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The Lessons of History
Price: $153.76 Prices subject to change.
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Binding: Hardcover
EAN: 9781567310245
ISBN: 1567310249
Label: MJF Books
Manufacturer: MJF Books
Number Of Items: 1
Publication Date: 1997-07
Publisher: MJF Books
Studio: MJF Books
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Editorial Review: 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.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - History distilled
The book in 102 pages provided the most thoughtful and thought provoking insight into history I have ever read. Any person that believes that the lessons of history can, and should be used to shape government policy needs to read this book.
Rating:  - Making Peace with a Biased Reality
This is an ambitious book that should be a capstone to any course in political philosophy. This book seeks to reveal (or at least provoke thinking in the reader) on what history's response would be to the following questions:
1. What is civilization?
2. Are freedom and equality compatible?
3. Is there a God?
4. Are we fortunate/doomed from history repeating itself?
5. In light of all that is known about man, is progress real?
The title would lead ... Read More
Rating: - The Lessons of History
This is the most important book in my extensive library. I was so impressed by it the first time I read it shortly after its publication in 1968 that I have made a tradition of rereading it every New Year's Day. I gave copies of it to each of my five children and advised them to follow in my habit of rereading it each year.
Rereading this book each year refreshes my perspective on the often perplexing issues that the media spins before me every day, allowing me to concentrate and understand ... Read More
Rating:  - Oscillates between rational thought and the need to belong. At least it's got some good quotable material.
The first thing to understand about this book is that it was written by -old people-. By this, I don't even mean that they were chronologically enhanced; more that they were trapped by that inflexible mindset which places tradition and an intense desire for belonging above a natural exploration of reality.
The Durants were either intelligent people trying to reconcile their minds to the demands of the culture in which they were raised, or abject liars attempting to politick their way ... Read More
Rating: - An Executive Summary
I hadn't really developed much of an interest in History until I turned 50. I probably would have gotten interested in high school or college if I'd encountered this book then.
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