Reading Nehru's Glimpses of World History

An aspiration list read for a long time. Begun often, but could not be completed. In the book, once again. Saving some notes as I go. 

He suggests reading the last letter first. And indeed, the last letter has a sort of index or contents of what he covers:

And then some perspective:

I have a long list of aspirational reads. And a long pile of unread books either bought first hand, second hand, borrowed, downloaded. I try to tell myself, it is not about the unread, it is about what I put on my day's plate. And I would rather have good sense, appreciation, some uplifting thoughts that lend me some clean perspective, orient me back to my reality, and inspire me to do well there. At least some of such readings every day. 

Really like the simple clean thinking. Would love to carry it with me through my day too.

Further about past and future, and their claim on present

In fact his last letter from this volume is a good note to read now and then just to regain some perspective and some sort of positive action forward in the age of disillusions. He has somethings beautiful to say about faith of older times, and the questioning age. 

Although, and in fact because it is written in 1930s, the slice of history provided by this book, the context, and then the postscript gives a view of the world right before the second world war. There are very few personal writings that cover the world in that scope which I have come across. If one were to read just a little bit, perhaps the last letter and postscript.

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I have found an interesting blog post that introduces the book to those who may not know more. Here it is.

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Further from the earlier sections:

"And so I have always thought that the best way to find out what is right and what is not right, what should be done and what should not be done, is not by giving a sermon, but by talking and discussing, and out of discussion sometimes a little bit of truth comes out."

"the joy of discovery and of learning new things—the great adventure that all of us who care to may have."

"Great leaders have something in them which inspires a whole people and makes them do great deeds."

"Often we may be in doubt as to what to do. It is no easy matter to decide what is right and what is not. Be brave, and all the rest follows."

"But history is one connected whole and you cannot understand even the history of any one country if you do not know what has happened in other parts of the world. I hope that you will not learn history in this narrow way, confining it to one or two countries, but will survey the whole world.... Undoubtedly people do differ from one another, but they resemble each other also a great deal, and it is well to keep this in mind and not be misled by the colours on the map or by national boundaries."