This book by the famous German scientist Julius Lips tells about the history of mankind in terms of the development of the realities surrounding it - housing, family, everyday life, food, moral principles, cultural traditions, information transmission, and so on. In this work, there are a lot of interesting and original generalizations of the author in relation to various concepts, the idea passes through the whole work that all the main fundamental inventions were made by man in ancient times, and modern achievements of science and technology are nothing more than the modernization of these inventions. The book is of interest not only for specialists, but also for a wide range of readers.