WORLD RHYTHMS

WHAT are we entitled to ask of a "universal history"? First, that it should maintain a certain balance and not give too large a place to Western history and its antecedents-- the triumphal progression from the Egypt of the pyramids to Europe's belle époque. To borrow the titles of works published during the eighteenth century, we would expect it to be "the history of all the peoples of the world", or "the history of mankind".