(William) Winwood Reade - Martyrdom of Man

William Winwood Reade (1838 — 1875) was a British historian, explorer, and philosopher.

His most famous work, the Martyrdom of Man (1872)—whose summary running head reads «From Nebula to Nation»—is a secular, «universal» history of the Western world. Structurally, it is divided into four «chapters» of approximately 150 pages each: the first chapter, «War», discusses the imprisonment of men's bodies, the second, «Religion», that of their minds, the third, «Liberty», is the closest thing to a conventional European political and intellectual history, and the fourth, «Intellect», which discusses the cosmogony characteristic of a «universal history»

Cecil Rhodes, an English-born South African politician and businessman, said that the book «made me what I am». Other admirers of The Martyrdom of Man included H. G. Wells, Winston Churchill, Harry Johnston, George Orwell, Susan Isaacs, A. A. Milne and his son Christopher Robin, and Michael Foot. A laudatory reference is made to the book by Sherlock Holmes in the Sign of the Four.
— Summary by Wikipedia