Hendrik Willem Van Loon (1882-1944) was a historical fictional writer, American author and journalist。 He was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands and then immigrated to the United States in 1903 and studied at Harvard and Cornell。 He was an Associated Press correspondent in Russia during the revolutionary outbreak of 1905 and in Belgium at the beginning of World War I。 His numerous popular histories include The Story of Mankind (1921), The Story of the Bible (1923), Tolerance (1925), and The Story of America (1927)。 

Van Loon was the master of Public history。 Public history is a concept that was first proposed by Santa Barbara at the University of California in 1973。 It was introduced to China in 2004 by Zhou Liangkai。 Public history can be explained as “history of the public, history for the public, history by the public”。(Zhou, 2004) Van Loon mainly contributed to history for the public。 His works have so many readers around the world。 In his works, Van Loon advocated the view of historical progress, pragmatic view of history, the overall narration, rational view of materialism。 The works in the compiled feature of Van Loon well exude a unique charm, including the grand historical narrative, the objective evaluation method, multiple narrative tactics and multidisciplinary explanatory style。 This kind of works is defined as historical fiction。

Besides public history education, Van Loon’s works are also full of humanistic care。 “Humanism is a broad category of ethical philosophies that affirm the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appeal to universal human qualities — particularly rationality ” (Compact Oxford English Dictionary, 2007)。 The idea of humanism also had a great impact on Chinese people in 1980s。 Tolerance (1925) was considered to be one of his representative works of humanism。 And that’s the main reason for its popularity in China during the Time of Open Reform。 

Although Van Loon’s works are praised as part of people’s enlightened reading materials, studies on Van Loon around the world are very few, and most of them are just plain introductions and some short reviews。 And most reviews of Tolerance only praised freedom, democracy and scientific spirit represented in the book, but didn’t mention the significance in the literary world。 

Among the books about Van Loon, the most valuable one is The Story of Hendrik Willem Van Loon (1972) which was written by his son Gerard Willem Van Loon。 In the book, Van Loon was described as a vain and greedy person。 And Cornelis van Minnen’s Van Loon: Popular Historian, Journalist, and FDR Confidant (2005) fully and accurately recorded the life of Van Loon as a Dutch-American historian。 Studies on Van Loon’s works were mostly some short comments。 For example, Carl Becker thought that his stories of history might not be accurate enough, but his style of writing was interesting and moving (1921)。 Will Durant, the writer of The Story of Civilization, admitted that Van Loon’s works could stand erect in next several centuries (1930)。

Studies on Van Loon China can be pided into two periods。 The first period is from 1920s to 1930s。 During this period, a large number of Van Loon’s book were brought in and translated into Chinese。 The second period is from 1985 to now。 The thoughts that are conveyed in his books meet Chinese readers’ needs。 Van Loon’s books are very popular now。

Tolerance (1925) was first translated in Chinese in 1985 when China's Cultural Revolution had ended。 The academia were librated from strong constraint and begun to learn from the western world。 Tolerance was published timely。 In contrary to its boom of sale, few people have studied this book。 Most people just wrote simple reviews。 And a majority of studies about Van Loon’s ideas were on Tolerance。 For example, Yifan Zhao’s An Introductory Note of Tolerance; Yunping Nie’s Tolerance:Van Loon’s Spirit and Taste; Jin Yang’s On Van Loon’s Attitudes。 Some reviews talked about freedom, democracy and scientific spirit in it。 Van Loon was considered as a master of humanism。