阅读亨德里克·威廉·房龙 Hendrik Willem van Loon在百家争鸣的作品!!! | |||
生平
房龙1882年出生于荷兰鹿特丹一个富裕家庭。自幼对历史、地理、船舶、绘画和音乐等发生兴趣。1902年只身赴美国，入康奈尔大学，1905年获学士学位，1911年在慕尼黑大学获博士学位。
房龙早年的生活并不顺利，他的第一部著作《荷兰共和国的覆亡》虽然得到了一定认可，但销路并不理想。1920年他应书商要约写作《古人类》，才取得一定销量，然而却并不足以扭转他的经济状况。此后房龙写出多部畅销全美市场的作品，其中《圣经的故事》、《人类的故事》和《宽容》最为著名。至1920年代末期他积累到一定财富，在美国和欧洲购置了房产，不再受限于经济问题，可以自由地从事创作和社会活动了。房龙曾在康奈尔大学（1915-1917）和俄亥俄州安条克学院（1921-1922）取得过教职，校方认为他的课非常吸引学生，但是缺乏科学性，且无助于提高学生的历史成绩。
房龙曾以记者身份报道1905年和第一次世界大战。
房龙常以自己手绘的漫画作为自己作品的插图。
房龙结过三次婚：1906年，他与来自马萨诸塞州上流家庭的Eliza Ingersoll Bowditch （数学家Nathaniel Bowditch的后代）结婚，育有两子。1920年娶第二任妻子Eliza Helen Criswell（昵称"吉米"）。在第三段婚姻结束后房龙一直与吉米同居直到去世。《房龙传》的作者，房龙次子杰勒德.威廉.房龙认为房龙并不爱吉米，而只是把她看作工作和生活秘书。
房龙身高达2.08米，亦相当肥胖，有"大象"的绰号。他的身体状况一直不甚理想，最后死于心脏病发。此外因长期从事写作，房龙长期患有神经衰弱。
影响与评价
在美国，房龙被看作著名作家、历史学家和记者，其影响主要来自于他的著作。但在学术界房龙的影响则不大。
尽管中国公众可能对房龙缺乏了解，但在中国的知识界，房龙却拥有相当的认知度。早在1927年，其著作《古人类》就已由中国著名女建筑学家林徽因翻译出版（书名《古代的人》）。《人类的故事》在1930年代出现中文版。中国当代作家郁达夫曾评价说："范龙（即房龙）的这一种方法，实在巧妙不过，干燥无味的科学常识，经他那么一写，无论大人小孩，读他的书的人，都觉得娓娓忘倦了"。"......范龙的笔，有这一种魔力。但这也不是他的特创，这不过是将文学家的手法，拿来用以讲述科学而已。"
1950年代以后，房龙的著作在中国大陆长期遭禁。1980年代中后期起，中国大陆的大学生开始重新传看房龙的著作。到2000年以后中华人民共和国境内实际上掀起了房龙著作的出版热潮，市面上同时存在着同一部著作的多种翻译版本。部分中国知识分子把阅读房龙著作作为了解西方历史、接受人文主义启蒙教育的捷径。房龙作品的通俗性、趣味性和倾向于自由主义的思想也相当程度上满足了中国读书界的需求，有人认为他是"人文主义大师"。
房龙在欧洲几乎不享有知名度，即使在他的故乡荷兰也有很多人不知道房龙或者不认为他是知名人士。
中国读者中的争议
赞扬
持支持态度的读者认为，房龙为写作历史耗费了毕生的精力与健康，用他平易近人、生动流畅的文笔把高深、晦涩的历史知识和理解、宽容和进步的思想普及到广大普通读者中，向无知与偏执不懈地挑战，其精神与功绩都值得后世的赞扬。
关于房龙叙述历史的立足点，支持者认为：房龙始终站在全人类的高度在写作。虽然作为一个过了20岁才移居美国的荷兰人，他不可避免地更多写到他熟悉的西方，也更钟情于他的故国，但他绝不是西方中心论者。他一直在努力从人类的眼光来观察和叙述．超越地区的、宗教的、党派的和种族的偏见。他反对任何形式的狭隘，包括那种为了给本民族增光而歪曲事实的超爱国主义。
批评
有读者批评，房龙在1932年出版的《房龙地理》中，把中日两国比作一条船上的两位乘客，中国年迈体虚，却紧抱着一大包食物；日本血气方刚身强体壮却饥肠辘辘（见《房龙地理》第三十章《日本》）。这句话显示了房龙认为日本对中国的侵略不可避免，且存在合理性。与房龙对于几乎同一时期德国在欧洲的扩张和侵略所持的鲜明的批判态度（见房龙为驳斥希特勒的《我的奋斗》而写作的《我们的战斗》（1938））相比，从这一反差中可以看出房龙所宣扬的人文主义似乎本身就常伴随着欧洲中心主义，并具有虚伪和两面性。
同样是在《房龙地理》中，因其将与中国分作独立的两章撰写，使得中国大陆的版本都以注释声明立场。
主要著作
* 《荷兰共和国的衰亡》（1913）
* 《发现简史》（1917）
* 《古人类》（1920）
* 《人类的故事》（1921）
* 《圣经的故事》（1923）
* 《宽容》（1925）
* 《美洲的故事》（1927）
* 《制造奇迹的人》（1928）
* 《伦勃朗的生平与时代》（1930）
* 《房龙地理》（1932）
* 《艺术》（1937）
* 《太平洋的故事》（1940）
* 《约翰.塞巴斯蒂安.巴赫的生平与时代》（1940）
* 《托马斯.杰弗逊》（1943）
* 《西蒙.玻利瓦尔的生平与时代》（1943）
Life
He was born in Rotterdam, the son of Hendrik Willem van Loon and Elisabeth Johanna Hanken. He went to the United States in 1902 to study at Cornell University, receiving his degree in 1905. He was a correspondent during the Russian Revolution of 1905 and in Belgium in 1914 at the start of World War I. He later became a professor of history at Cornell University (1915–17) and in 1919 became an American citizen.
In 1906 he married Eliza Ingersoll Bowditch, daughter of a Harvard professor, by whom he had two sons, Henry Bowditch and Gerard Willem. He had two later marriages, to Eliza Helen (Jimmie) Criswell in 1920 and playwright Frances Goodrich Ames in 1927, but after a divorce from Ames he returned to Criswell (it is debatable whether or not they re-married) who inherited his estate in 1944.
Works
From the 1910s until his death, Van Loon wrote many books, illustrating them himself. Most widely known among these is The Story of Mankind, a history of the world especially for children, which won the first Newbery Medal in 1922. The book was later updated by Van Loon and has continued to be updated, first by his son and later by other historians.
However, he also wrote many other very popular books aimed at young adults. As a writer he was known for emphasizing crucial historical events and giving a complete picture of individual characters, as well as the role of the arts in history. He also had an informal and thought-provoking style which, particularly in The Story of Mankind, included personal anecdotes.
The titles and subtitles of his books are notable for being lengthy.
Quotations
Asked how to say his name, he told The Literary Digest "I still stick to the Dutch pronunciation of the double o—Loon like loan in 'Loan and Trust Co.' My sons will probably accept the American pronunciation. It really does not matter very much." (Charles Earle Funk, What's the Name, Please?, Funk & Wagnalls, 1936.)
Bibliography
A list of works by Hendrik Willem van Loon, with first publication dates and publishers.
* The Fall of the Dutch Republic, 1913, Houghton Mifflin Co.
* The Rise of the Dutch Kingdom, 1915, Doubleday Page & Co.
* The Golden Book of the Dutch Navigators, 1916, The Century Co.
* A Short History of Discovery: From the Earliest Times to the Founding of Colonies in the American Continent, 1917, David McKay
* Ancient man; the Beginning of Civilizations, 1920, Boni and Liveright
* The Story of Mankind, 1921, Boni and Liveright
* The Story of the Bible, 1923, Boni and Liveright
* Witches and Witch-Finders, 1923, article from the June 1923 Mentor Magazine
* The Story of Wilbur the Hat, 1925, Boni and Liveright
* Tolerance, 1925, Boni and Liveright
* The Liberation of Mankind: the story of man's struggle for the right to think, 1926, Boni and Liveright
* America: The Story of America from the very beginning up to the present, 1927, Boni and Liveright
* Adriaen Block, 1928, Block Hall
* Multiplex man, or the Story of Survival through Invention, 1928, Jonathan Cape
* Life and Times of Peter Stuyvesant, 1928, Henry Holt
* Man the Miracle Maker, 1928, Horace Liveright
* R. v. R.: the Life and Times of Rembrandt van Rijn, 1930, Horace Liveright
* If the Dutch Had Kept Nieuw Amsterdam, in If, Or History Rewritten, edited by J. C. Squire, 1931, Simon and Schuster
* Van Loon's Geography: The Story of the World We Live In, 1932, Simon and Schuster
* "Gold" 1933, article from the Cosmopolitan March 1933
* An Elephant Up a Tree, 1933, Simon and Schuster
* An Indiscreet Itinerary or How the Unconventional Traveler Should See Holland by one who was actually born there and whose name is Hendrik Willem Van loon, 1933, Harcourt, Brace
* The Home of Mankind: the story of the world we live in, 1933, George G. Harrap
* The story of inventions: Man, the Miracle Maker, 1934, Horace Liveright
* Ships: and How They Sailed the Seven Seas (5000 B.C.-A.D.1935), 1935, Simon and Schuster
* Around the World With the Alphabet, 1935, Simon and Schuster
* Air-Storming (radio talk), 1935, Harcourt, Brace
* Love me not, 1935
* A World Divided is a World Lost, 1935, Cosmos Publishing Co.
* The Songs We Sing (with Grace Castagnetta), 1936, Simon and Schuster
* The Arts (with musical illustrations by Grace Castagnetta), 1937, Simon and Schuster
* Christmas Carols (with Grace Castagnetta), 1937, Simon and Schuster
* Observations on the mystery of print and the work of Johann Gutenberg, 1937, Book Manufacturer's Institute/New York Times
* Our Battle: Being One Man's Answer to "My Battle" by Adolf Hitler, 1938, Simon and Schuster
* How to Look at Pictures: a Short History of Painting, 1938, National Committee for Art Appreciation
* Folk Songs of Many Lands (with Grace Castagnetta), 1938, Simon and Schuster
* The Last of the Troubadours: The Life and Music of Carl Michael Bellman 1740-1795 (with Grace Castagnetta), 1939, Simon and Schuster
* The Songs America Sings (with Grace Castagnetta), 1939, Simon and Schuster
* My School Books, 1939, E. I. du Pont de Nemours
* Invasion, being the personal recollections of what happened to our own family and to some of our friends during the first forty-eight hours of that terrible incident in our history which is now known as the great invasion and how we escaped with our lives, 1940, Harcourt, Brace
* The Story of the Pacific, 1940, George G. Harrap
* The Life and Times of Johann Sebastian Bach, 1940, Simon and Schuster
* Good Tidings (with Christmas songs by Grace Castegnetta), 1941, American Artists Group
* The Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, with a short life of the Author by Hendrik Willem van Loon of Rotterdam who also illustrated the Book, 1942
* Van Loon's Lives: Being a true and faithful account of a number of highly interesting meetings with certain historical personages, from Confucius and Plato to Voltaire and Thomas Jefferson, about whom we had always felt a great deal of curiosity and who came to us as dinner guests in a bygone year, 1942, Simon and Schuster
* Christmas Songs, 1942
* The Message of the Bells (with music by Grace Castagnetta), 1942, New York Garden City
* Fighters for Freedom: the Life and Times of Thomas Jefferson and Simon Bolivar, 1943, Dodd, Mead & Co.
* The Life and Times of Scipio Fulhaber, Chef de Cuisine, 1943
* Adventures and Escapes of Gustavus Vasa, and how they carried him from his rather obscure origin to the throne of Sweden, 1945
* Report to Saint Peter, upon the kind of world in which Hendrik Willem van Loon spent the first years of his life - an unfinished, posthumously published autobiography, 1947, Simon and Schuster
Books about Van Loon
* Cornelis van Minnen (2005). Van Loon: Popular Historian, Journalist, and FDR Confidant. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1-4039-7049-1.
* Gerard Willem Van Loon (1972). The story of Hendrik Willem van Loon. Lippincott. ISBN 0-397-00844-9.
* Erasmus with a short life of the author by Gerard Willem Van Loon (1972). The Praise of Folly. For the Classic Club, by Walter J.Black of New York.
In popular culture
The Italian songwriter Francesco Guccini has composed a song, dedicated to the memory of his father, who was a lover of van Loon's works when he was young. The song is titled "Van Loon", and appears in the album Signora Bovary.