This "Brief History of the World" is intended for fluent reading in the same way as the novel is read. It gives in the most general form a summary of all our modern knowledge of history, without unnecessary penalties and details. From it, the reader will be able to extract that general concept of the history of an individual country. It can also be useful as preparation for reading more detailed "Essays on History" by the same author. But still its main purpose is to satisfy the needs of the average reader, too busy to study in detail the maps and chronological tables of "Essays," but wishing to refresh and renew their forgotten or too fragmentary knowledge of great events in the history of mankind. It is also not an extract from the author's previous work or its reduction - but the Essays do not allow further reduction as their task. The real book is an even more universal "History," re-conceived and written.