"The Story of Mankind" by Hendrik Willem Van Loon is a history book published in 1921. Written for Van Loon's children, it traces Western civilization from primitive humans through the development of writing, art, and religion to the modern nation-state. Van Loon included only events he deemed essential to understanding civilization's trajectory. The book won the first-ever Newbery Medal in 1922, recognizing its outstanding contribution to children's literature. (This is an automatically generated summary.)