Becki’s

History of

the World

by

       Jaron Summers 

 I  decided to write a history book that is easy enough for any (smarter than average) nine year old to understand. Becki, a distant cousin, is about nine and she is smarter than average. Way smarter. 

This book is for Becki. 

Originally I was going to do the book in 10 lessons but then I found out the earth is 475,000,000 years older than I thought, so I had to add one more lesson.

Lesson 1

Becki, do you know why you are such a good typist?

It runs in our family. 

Your grandfather (Ken) had an aunt named Ivie, or was it  Ivy?—anyway she was the fastest typist in the British Empire.

I'm not kidding.

And in her day the British Empire was really big, it was so big the sun never set on it.

Imagine that.

The reason the British Empire was so big was because the people in England (your great-eversogreat-grandfathers) built a huge navy and they sailed around the world and landed in different countries and then they would say that they had “discovered” these countries.  (Really, the countries were there all along.)

Anyway, in places like Africa and India our eversogreat grandfathers would insist we owned these discoveries and the natives would say “What about us, don't we own them?” 

No, we would say, we, by George, own them and then we would plant a flag (the Union Jack)  and blow up anyone who did not let us be their king (or queen). 

We had an advantage over the natives. 

It was not that we were smarter or stronger or more cunning. 

We had GUNPOWDER and it was great stuff—if you wanted to become a king or queen and make certain that natives went along with British thought.

You might wonder what British thought was. 

Well, it was very simple. 

The British thought they should rule the world because, well, they just thought it was a fine idea.  And it was for them. 

Later they called the natives “slaves.”

When the natives got tired of being slaves, they became terrorists.  They stole gunpowder from the British and blew up the redcoats. 

Red.

That was the color of the uniform that the British officers wore so that when they were shot in battle their men would not see them bleed and retreat in panic.

Our eversogreat grandfathers tried to think of everything.

ASSIGNMENT:  Check out “Gunboat Diplomacy.”

* Historical footnote: Ivie was also my aunt but she liked your grandfather better than me.  She said I was goofy.  Oh well.  To find out more about her, click here.

 Lesson 2

An old friend of mine, Norman Klenman, read your “history” lesson and sent me the following—

It has some wonderful ideas and solid observations. You might want to have your mom or dad go through it with you.  Everything Norman wrote is in blue.  Boy, he came up with some great ideas.

Hey Jaron, writers  have more fun than anyone. That's obvious when one reads a Jaron wacky tale!  Actually, a pretty good history of the imperial past.

There is just one dent in it. They [the British] took education, the civil service, railway and telegraph communication to India, left it there when they were kicked out. 

And now India is one of the world's great democracies, a powerhouse economically, and so brilliant the US farms out its math, science and computer tech innovation to Indians.  Hmmm.... maybe that will be History lesson two?

History lesson three: About three years ago, when I was in England, I watched a BBC documentary on a remote village in the South African territories.

There was to be a meeting of some kind that got natives present from all kinds of different distant backwoods regions.

Many were in native dress, and some chiefs of course in symbolic dress, though a suspicious number turned out in suits, shirts and ties, with polished shoes, and carrying spears!

There was only one bench and a table at the head of the open space. The natives all took their places seated on the ground. Three or four senior natives sat on the bench.

 They had a student scribbler pad and a pen, and opened the pages. The chairman, presumably he was going to run the meeting, produced a gavel and rapped it.

There was silence. The head man directed the minutes be read. So help me god, the minutes were read, moved, seconded and approved.

A native in full dress with an ivory ring in his nose stood up toward the back of the assembled people, and said: Mr. Chairman I rise to a point of order. He spoke in a fine Oxford accent.

The chairman said he recognized the speaker, asked for his name and village for the minutes, and the speaker then dealt with a complex issue, namely water pipe installation by a district contractor which had not been properly represented in the minutes.

This matter being dealt with, they went on to approve treasury expenditures and dealt with new business.

I was stunned. The British had been there, done their worst, ravaged the land, fought a stupid war against the Boers, left the place, even fought to support apartheid (some of them), and now what?

A huge country with fine Brit traditions of public order, a civil service, parliamentary government, the beginnings of education, expansion of trade, independence, and a new and burgeoning democracy.

Well, I don't defend imperialism. But lesson three must be: Nothing is as simple as it first appears. Clichés abound in political thinking.

The emptiest barrels make the most noise. There is some good in the worst people. After all, Hitler built the autobahn.

Tell the little girl to go on and get her education. Nothing else she ever does will do her as much good, or give her as much pleasure.

I know an exAlberta writer who writes the most interesting columns in the nation and I wish they were carried by the National Post or the Globe and Mail. Anyway, he couldn't have done them without a top level of education and creativity!

So Becki, your second history lesson is more important than the first one. Everyone has a different way of looking at the past. Be careful about believing anything about history. After all, Winston Churchill once wrote: “Of course history will be kind to me, I intend to write it.”

ASSIGNMENT: Look at different world maps. Do you know how to tell which country printed them? Hint. It's usually the country that positions itself in the center.  Same way with history. The country that writes the history features its point of view.

To see what a Chinese Map and a Canadian map look like go online here:

 Lesson 3

Hi, Becki—

I am glad you liked history lesson 1 and 2. Lesson 1 was that you could enjoy history more if you were connected to it so  I wrote about our forefathers, the British. 

Lesson 2 was how everyone has a different view of history and the country that writes the history has its own slant.

History Lesson 3 is about all the countries. Last count 192 – this is not quite accurate. If you’re linked to the internet, click here to see why.

Maybe if you went back far enough you would come to a time when there was just one group of people.

You could say they owned the whole world, but the fact is no one owns anything. The world has been around for 4.5 billion years.

  People have lived on it for about 2 million years and it’s only been in the last 10 or 20 thousand years that people divided up the world into different countries.

One of the oldest icons of civilization are the pyramids. They have only been around for about 5 thousand years. The pharaohs  who ruled the land of the pyramids are all dead.

See?

No one really owns anything. If we are lucky we get to look after it for awhile. Then we are gone, back to the dust.

But between now and dust you will have a lot of fun. So don’t worry about the dust part. Maybe your generation will invent something that stops people from ever dying. A dust buster. 

My generation invented the dust buster. But it had nothing to do with eternal life. Maybe your generation will hatch something that will make you live forever. 

You can call it the ultimate dust buster.

Of course if no one died, we would have a bigger world population and I bet more countries.  

Right now there are almost 200 countries. 

Why do we have so many?

The answer is sad. People conquered each other.

They were not happy with sunsets and families, they wanted more so they talked their neighbors into attacking the people on the other side of the river or over the mountains and the winners started new countries. 

Everyone attacked everyone else.

Although there was enough for everyone, some people  wanted all the food and all the water.

When I was your age we all drank water out of a taps.  No bottled water. 

Today everyone drinks bottled water. Guess what?  It costs hundreds of times more for a glass of bottled water than water out of your tap and the bottled water is not as safe as ordinary water.

 I’m not kidding. 

If we spent the money that we squander on bottled water, then everyone in the world could drink water that was safe.

Most people would cooperate.  Most countries would not. 

So is the solution to pure water and harmony having one country and sharing everything?

I think so but that’s going to be harder to pull off that an ultimate dust buster.

This brings us to the end of Lesson 3 in World History. 

Here is your assignment:  Find out how much people spend on plastic water bottles that they throw away every day.

Hint.

P.S. Once I was almost killed in the biggest pyramid in the world. 

You can read about it here.

 Lesson 4

This lesson is about money—the stuff you need to buy a bike or get into the movies. 

   It seems no matter what you want to do you have to have a fistful of dollars.

So what’s money?  And how does it relate to the history of the world? 

In the days of your great-great grandparents a dollar was equal to a certain amount of gold or silver. Money represented something of value.

It does not always have to be gold or silver. It could be chocolate. I’m not kidding.  Here is a story I wrote about money and chocolate.

Of course I’m being a bit silly, but you’ll still get the point:

Chocolate

 I love it.

Forty years ago a Hershey chocolate bar cost five cents.  The bar will cost $5.00 in 2010.

The dollar won't be worth anything in a few years.

The chocolate will!

I think it's obvious that since we no longer have a gold or silver standard that we must stabilize our economy by creating a chocolate standard. 

(Today in the USA we don't have money backing dollars, we have currency. Currency eventually becomes worthless because with nothing backing it the government can print all they want.  Too bad, so sad. Very sad.)

I wish I had thought of a chocolate standard but it was the ancient Mayan culture that first tied money to chocolate.

Honest.

Sophie and Michael Coes, anthropologists, document how the Mayans used unsweetened liquid chocolate as money hundreds of years ago.

One of the problems with chocolate money would be coming up with the correct formula. Should a dollar be pegged to a handful of chocolate Hershey kisses? 

Or M&Ms? And then of course, how do you store your hoard of chocolate? 

I would tie Sees Chocolates to the dollar. 

First—Sees are good.

Second—the company is owned by one of the richest men in the world: Warren Buffet. A $10,000 investment in Buffet's original 1956 portfolio would today be worth a staggering 250 million ... after taxes!

And third—Sees Chocolates was invented by a Canadian, Mrs. Sees.  (Banks in Canada never fail.)

A box of Sees chocolates costs about $13.00. 

But to stock up big time and protect your investment from going stale, you'd want to buy Sees Chocolate Gift Coupons at a place like Costco. Your per-pound cost is well under $10.00. 

 The coupons can be traded for a pound of chocolate anytime at Sees.  Forever. It's like buying the ultimate option. 

Buffet will be forced to produce and supply a pound of chocolates for much more money than you originally paid for them.

How sweet it is.

Think of the short-term possibilities.  You buy a $13 coupon for under $10 at Costco and you take it to Sees and sell it to someone entering the store.  (The coupons are transferable.) 

Quick profit!  In a few hours you earn 30-35 per cent on your money. 

Now think of the long-term gains.  Toss the coupon in a safety deposit box, wait ten years. 

I project that a pound of Sees will cost about $50 in a decade.  So in the year 2015, simply take your certificate and lurk outside a Sees store. 

Any Sees customer would snap up your coupon for $40.  (It would save them $10.)  A win-win situation.

Your originally ten dollar investment would be worth four times what you had paid for it. 

Put the same ten bucks in a bank today and you would be lucky to earn a dollar or two in the next decade.

Could chocolate beat the stock market? Or the bond market? Or real estate? Or fine art?  Bet the farm on it.

Worst case scenario. All world markets crash and civilization ends and you can still eat your investments.

I have tracked Mr. Buffet's investment strategies over the decades.  Recently he bought huge quantities of silver.  (But you can’t eat silver.) 

He is now Arnold Schwarzenegger's financial advisor as the world-famous star attempts to govern  California.

From time to time Mr. Buffet meets with Bill Gates.  (But Buffet does not buy software stocks.)

What is going on?  Silver, Arnold and Gates are smoke screens for what Buffet is up to.

Mr. Buffet is only a heartbeat away from establishing a world chocolate standard that he plans to control.  If you're as smart as I am you'll cash in by buying chocolate futures (Sees gift certificates at Costco). 

Fair warning: Mr. Smoke Screen Buffet, we're onto you! 

So, you see, Becki, money can be backed by anything from gold to chocolate.  In our next history lesson, I'll try to explain why money is so important to countries and how it impacts world history.

 Lesson 5

Hi, Becki—

Welcome to World History Lesson Five. I told you that I’d try to explain how money relates to world history.

First, let's look at a couple of the ways people and companies deal with money.

Here’s “a letter” to me from a banker.

Dear Mr. Summers,

Since we regard you as a “partner” in our banking family, we at the Royal Bank appreciate your concerns. Rest assured, we look upon the administration of your money as a solemn duty.

You wrote to me that you felt we were “gouging customers with [expletive deleted] spiraling service fees.” Let’s look at the facts, Mr. Summers.

Suppose you have an extra $100 and you partner with us by opening an account.

After one year, we will pay you .05 per cent interest and you will have a $100.50 balance. We will have expenses such as political donations and green fees for our executives. Because of overhead, we have an annual service fee of $5.

Bottom line: at the end of 365 days, you will still have almost a $96 real balance and your money will be safe. It’s a win-win partnership.

A system of cheques and balances

If you don’t want to keep your money in our bank, you can withdraw it at any time by writing a cheque. If a clerk cashes it for you, the Royal Bank charges a reasonable teller’s fee of $2. If you use an ATM convenience card, our service fee is only 50 cents.

Your convenience card costs you $12.50 annually, but you can use it for many other transactions such as checking your account balance and each time you use that card you gain air miles. Not many, but they mount up. Especially if you measure your travel in feet instead of miles.

How can we afford to keep our service fees so low? We augment our fees with the money people entrust us with.

Suppose that Customer B writes a cheque for $50 but only has $49 in our bank. (In our Far East branches, such an action would be punishable by public whippings, but in Canada we are more lenient.)

If someone is a good customer, we will “lend” him or her a dollar so that the aforementioned $50 cheque will clear.

Since we are in the business of managing money, we charge a nominal $20 overdraft fee (plus interest). The unpaid interest on the dollar is 18 per cent. This means that we must wait a full four years to double our money.

During this time we have many expenses: bad debts, political donations, hiring people to foreclose on orphanages and so on.

If we are patient, we are eventually rewarded. One dollar at 18 per cent over 100 years turns into $33 million. (We bankers call this the Rule of 72. Divide 18 into 72 and you come up with four.

That means our money doubles every four years. How many four-year periods are there in a century? Twenty-five. Just double a dollar 25 times and you can arrive at the answer yourself. Good old compound interest.)

To heir is human, to bank is a ripoff

Happily, come rain or shine, your account will also continue to earn compound interest. Understandably, bank service fees will erode your account if you do nothing.

In the fifteenth year, if you (or your heirs) continue to neglect your account, we at the Royal will, as a courtesy, “absorb” your balance to avoid further charges to your estate.

A good thing, for we have a solemn duty to look after money in the manner that Our Father in Heaven directs us to.

So, to recap: We will, with hard work, have turned your 100 dollars into $33 million. Your original $100 account will long ago have been closed because you abandoned it. You will be dead or senile.

Mr. Summers, I’m sure I need not remind you of the liability one faces when one’s partners are both dead and/or broke.

Worse, as the years roll by, we will be burdened with more and more dead and senile customer-partners with no money. Consequently, your partners here at the Royal Bank feel justified in maintaining our present service fees.

With warmest wishes,

Gordon M. Nixon, Chairman & CEO, Royal Bank

Okay, I made up the satirical letter to illustrate a point and the point is, Becki, corporations (and countries that are made up of corporations) know how to acquire money, and the little guy (like us) usually has a hard time making much money or keeping it.

The big companies and countries end up with much of the wealth.

When it gets too lopsided, the people revolt and wars start.

When one part of a country fights another part of it you have a civil war. When countries fight each other you have regular wars. Right now there are over 100 wars.

When enough countries fight each other at the same time, you have world wars. We have had two.

By the way, included in my definition of a corporation is any group of people who form an economic band to gain wealth. What a mouthful. (Money is simply a modern term to measure wealth.)

Attila the Hun had no corporation. He had a band of followers who wanted to acquire wealth. They killed anyone in their way.

The Nazis were a band of thugs who wanted to acquire countries. And they did until the rest of the world stopped them. We call that World War II.

And in the Wild West, the settlers banded together to acquire the land of the Indians. They almost obliterated the natives who now have casinos (run by their bands) that are bent on acquiring money using modern day corporations.

Ha-ha, jokes on the cowboys and cavalry.

Here is your assignment. Think of any country at war at any time in the history of the world. Ask yourself how money (or the accumulation of wealth) was behind that war.

 Lesson 6

Hi, Becki—Here we are on Lesson Six of the History of the World.

Let’s figure out what we have talked about and try to stitch things together. Kinda connect the dots.

The First Lesson was about you and our forefathers. They were British and when we go back in our history we discovered that the British were pretty warlike and aggressive. Some of the British were bullies.

History is always more fun when you can connect yourself to it. That’s why I talked about our ever-so-great grandfather. The key to studying history is to see how you are connected to other people.  So when you read something about history, look for how you relate to that something. 

You’ll be surprised to find a lot of connections.

Then in Lesson Two, an old friend, pointed out that the British brought some great ideas and concepts to the people they conquered. (So some of the things that I said in Lesson One were wrong.) Now, that’s okay because there is always something wrong in all the first Lessons of all books. As a student of history it’s your job to figure out what that is.

And of course there could be more than one mistake, nevertheless, there are usually lots of things in most books of history that are true. And even if they are not true, you can learn lessons from them.

Just don’t believe everything you read.  Or hear. Or see on TV.

Lesson Three was about war and how many countries are involved in it, for what seems forever.  It’s terrible that there are so many wars but there are also many places on the earth where people live in peace.

They watch sunsets, fall in love, have families and walk on beaches or play in the snow. 

And if you look for examples, people can be really nice to each other.  Usually the papers and TV and history books carry the bad things.  But that’s not how the world really is. The fact is your world is how you make it.

Lesson Four was what money is and in Lesson Five I explained how the little guy gets taken advantage by the big guy.

You have to keep your wits about you.

Sure, there are many greedy and selfish people, but there are lots of people who will be kind to you and help you to succeed.  So focus on the nice people.

And that usually begins with your family.

Your assignment for this coming week is to do one nice thing for everyone in your family and don’t let them know who did it.

I promise you that you’ll certainly feel good about yourself. (Well, almost for certain.)

People want to feel good about themselves.  That is one of the major reasons they go to churches (or synagogues or temples or mosques—to name a few).  They have different kinds of bibles and teachings. 

And now we are getting into a very important aspect of history. 

Religion. 

Religious beliefs have probably shaped the world as much as anything.

We’ll talk about that in the next lesson.  

In the meantime, remember your assignment. Do one nice thing for everyone in your family and don’t let them know who did it.  

What better way is there to make history than to do something nice for your family?

PS - if you want to read more about acts of kindness, go online.

 Lesson 7

As we talked about in the last lesson, religious beliefs have shaped our history as much as anything.

Ever heard about cargoism? 

It seems there were some natives who lived on South Pacific islands during World War II.  They had never seen planes, at least close-up. 

&n