Last And First Men
by Olaf Stapledon
An artifact of unprecedented proportions in the genre, this work tells the history of humanity for more than two billion years from today, and eighteen different human species, of which ours was the first and most primitive. Stapledon's conception of history is based on Hegelian dialectics after a recurring cycle in which there have been many different civilizations rising from savagery to and returning to savagery over millions of years, but it is also one of advances as later civilizations have risen to much higher levels than before. A novel highly respected by various figures such as Jorge Luis Borges, J.B. Priestley, Bertrand Russell, Algernon Blackwood, Hugh Walpole, Arnold Bennett, Virginia Woolf and Winston Churchill.
