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田璐柯
房龙（ 1882-1944 ），荷兰裔美国历史学家，新闻记者，儿童文学作家。他出生在荷兰的鹿特丹。 20 岁时，他到美国康奈尔大学求学，大学毕业后，与哈佛大学一个教授的女儿结婚，她为他生下两个儿子。然后，他携全家离开美国，去往德国。在慕尼黑大学，他获得了哲学博士学位。他所写的博士论文后来成了他的第一本公开出版的书籍：《荷兰共和国的陨落》。此后，他笔耕不辍，在俄国十月革命期间，他为美联社充当记者；第一次世界大战时，又为比利时担当记者。后来，他再回到美国他的母校康奈尔大学任教，并于 1919 年成为美国公民。
1921 年，他临近 40 岁时，写了这本《人类的故事》，并自己为本书画插图。他在这本书里，一共画了近 200 幅插图，成为房龙书籍里十分有特色的一本。该书后来荣获过很多大奖，尤其在儿童文学领域，获奖颇丰。
准确地说，《人类的故事》更像是一本讲述西方文明的故事，其中包括了人类的艺术、建筑以及几大宗教的发展历史。后来，房龙又在再版中添加了对于他来说，算是更新的人类历史事件故事，如第一次世界大战历史等。
《人类的故事》出版后，受到很多读者的热烈欢迎。房龙在这本书中，承继他一贯的写作语言特色：不疾不徐，娓娓道来。文字功夫十分了得的房龙，是最会讲故事的作家之一。因此，读者只要一翻开他的书，就会不自觉地读下去，忘记时间，忘记一切。而且，书中为读者准备了大量的惊奇与惊喜的故事情节和他对历史事件的独具特色的点评。有个书评家如此评价房龙： the writing is natural, and conversational.This sort of writing looks easy; it isn't. “（房龙的）写作风格十分自然，又很注重口语化。这种写作方式看似简单，其实不然。”这话一语中的。当上世纪“文革”后的 80 年代，房龙的第一本书《宽容》被介绍到中国时，也曾掀起一股“房龙热”，因为他的写作语言风格，因为他的不装腔作势，也因为他的近似口语化的文字。
当然，这本《人类的故事》所涉及的人类发展历史的细节，都经过房龙的精挑细选，所以读起来十分引人入胜，书中对很多历史人物的描写，都栩栩如生，仿佛又从历史的尘埃中活了过来，并回到我们的身边。有位评论家这样告诉读者，如果你想知道你到底喜不喜欢房龙，或更具体地问，喜不喜欢这本《人类的故事》，读一下下面这段描写拿破仑的文字，你就会明白要不要继续读下去：
He was a little fellow and during the first years of his life his health was not very good.He never impressed anybody by his good looks and he remained to the end of his days very clumsy whenever he was obliged to appear at a social function.He did not enjoy a single advantage of breeding or birth or riches....
But he overcame all these difficulties through his absolute and unshakable belief in his own destiny, and in his own glorious future.Ambition was the main-spring of his life....
When he was a half-pay lieutentant, young Bonaparte was very fond of the "Lives of Famous Men" which Plutarch, the Greek historian, had written.But he never tried to live up to the high standard of character set by these heroes of the older days.Napoleon seems to have been devoid of all those considerate and thoughtful sentiments which make men different from the animals.It will be very difficult to decide with any degree of accuracy whether he ever loved anyone besides himself....
Here I am sitting at a comfortable table loaded heavily with books, with one eye upon my typewriter and the other on Licorice the cat, who has a great fondness for carbon paper, and I am telling you that the Emperor Napoleon was a most contemptible person.But should I happen to look out of the window, down upon Seventh Avenue, and should the endless procession of trucks and carts come to a sudden halt, and should I hear the sound of the heavy drums and see the little man on his white horse in his old and muchworn green uniform, then I don't know, but I am afraid that I would leave my books and the kitten and my home and everything else to follow him wherever he cared to lead.My own grandfather did this and Heaven knows he was not born to be a hero....
Napoleon was never out of the mind of friend or enemy.When illness and despair had at last taken him away, his silent eyes continued to haunt the world.Even to-day he is as much of a force in the life of France as a hundred years ago when people fainted at the mere sight of this sallowfaced man who stabled his horses in the holiest temples of the Russian Kremlin, and who treated the Pope and the mighty ones of this earth as if they were his lackeys.
房龙的文字精彩到如此程度，你要不要继续读下去呢？读者自己来决定吧。