What Happened In History
by Vere Gordon Childe (1892-1957)
published by Pelican Books 1942

Vere Gordon Childe, one of the greatest theorists and archaeological synthesists of his generation, was born in North Sydney, Australia, in April 1892. Gaining a first-class degree in Classics from the University of Sydney in 1913, Childe went on to Oxford where he read Greats. He eventually became the first professor of prehistoric archaeology at Edinburgh University, serving from 1927 to 1946; following this Childe was professor of European archaeology at the University of London, until his retirement in 1956.
His scholarship was rooted in his unsurpassed knowledge of the archaeological evidence; this was gleaned from museums, from published and unpublished sources, from extensive travel, and also partly from his work in the field. Childe's particular skill lay in bringing together great amounts of data for examining 'archaeological cultures', which he saw as recurring groupings of artefacts and structures - such as house types, pottery and burial rites - that defined distinct prehistoric human groups, or peoples. Upon this foundation he built theories addressing the grand questions, developing models for what he dubbed the 'Neolithic Revolution' and 'Urban Revolution', by which he tried to explain how humans in prehistory broke beyond hunting and gathering into settled farming communities, which then developed into new types of social organisation, and resulted in the spawning of cities and civilisations.
The great archaeologist's publications - The Dawn of European Civilisation (1925), The Most Ancient East (1928) and The Danube in Prehistory (1929) marked milestones in the development of culture-historical archaeology, and his later volumes Man Makes Himself (1936) and What Happened in History (1942) brought a much wider audience to his work and a longer-lasting legacy.
Troubled by failing health, and fearful that his intellectual abilities were on the wane, Childe took his own life in October 1957, jumping from a cliff in the Blue Mountains of Australia.

One of my collection of early Pelicans, 'What Happened In History' is printed on wartime economy paper and is roughly stapled rather than bound. It is fascinating as an overview of the birth of civilisation and the recurring themes found in prehistoric artefacts. It also amuses me by virtue of its Index, which over three pages, gives an eccentric summary of what did happen in history.

Abstraction Agriculture Alphabet Architecture. See also Buildings, Houses, Temples Areas of Villages and Cities Art Artillery Aryans Asses (pack-animals) Astronomy Arithmetic. See Mathematics	Beer. See Intoxicants Boats and Ships, sizes of Bow-and-arrows Bribery and corruption Bricks Bronze and industrial metal Buildings, sizes of Burial rites	Calendar Camels (for transport) Chariots Chiefs Clan organization Class division in society Classification Clocks and sundials Coinage Copper. See Bronze, Metallurgy Cotton Craftsmen Cuneiform writing	Dark Ages Debts. See Usury Democracy Dictionaries Diffusion of culture Divergence of traditions Dramas, ritual
Election of magistrates Epics Experimental science	Factories Fate Faïence Fishing Fortifications Fortunes Fractions Fruit trees. See also Olives, Vines	Geography Geometry. See Mathematics Glass Glazing. See Fäience Gods Granaries	Harbours Harness Hell Hieroglyphic writing Horses Houses Households, great Hunting
Immortality Imperialism Indo-Europeans Inflation Intercourse between societies Intoxicants Irrigation Iron	Journey times Judgement of souls	Kings, divine	Land tenure Language Law Lighthouses
Machines Mathematics Magic Measures, standardized Medicine Merchants Metallurgy Middle Class Migration Milk Mills, corn. See also Querns Mining Money Morality Mortgages Music Mystery religions	Numerals	Oligarchy Olives	Piracy Plough Population Pottery Prices Property. See also Land tenure, Money, Slavery Pythagoras' theorem
Quadratic equations Querns	Religion Retail trade Rice Riding Roads Rotary motion. See also Wheel	Sacred books Sacrifices Sails Science Schools Seals Secret societies Self-sufficiency Serfdom Silk Slavery Sledges Small change Specialization in industry Spinning and weaving Statues Stock-breeding Streets Strikes Surplus of food (wealth) Symbols	Temples Tin. See Bronze. Totemism Trade Transport
Usury	Vehicles, wheeled. See also Chariots, Sledges Vine	Wages War Water-mills Wheel, the Potter's Women, position of Writing. See also Alphabet, Cuneiform, Hieroglyphic	Yeast Zero sign