. Earth and moon are not the only
bodies to travel round the sun. There are also the planets, Mercury
and Venus, at distances of thirty-six and sixty-seven millions of
miles; and beyond the circle of the earth and disregarding a belt
of numerous smaller bodies, the planetoids, there are Mars,
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune at mean distances of 141, 483,
886, 1,782, and 1,793 millions of miles respectively. These figures
in millions of miles are very difficult for the mind to grasp. It
may help the reader’s imagination if we reduce the sun and planets
to a smaller, more conceivable scale.
If, then, we represent our earth as a little ball of one
inch diameter, the sun would be a big globe nine feet across and
323 yards away, that is about a fifth of a mile, four or five
minutes’ walking. The moon would be a small pea two feet and a half
from the world. Between earth and sun there would be the two inner
planets, Mercury and Venus, at distances of one hundred and
twenty-five and two hundred and fifty yards from the sun. All round
and about these bodies there would be emptiness until you came to
Mars, a hundred and seventy-five feet beyond the earth; Jupiter
nearly a mile away, a foot in diameter; Saturn, a little smaller,
two miles off; Uranus four miles off and Neptune six miles off.
Then nothingness and nothingness except for small particles and
drifting scraps of attenuated vapour for thousands of miles. The
nearest star to earth on this scale would be 40,000 miles
away.
These figures will serve perhaps to give one some conception
of the immense emptiness of space in which the drama of life goes
on.
For in all this enormous vacancy of space we know certainly
of life only upon the surface of our earth. It does not penetrate
much more than three miles down into the 4,000 miles that separate
us from the centre of our globe, and it does not reach more than
five miles above its surface. Apparently all the limitlessness of
space is otherwise empty and dead.
The deepest ocean dredgings go down to five miles. The
highest recorded flight of an aeroplane is little more than four
miles. Men have reached to seven miles up in balloons, but at a
cost of great suffering. No bird can fly so high as five miles, and
small birds and insects which have been carried up by aeroplanes
drop off insensible far below that level.
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