The Lessons of History Author: Will Durant | Language: English | ISBN:
B008GUIEYU | Format: EPUB
The Lessons of History Description
In this illuminating and thoughtful book, Will and Ariel Durant have succeeded in distilling for the reader the accumulated store of knowledge and experience from their four decades of work on the ten monumental volumes of
The Story of Civilization. The result is a survey of human history, full of dazzling insights into the nature of human experience, the evolution of civilization, the culture of man. With the completion of their life's work they look back and ask what history has to say about the nature, the conduct and the prospects of man, seeking in the great lives, the great ideas, the great events of the past for the meaning of man's long journey through war, conquest and creation -- and for the great themes that can help us to understand our own era.
To the Durants, history is "not merely a warning reminder of man's follies and crimes, but also an encouraging remembrance of generative souls...a spacious country of the mind, wherein a thousand saints, statesmen, inventors, scientists, poets, artists, musicians, lovers, and philosophers still live and speak, teach and carve and sing...."
Designed to accompany the ten-volume set of
The Story of Civilization, The Lessons of History is, in its own right, a profound and original work of history and philosophy.
- File Size: 2229 KB
- Print Length: 128 pages
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster (August 21, 2012)
- Sold by: Simon and Schuster Digital Sales Inc
- Language: English
- ASIN: B008GUIEYU
- Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #57,710 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #9
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > History & Surveys - #41
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > Ancient > Early Civilization - #63
in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > History & Surveys
- #9
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > History & Surveys - #41
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > Ancient > Early Civilization - #63
in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > History & Surveys
In one of the interviews that serve as interludes between the chapters of his book, Will Durant says he started his career as a liberal and became more & more conservative during his fifty year career as a historian. If he was a conservative, he was a rather liberal one. Some of the ideas he voices would be anathema to conservatives. E.g. Wealth concentrated into fewer and fewer hands should be redistributed to the have nots. Liberals on the other hand, would be distressed by other of his views. E.g. Once the wealth gets redistributed, government should not attempt to prevent the talented and industrious from re-accumulating it.
The paradox is not really paradoxical at all. Obscene wealth in the hands of a very few causes unrest (and eventually revolution) among the obscenely poor. On the other hand, if industry and talent are not rewarded, culture stagnates. Durant gives the fall of the Roman Republic as an example of an obscenely rich aristocracy committing political suicide by refusing to peacefully redistribute some of their wealth to the poor. The economic stagnation of Communist East Europe serves as an example of what happens when you stop the natural flow of wealth back to the talented and industrious.
Durant makes some statements that would get him lynched in the 21st Century American media. E.g. "Only those who are below average really want equality."
Durant is probably most accurately classified as an agnostic, but he says that on balance, religion has done far more good than harm for civilization. Durant contends that civilizations and cultures decline and die when they lose their moral compass. And they lose their moral compass when they lose their religion.
The Lessons of History Preview
Link
Please Wait...