Excerpt from Ridpath's History of the World, Vol. 9 of 9: Being an Account of the Principal Events in the Career of the Human Race From the Beginnings of Civilization to the Present Time; Comprising the Development of Social Institutions and the Story of All Nations, From Recent and Authentic Sources The period under consideration in this part of the narrative is, without exaggeration, one of the most important in human history. Whatever may be the result of the present crush and conflict of the forces of civilization, there can be no doubt of the critical character of this age. Without entering into a discus sion of the principles involved, every thought ful student of historical movements can dis cern in the current aspect of the world the unmistakable beginnings of a great transforma tion. Human society is in the alembic; the civilized life of man is on trial. Every civil and political institution of the world is passing through an ordeal in which it is tested as if in furnace fires. That a new order will arise out of the cinders of the present order is as certain as the progress of the seasons, as inevitable as the astronomical changes in the skies. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.