“It was a long time ago” is how all the best stories in the world begin, including “A Little World History,” written by the great historian and art critic Ernst Gombrich in 1936, when he was not yet great at all and had just become historian. Instead of stuffing its young or not-so-young reader with dates and facts, this fascinating and invigorating book unfolds before him a breathtaking panorama of human existence on planet Earth, from the Stone Age to the Atomic Age. Gombrich describes wars and revolutions; great works of art; scientific breakthroughs and dead ends that scientists have reached. He is interested in everything from the invention of cave painting to the fall of the Berlin Wall, and everything from Confucius to Churchill. Translated into dozens of languages, A Little World History is now published in Russian in a beautiful illustrated edition—for adults who are interested in taking a look at the history of the world at a glance, teenagers who need to prepare for an exam in a couple of hours, and children who are getting to know reality for the first time , where everything seems to them to have happened a long time ago.