The History of the World Summary:

The scientific process is one of first constructing a hypothesis, or having a hypothesis, and then observing the data and thirdly undertaking analysis to see whether your hypothesis is correct. In mathematics or physics, for example, the hypothesis is first called a "theory" and if it proves to be valid it may then be called a "law".

In school, history as taught to you is not a science. You are given the second component of the scientific process: the data. You are not given a hypothesis of why the data happened. You may be told that a war happened in 1939 and that it happened because Hitler decided to create war. But this does not really help you. The obvious next question is what function, what purpose did the war serve, in the wider context of the whole history of man. Not a nice thing to be thinking about, but then war is not nice.

Therefore, history as of today is not a science. It is just a collection of facts or probable facts.

So this is what the author sets out to do: turn history into a science. The author believes in God. This is one component of his hypothesis. Every science in the world today has a set of hypotheses. Just because you do not believe in one or other of the assumptions underlying a science, does not mean that it is not a science. The scientific process is one with the three steps outlined in the first paragraph.

The second assumption underlying this new science of history is that God created the universe specifically with the aim of finding someone to love Him. With this second component of the overall hypothesis, the author is then able to look at all the main historical events: the creation of the world, the creation of language, the creation of man, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Greek civilization and so forth and in a lighthearted but controversial fashion discuss these, from a point of view that is not religious, but is interesting and new.

About the Author:

Shyam has been practising yoga since 1957 and been teaching yoga since 1973.

He had a Christian upbringing, in England. At Cambridge University he became interested in yoga philosophy and Hinduism. Later he gave up his Hindu sacred thread in order to fully devote his life to helping all nice people become happy. He has had a variety of religious experiences in his life and worships God almost every moment of his waking hours.