This book is a 100 page biography of the human species A few lessons of history: 1.  In the end superior ability has its way. 2.  History reports that the men who can manage men manage the men who can manage only things, and the men who can manage money manage all. 3.  Every advance in the complexity of the economy puts an added premium upon superior ability. 4. All technological advances are merely new means of achieving old ends. 5.  The influence of geographic factors diminishes as technology grows. 6.  Economic development specializes functions, differentiates abilities, and makes men unequally valuable to their group. 7. In every age men have been dishonest and governments have been corrupt. 8. Competition is not only the life of trade, it is the trade of life. 9. We cooperate in our group in order to strengthen our group in its competition with other groups. 10. War is a nation's way of eating. 11. War is the ultimate form of competition. 12. Leave men free and their natural inequalities will multiply. 13. History shows little alteration in the conduct of mankind. 14. The initiative individual—the "great man," the "hero," the "genius"—regains his place as a formative force in history. 14b. At times his eloquence, like Churchill's, may be worth a thousand regiments; his foresight in strategy and tactics, like Napoleon's, may win battles and campaigns and establish states. 14c. These initiative individuals are effects of numberless causes, and causes of endless effects. 15. The imitative majority follows the innovating minority and this follows the originative individual. 16. Even the skeptical historian develops a humble respect for religion, since he sees it functioning, and seemingly indispensable, in every land and age. 17. History remains, at bottom, a natural selection of the fittest individuals and groups. 18. Every advance in the complexity of the economy puts an added premium upon superior ability. 19. Our capacity for fretting is endless. 20. If a man is fortunate he will, before he dies, gather up as much as he can of his civilized heritage and transmit it to his children. 21. The final test is the ability to survive. New episode on The Lessons of History is available now!