response 138 of 278:

May 8 11:17 UTC 1999

Not H. G. Wells. Good guess though. Here's another quote:

     Outwardly, the Roman state during the first century of our era was
a magnificent political structure, so large that Alexander's empire
became one of its minor provinces. Underneath this glory there lived
millions upon millions of poor and tired human beings, toiling like ants
who have built a nest underneath a heavy stone. They worked for the
benefit of someone else. They shared their food with the animals of the
fields. They lived in stables. They died without hope.
     It was the seven hundred and fifty-third year since the founding of
Rome. Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus was living in the palace
of the Palatine Hill, busily engaged upon the task of ruling his empire.
     In a little village of distant Syria, Mary, the wife of Joseph the
Carpenter, was tending her little boy, born in a stable of Bethlehem.
     This is a strange world.
     Before long, the palace and the stable were to meet in open combat.
     And the stable was to emerge victorious.

response 140 of 278:

May 8 20:01 UTC 1999

I agree.  

response 142 of 278:

May 9 12:39 UTC 1999

Not Gibbon. Our author is 20th century, remember.

Here's another quote, from the same work as the previous two:

     The majority of the Indian people, therefore, lived in misery.
Since this planet offered them very little joy, salvation from
suffering must be found elsewhere. They tried to derive a little
consolation from meditataion upon the bliss of their future
existence.
     Brahma, the all-creator who was regarded by the Indian people
as the supreme ruler of life and death, was worshipped as the
highest level of perfection. To become like Brahma, to lose all
desires for riches and power, was recognised as the most exalted
purpose of existence. Holy thoughts were regarded as more important
than holy deeds, and many people went into the desert and lived
upon the leaves of trees and starved their bodies that they might
feed their souls with the glorious contemplation of the splendours
of Brahma, the Wise, the Good and the Merciful.
     Siddhartha, who had often observed these solitary wanderers
who were seeking the truth far away from the turmoil of the cities
and the villages, decided to follow their example. He cut his hair.
He took his pearls and his rubies and sent them back to his family
with a message of farewell, which the ever faithful Channa carried.
Without a single follower, the young prince then moved into the
wilderness.

response 144 of 278:

May 9 17:28 UTC 1999

Not any Huxley.

Hint: Pay close attention to the style.

response 146 of 278:

May 10 01:14 UTC 1999

Not Toynbee.

response 148 of 278:

May 10 21:05 UTC 1999

Mitchner?

response 150 of 278:

May 11 11:50 UTC 1999

Not Michener or Russell.

Although he wrote other things, the author is primarily known for a
single work, the one from which I've been quoting. (The previous quotes
are in resp:126, resp:138, and resp:142.)

Regarding style and tone, ask yourself: To what sort of audience might
the quotes be addressed?

Here's another quote, from the same work:

     Napoleon was what is called a fast worker. His career does not
cover more than twenty years. In that short span of time he fought more
wars and gained more victories and marched more miles and conquered more
square kilometers and killed more people and brought about more reforms
and generally upset Europe to a greater extent than anybody (including
Alexander the Great and Jenghis Khan) had ever managed to do.
     He was a little fellow and during the first years of his life his
health was not very good. He never impressed anybody by his good looks
and he remained to the end of his days very clumsy whenever he was
obliged to appear at a social function. He did not enjoy a single
advantage of breeding or birth or riches. For the greater part of his
youth he was desperately poor and often he had to go without a meal or
was obliged to make a few extra pennies in curious ways.
     He gave little promise as a literary genius. When he competed for a
prize offered by the Academy of Lyons, his essay was found to be next to
the last and he was number 15 out of 16 candidates. But he overcame all
these difficulties through his absolute and unshakable belief in his own
destiny, and in his own glorious future. Ambition was the main-spring of
his life. The thought of self, the worship of that capital letter "N"
with which he signed all his letters, and which recorred forever in the
ornaments of his hastily constructed palaces, the absolute will to make
the name Napoleon the most important thing in the world next to the name
of God, these desires carried Napoleon to a pinnacle of fame which no
other man has ever reached.

response 152 of 278:

May 11 15:08 UTC 1999

The audience it might've been addressed to
depends on when it was written.  American
grade school kids fifty years ago; nowadays, 
the brighter college graduates.  The tone is of 
someone who has a lot of depth talking down 
to a relatively uneducated audience.  (Whether 
the writer really did have a lot of depth is not 
evident.)  It's too breezy for a textbook.  More 
like pop history of some kind.  I give up.

response 154 of 278:

May 11 15:17 UTC 1999

I have never read a word of van Loon's writings, to my
knowledge, prior to this item.  Don't know if that makes
me part of the erosive process or just a victim.  

response 156 of 278:

May 12 11:46 UTC 1999

Hmm.  I read that book when I was in grade school, I think.  I remember
nothing of it.

response 158 of 278:

May 13 15:44 UTC 1999

"It is a long time since I last wrote anything in this book of mine. That
is because things have happened which strongly affected my life and made it
impossible for me to continue with my notes. I could not even get hold of
them, and only now have I had them brought to me here.

"I am sitting chained to the wall in one of the castle dungeons. Until
recently, my hands were also manacled, though that was quite superfluous. I
could not possibly escape. But it was ment to aggravate my punishment. Now
at last I have been freed from them. I do not know why. I have not asked for
it, I have asked for nothing. Thus it is a little more bearable now, though
my condition has not changed. I have persuaded Anselmo my jailer to fetch my
writing materials and notes from the dwarfs' apartment so that I may have some
slight recreation by occupying myself with them. He may have risked something
by getting them for me, for though my hands have been freed it is not at all
certain that they do not begruge me this little pastime. As he sasid, he has
not right to grant me anything, howeever much he may wish it. But he is an
obliging and very simpl;e fellow, so at last I managed to persuade him to do
it. 

"I have read through my notes from the beginning, a little every date. It has
been a certain satisfaction thus to relive my own and several others' lives
and once again meditate over everything in the silent hours. I shall now try
to continue from where I left off and thus provide  myself with a little
variety in my somewhat monotonous existence."

response 160 of 278:

May 13 16:46 UTC 1999

The younger or elder? Well, I'll give you two for one: a good guess, but
no banana. However, like both Dumases (?), the author is a dead white
male that did not write in English. 

response 162 of 278:

May 13 20:18 UTC 1999

It has to be Lagerkvist.