From the publisher
Hendrik Willem van Loon(January 14, 1882 - March 11, 1944) was a Dutch-American historian, journalist, and award-winning children's book author.He was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, the son of Hendrik Willem van Loonand Elisabeth Johanna Hanken.He went to the United States in 1902 to study at Cornell University, receiving his degree in 1905. In 1906 he married Eliza Ingersoll Bowditch (1880-1955), daughter of a Harvard professor, by whom he had two sons, Henry Bowditch and Gerard Willem. The newlyweds moved to Germany, where van Loon received his Ph.D. from the University of Munich in 1911 with a dissertation that became his first book, The Fall of the Dutch Republic (1913). He was a correspondent for the Associated Press during the Russian Revolution of 1905 and again in Belgium in 1914 at the start of World War I. He lectured at Cornell University from 1915 to 1917; in 1919 he became an American citizen. Van Loon had two later marriages, to Eliza Helen (Jimmie) Criswellin 1920 and playwright Frances Goodrich Ames in 1927, but after a divorce from Ames he returned to Criswell (it is debatable whether or not they remarried); she inherited his estate in 1944.From the 1910s until his death, Van Loon wrote many books, illustrating them himself. Most widely known among these is The Story of Mankind, a history of the world especially for children, which won the first Newbery Medal in 1922. The book was later updated by Van Loon and has continued to be updated, first by his son and later by other historians. However, he also wrote many other very popular books aimed at young adults. As a writer he was known for emphasizing crucial historical events and giving a complete picture of individual characters, as well as the role of the arts in history. He also had an informal and thought-provoking style which, particularly in The Story of Mankind, included personal anecdotes. As an illustrator of his own books, he was known for his lively black-and-white drawings and his chronological diagrams.... Jan Huyghen van Linschoten (1563 - 8 February 1611) was a Dutch merchant, trader and historian. An alternative spelling of his second name is Huijgen.e travelled extensively along the East Indies' regions under Portuguese influence and served as the Portuguese Viceroy's secretary in Goa between 1583 and 1588. He is credited with publishing in Europe important classified information about Asian trade. In 1596 he published a book, Itinerario (later published as an English edition as Discours of Voyages into Y East & West Indies) which graphically displayed for the first time in Europe detailed maps of voyages to the East Indies, particularly India. During his stay in Goa, abusing the trust put in him by the Viceroy, Jan Huyghens meticulously copied the top-secret charts page-by-page. Even more crucially, Jan Huyghens provided nautical data like currents, deeps, islands and sandbanks, which was absolutely vital for safe navigation, along with coastal depictions to guide the way. The publication of the navigational routes enabled the passage to the East Indies to be opened to trading by the English and the Dutch. As a consequence, The British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company broke the 16th-century monopoly enjoyed by the Portuguese on trade with the East Indies
