What is the author's tone in The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem Van Loon?

The tone of the novel changes slightly throughout. There is a consistent tone of amusement, which helps to lighten some of the extremely heavy and dry topics being presented in the book. In general, the tone is also neutral, in that Van Loon gives a fairly accurate portrait of history, as he knows it, without severely leaning toward one political extreme or another.