The Historians' History of the World, subtitled A Comprehensive Narrative of the Rise and Development as Recorded by over two thousand of the Great Writers of all Ages, is a 25-volume encyclopedia of world history, published in 1902. It was compiled by Henry Smith Williams, a medical doctor and author of many books on medicine, science, and history, as well as other authorities on history including historian Walter Lynwood Fleming, and Rupert Hughes as editor.[1]
|-! Part! Based on authors or works including! Topics covered|-| colspan=3 | I: Prolegomena, Egypt, Mesopotamia|-| I: Prolegomena| | Prefatory discussion on various topics relating to the practice of historical study|-| II: Egypt| | Ancient Egypt|-| III: Mesopotamia| | Mesopotamia|-| colspan=3 | II: Israel, India, Persia, Phoenicia, minor nations of Western Asia|-| IV: The History of Israel| Ernest Babelon, The Bible, Thomas Kelly Cheyne, Maximilian Wolfgang Duncker, Heinrich Ewald, Edward Gibbon, Ferdinand Hitzig, Johann Jahn, Josephus, Rudolf Kittel,, Max Loehr, Louis Ménard, Henry Hart Milman, Salomon Munk, Francis William Newman, Ernest Renan, Archibald Sayce, George Adam Smith, Bernhard Stade| Biblical history of Abraham and the early Israelites, Moses, the Judges, Samuel, Saul, David, Nehemiah, the Maccabean Revolt, early Christianity, the Fall of Jerusalem|-| V: The History of Phoenicia| Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren, John Kenrick,, Theodor Mommsen, Franz Karl Movers, | The origins of the people of Phoenicia, and their rise to maritime supremacy under Hiram I and his successors, Phoenicia under the Persians and Greeks the history of Carthage and its decline with the Punic Wars|-| VI: The History of Western Asia| Ernest Babelon, Maximilian Wolfgang Duncker, Eduard Meyer, Georges Perrot & Charles Chipiez, Georges Radet, A.H. Sayce, Albert Socin| The story of the Hittites, the Scythians, the Cimmerians, the Lydians and a handful of other peoples of the Ancient Near East|-| VII: The History of Ancient India| Arrian, Gustave Le Bon, Eugene Bournouf, Mountstuart Elphinstone, William Wilson Hunter, William Jones, Ferdinand Justi, Salomon Lefmann, James Mill, Vedas, H. H. Wilson| The early Hindus, the Vedas, the Brahmins, the rise of Buddhism|-| VIII: The History of Ancient Persia| Ctesias, Herodotus, Gaston Maspero, Theodor Nöldeke, Henry Creswicke Rawlinson| The Achaemenid Empire, the Medes, Elamites, the civilization of Persia under Cyrus the Great and Darius I, Xerxes I and Artaxerxes III, the fall of the empire|-| colspan=3 | III: Greece to the Peloponnesian war|-| colspan=3 |IV: Greece|-| colspan=3 | V: The Roman Republic|-| | Ammianus Marcellinus, Appian, Thomas Arnold, the Augustan History, Julius Caesar, Henry Fynes Clinton, Cicero, Cassius Dio, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Eutropius, Florus, Victor Gardthausen, Edward Gibbon, Adolf von Harnack, Gustav Hertzberg, Herodian, Otto Hirschfeld, Thomas Hodgkin, Karl Hoeck, Wilhelm Ihne, Jordanes, Josephus, George Cornewall Lewis, Henry Liddell, Livy, Joachim Marquardt, Charles Merivale, Eduard Meyer, Theodor Mommsen, Monumentum Ancyranaum, Cornelius Nepos, Barthold Georg Niebuhr, Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger, Plutarch, Polybius, Leopold von Ranke, Sallust, Strabo, Suetonius, Tacitus, Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont, Velleius Paterculus, Georg Weber, Zosimus| Early legends of the Founding of Rome and of the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic's development and rise to supremacy via the Punic Wars, Samnite Wars, Macedonian Wars, and the Roman conquest of Italy, the final days of the Republic, the reforms of Tiberius Gracchus, Gaius Gracchus, and Gaius Marius and his conflict with Sulla following the Jugurthine War in Africa, the rise of Pompey and his war against Julius Caesar, the Second Catilinarian conspiracy, the Crisis of the Roman Republic and its fall|-| colspan=3 | VI: The early Roman empire|-| || Augustus, the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the rise of Christianity, the many emperors who held power in Rome during the founding and the fall of the Roman Empire, the division of the Roman Empire and the many barbarian invasions (Huns, Goths, Vandals) leading up to Rome's fall|-| colspan=3 | VII: The later Roman Empire|-| Part XI, The History of the Later Roman Empire, Book I: The Later Roman Empire in the East | Agathias, Appian, the Augustan History, J. B. Bury, Henry Fynes Clinton, George Kedrenos, Anna Komnene, Cassius Dio, Doukas (historian), Einhard, Eutropius, George Finlay, Heinrich Gelzer, Edward Gibbon, Wilhelm von Giesebrecht, Ferdinand Gregorovius, Gustav Hertzberg, Thomas Hodgkin, Jordanes, John Malalas, Procopius, Leopold von Ranke, Strabo, Tacitus, Velleius Paterculus, Georg Weber, Joannes Zonaras, Zosimus| the reign of Arcadius in 395, deals with the Eastern Roman Empire through to the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, detailing as well the Siege of Constantinople (1204) by the members of the Fourth Crusade which led to the short-lived Latin Empire along with the various incidents in the history of Constantinople with several chapters dedicated to Justinian I|-| Part XI, The History of the Later Roman Empire, Book II: The Later Roman Empire in the West| As above | Odoacer and the Visigoths' invasion of Italy, the Lombard invasion of Italy, the Carolingian dynasty, Charlemagne, the birth of the Holy Roman Empire, the Investiture controversy, Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor|-| colspan=3 | VIII: Parthians, Sassanids, and Arabs, the Crusades and the Papacy|-| XII: The History of the Parthians, Sassanids, and Arabs | Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, Bar Hebraeus, Abulfeda, Maximilian Wolfgang Duncker, Ignác Goldziher, Alfred von Gutschmid, William Muir, Theodor Nöldeke, Louis-Pierre-Eugène Sédillot, Julius Wellhausen, Gustav Weil| The Parthian Empire, the conquests of Mithridates I of Parthia, the Mithridatic Wars with Mithridates VI of Pontus, the Sasanian Empire and the continuation of the Roman–Persian Wars, the Hephthalite–Persian Wars, the history of Pre-Islamic Arabia, Muhammad and the spread of Islam, the Umayyad Caliphate, the Abbasid Caliphate, the medieval history of Islam in Spain, Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence)|-| XIII: The History of the Crusades and of the Papacy| Abu'l-Fida, Choiseul, Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad, James Bryce, William Denton, John William Draper, Einhard, Edward Gibbon, Johann Karl Ludwig Gieseler, Henry Hallam, Henry Charles Lea, Joseph François Michaud, Charles Mills (historian), Henry Hart Milman, Johann Lorenz von Mosheim, Leopold von Ranke, Geoffrey of Villehardouin| The Crusades, the history of the papacy|-| colspan=3 | IX: Italy|-| | Ammirato, Jacob Burckhardt, Samuel Astley Dunham, Francesco Guicciardini, William Carew Hazlitt, Anna Komnene, Heinrich Leo, Niccolò Machiavelli, Henry Edward Napier, Alfred von Reumont, William Roscoe, Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi, John Addington Symonds, Voltaire| |-| colspan=3 | X: Spain and Portugal|-| XV: The History of Spain and Portugal, Book I| Pero López de Ayala,, Hermann Baumgarten, Samuel Astley Dunham, Martin Sharp, William Francis Patrick Napier, William H. Prescott, Jerónimo Zurita y Castro| Spain's earliest known history under the Celts, the Phoenicians, the Ancient Greeks through to the Roman conquest of Hispania, the Gothic invasion, the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula and their later overthrow, the Kingdom of Aragon and Kingdom of Castile, the reigns of Ferdinand II of Aragon, Isabella I of Castile, and the monarchs of Habsburg Spain; the House of Bourbon during the French Revolution, the Peninsular War, the regency of Maria Christina of Austria|-| XV: The History of Spain and Portugal, Book II| As above| The history of Portugal beginning with Afonso I of Portugal, other kings including Afonso II of Portugal, Denis of Portugal, and John I of Portugal, the role of Portugal in the Age of Discovery, Portuguese India, the Portuguese conquest of Goa, the decline of Portugal as a major European power, the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, Napoleon's invasion of Portugal, the reign of Carlos I of Portugal, the Inquisition, Catharism, the Waldensians and the Albigensian Crusade, the history of the Jews in Spain, the auto-da-fé, Tomás de Torquemada|-| colspan=3 | XI: France, 843–1715|-| XVI: The History of France| Louis Pierre Édouard, Baron Bignon, Louis Blanc, Jean-Baptiste Honoré Raymond Capefigue, Thomas Carlyle, Hippolyte Castille, Symphorien Champier, François-René de Chateaubriand, Pierre Adolphe Chéruel, John Wilson Croker, Philippe de Commines, Edmond Jurien de La Gravière, Alexis de Tocqueville, Victor Duruy, Gabriel-Henri Gaillard, François Guizot, Ernest Hamel, Ludwig Häusser, Karl Hillebrand, Alphonse de Lamartine, Jules Michelet, Enguerrand de Monstrelet, Guillaume de Nangis, Jules Quicherat, Alfred Nicolas Rambaud, Edmond Henri Adolphe Schérer, Walter Scott, Charles Seignobos, Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi, Albert Sorel, Heinrich von Sybel, Adolphe Thiers, Voltaire| The later Carolingian dynasty, the foundation of the House of Capet, the rise of the House of Valois, the Hundred Years' War, Cardinal Mazarin, Cardinal Richelieu, the House of Bourbon, the death of Louis XIV of France|-| colspan=3 | XII: France, 1715–1815|-| XVII| | The early years of Louis XV of France, Madame de Pompadour, Voltaire, Louis XVI of France and Marie Antoinette, the French Revolution under Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, the Execution of Louis XVI and the Girondins, the Reign of Terror, the rise of Napoleon, the Napoleonic Wars, the Treaties of Tilsit, the Battle of Waterloo|-| colspan=3 | XIII: France, 1815–1904; Netherlands|-| colspan=3 | XIV: The Netherlands (concluded), the Germanic empires|-| XVIII: The History of the Germanic Empires| Alfred von Arneth,, Friedrich Karl Biedermann, Thomas Carlyle, Robert Buckley Comyn, William Coxe, Mandell Creighton, Hans Delbrück, Eduard Duller,, Frederick II,, Johann Karl Ludwig Gieseler, Anton Gindely, Karl Rudolf Hagenbach, James Wycliffe Headlam-Morley,, Friedrich Kohlrausch,, Franz Krones, Karl Gotthard Lamprecht, János Majláth, Wolfgang Menzel, Wilhelm Oncken,, Hans Prutz, Leopold von Ranke, Heinrich von Sybel, Heinrich von Treitschke, Georg Waitz| The Netherlands from 1722: William IV, Prince of Orange, the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, the impact of the French Revolution on the Netherlands and its absorption into the First French Empire, the ministry of Johan Rudolph Thorbecke, Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, the role of Belgium during the War of the Austrian Succession, the Brabant Revolution, the Belgian Revolution, the reigns of Leopold I of Belgium and Leopold II of Belgium|-| Book I: The Holy Roman Empire| As above| The Hohenstaufens, Lothair II, Holy Roman Emperor, Conrad III of Germany and his Second Crusade, Frederick Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor and his conflicts with the Pope, the Peace of Constance, the Third Crusade, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor and the Sixth Crusade, the House of Habsburg, Rudolf I of Germany, Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor, the rise of the Hanseatic League, the Swabian League, and the Hussites, Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and the Diet of Worms, and to Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation; the Schmalkaldic War, the Protestant Union, the Thirty Years' War, the Grand Alliance, the Treaty of Ryswick, the Treaty of Passarowitz, the Treaty of Versailles, the Seven Years' War, the reign of Maria Theresa, the decline of the Holy Roman Empire, the Treaty of Reichenbach, Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor, the Second Congress of Rastatt, the abdication of Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor|-| Book II: The Empire of Austria-Hungary | As above| The Napoleonic Wars, Klemens von Metternich, the Treaty of Paris, the Prague uprising of 1848, the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 and its declaration of independence, the Battle of Novara|-| colspan=3 | XV: Germanic empires (concluded)|-| colspan=3 | XVI: Scandinavia, Switzerland to 1715|-| XIX: The History of Scandinavia| Adam of Bremen, Carl Ferdinand Allen,, Andrew Crichton, Olof von Dalin, Samuel Astley Dunham, Anders Fryxell, Erik Gustaf Geijer, Samuel Laing, Sven Lagerbring, Paul Henri Mallet, Oscar Montelius, Friedrich Münter, Erik Pontoppidan, Snorri Sturluson, H. von Treitschke, Henry Wheaton||-| XX: The History of Switzerland| W. A. B. Coolidge,, Johannes Dierauer, Johann Karl Ludwig Gieseler, Johannes von Müller, Wilhelm Oechsli, Élisée Reclus, Johannes Vitoduranus, Louis Vulliemin||-| colspan=3 | XVIIXXVII|-| colspan=3 |
|}
The Spectator, writing on 25 January 1908 and prior to the release of the second half of the series, notes a handful of shortcomings including a fleeting portrayal of Homer and a questioning of the historicity of Christ, but states that "the general reader...will find here a great treasury of knowledge" and that "they form an extremely interesting shelfful."[2]