Talk:The Outline of History

Belloc Critique

Someone needs to add information about Hilaire Belloc's A Companion to Mr. Well's "Outline of History," Mr. Belloc Objects to "The Outline of History," and Mr.Belloc Still Objects to Mr. Wells "Outline of History." I'm actually pretty surprised to not find it included in the article already. I'd put it in right now but I don't have the time. Perhaps someone else can in the meantime? b_cubed 04:23, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

The Everlasting Man

"written in reaction to the Outline of History, which portrayed life on earth and humanity arising by the process of evolution and depicted Jesus as a historical figure rather than as God. "

Ther person who wrote this didn't read the book. Jesus as a historical figure rather than God? GK Chesterton, neither being Anglican or Catholic, never think that, he always belive Jesus is God, at least, since he convet to christianity, specially being a Catholic. This book was written after his onversion to catholicism, so this statenment isn't real

I don't know who wrote the preceding paragraph, but it makes no grammatical sense, and I have no idea what he/she is trying to say.CharlesTheBold (talk) 03:34, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Out of date

The article didn't explore the real reason the book is ignored nowadays, which is that Wells's political theories have proved to be simplistic. For example, he suggested that the "natural" division of Europe into nations was to group peoples by language; thus (for example) Belgium had no right to exist and ought to be partitioned between France and the Netherlands. A couple of decades later, Hitler used this theory to invade surrounding countries (Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland) on the grounds that some of their communities spoke German. Wells didn't intend that of course; he was just naive. The book is out of date, and not only because it stops when it does. CharlesTheBold (talk) 03:34, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

You seem to have turned on its head what Wells actually wrote. His opinion was that only some strong common interest would overcome the difficulties caused by the creation of states with peoples speaking different languages, with different literatures and general ideas "especially if those differences are exacerbated by religious disputes". Far from suggesting that Belgium had no right to exist, he was criticising the actions of the Congress of Vienna in redrawing the map of Europe to purely political ends and lumping together incompatible groups "almost as if it had planned the maximum of local exasperation". It set up a Kingdom of the Netherlands with the Protestant Dutch and the French-speaking Catholics under a Protestant Dutch king; the Belgians revolted and the Great Powers forestalled union with France by allowing them independence under a German king. Wells didn't say that Belgium ought to be partitioned - he was arguing against an unjustified coalition - and without outside interference they might well have proven him right by becoming part of France of their own volition. The association with Hitler is gratuitous and the dismissal of Wells as naive is unjustified. The Outline of History may be out regarded as out of date, but that doesn't make it completely irrelevant.--Mabzilla (talk) 23:00, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Possessive of "Wells".

I've reverted three "Wells' " to "Wells's". There has been discussion about "Wells's" v. "Wells' " on the H. G. Wells talk page. The former form is in use at the moment, and it seems appropriate to use it on this page. Checking Wells's own "Experiment in Autobiography", he uses " 's" after nouns ending in "s"; e.g: "Henry James's". The title page of Belloc's 'A companion to Mr. Wells's "Outline of History" ' can be seen in facsimile on Google Books. --Mabzilla (talk) 01:21, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Deeks Plagiarism

Shouldn't this page mention the Plagiarism case? Michael L. Kaufman (talk) 19:14, 16 October 2012 (UTC)