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Synopsis A proper knowledge of the races of mankind is essential to any one who would lay claim to be decently educated. Intelligent persons can very well understand how the complex machinery of modern civilization has brought peoples of distant areas of the earth into a relationship. Since after the First World War (1914-1918) great interest has been awakened in the study of the world’s peoples, though the purpose of such study may differ from man to man and nation to nation. The aim of this Encyclopaedia is to quicken the interest of the English-reading public in the peoples of various nations. The work intends to present the things as they are and a well organized unit offered the most practical method of treatment. The nations of the world have been arranged alphabetically, which facilitates the use of this voluminous Encyclopaedia, besides it results in a pleasing variety of subjects. The Encyclopaedia describes, with profuse illustrations, the peoples of all nations in their habits they live, their customs and manners, their art and architecture, their religious beliefs and superstitions, and their feasts and festivals; and for the purpose of better understanding of the subject, historical chapters in which every nation’s story is briefly retold by competent historians, have been added. Every country of the World has been depicted anew by a writer of accepted authority on anthropology or history to make the work most authentic and comprehensive. Besides such well-written texts, the Encyclopaedia is illustrated with more than five thousand photographs, numerous coloured plates and one hundred fifty maps. Photographers in all parts of the world including Britain’s finest experts in camera had been at work to enrich the pages of the work. Each photograph has a lesion to teach, either in racial character, or in native craftsmanship, or in customs. The work will prove of high education value.