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The Lessons of History
Customer Reviews
Rating:  - Essential for the classical education
Fascinating and worthwhile. An essential read for the classical education. In this slim volume, the Durants distill the essential lessons found in their generously detailed, authoritative histories The Story of Civilization By Will Durant Complete 11 Volumes (Hardcover 1963-1975) (The Story of Civilization, Volumes 1 to 11): the fundamental principles of political systems based on observable human behavior and motivation. Will Durant remarks, as have others, that human behavior and motivation have not changed throughout human history, rather that only human circumstances have changed as knowledge and invention have accumulated. The Durants' discussions draw clear parallels between present and past developments and uncannily anticipate present developments. The audio version of The Lessons of History includes several interviews with Will and Ariel Durant. Provides an interesting adjunct and counterpoint to Rufus Fears' series on Ancient Greeks and Ancient Romans (The Teaching Company).
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 one to believe that the author studied history as an unbiased observer and through a highly synthesized process, drew conclusions about the nature of man through a distillation of recurring themes. My personal belief is that this is not the approach taken by the author. Rather, I think that Will Durant was first and foremost, an academic philosopher, inherently biased and has taken a survey of history to rationalize events of the past into some coherency that supports his point of view. To me, it is apparent that Will Durant is a conservative Deist, and more than anyone else, I can imagine Reagan grinning that this book supported his politics. In essense, I am saying that this book is a top down, rather than a bottom up study on history. Why does this matter?
If taken from the point of view that Western history alone can illuminate on the nature of man, I disagree. Instead, I prefer to accept that this book is more valuable towards understanding the significance of the human experience from a Western perspective of "Social Darwinism" and what the experiment of these ideals has revealed through American history, and how this relates to other Western civilization of the past i.e. Greek, Roman and Western European. In many places, Will shares his point of view that taken as a whole, democracy has done more good for the world than any other system (that is of course if you assume America is a democracy, and ignoring the apetite for wars and covert activities throughout its history). Less government is better and widespread literacy has made us a superior country.
To be fair, the book starts off with caveats in which the author concedes to be foolish in attempting to summarize what history says about man and later also reminds the reader that any number of interpretations can be taken from history depending on the citations, in other words even the devil can quote the bible to his own ends. Interestingly, by invoking his own modesty with such caveats the author admits being negative by his own definitions (based on the instincts of Action/Sleep) and in asking that the reader submit to the reality he has outlined, thus in turn demonstrate a negative habit with respect to the fight/flight instinct. In this sense, the book is self-defeating because the book is in some ways an endorsement of the positive aspects of western civilization and modern man's participation within this framework.
On to the book.
The many facets of history that comprise mans heritage include:
1. Geology
2. Biology
3. Race (to the extent that people regard this as a factor, though the author makes an intelligent case against such discrimination in the aggregate sense)
4. Character
5. Morals
6. Religion
7. Economics
8. Government
9. War
I think this is an intriguing set of criteria and I can't say much has been left out, if the survey was a purely analytical view of man. However, I am more inclined to believe that human beings are more emotional than rational and in that regard, the book does not address romantic notions except in terms of the need to procreate. Absent also is any treatment of the individual psychology of self knowledge or consciousness.
There are some very profound statements contained in this book, as the author shares his beliefs that:
* Man, not earth makes civilization
* We are subject to the processes and trials of evolution
* The first rule of biology is that life is competition
* War is a nations way of eating, it promotes co-operation because it is the ultimate form of competition
* That only real emancipation of man is individual
* You can't fool all the people all of the time, but you can fool enough to run a large country (Abe Lincoln)
* If our economy of freedom fails to distribute wealth as ably as it has created it, the road to dictatorship will be open to any man who can persuasively promise security to all
* Freedom and equality are everlasting enemies and when one prevails, the other dies
* If the human brood is too numerous for the food supply, nature has three agents for restoring balance: famine, pestilence and war
* The civilized soul will reveal itself in the treatment of every man and woman as a representative creation of the body of mankind
* Does history support a belief in God? If by God we mean a supreme and intelligent being rather than the creative vitality of nature, the answer is no
This is merely a sample of the topics covered. Given that the book was published in 1968, though flawed in many respects, it is nevertheless valuable in that it helps put our current times into perspective. Doubtless, this book was indicative of the thinking of the policy makers in this country of the 1950s and 60's and we see the world taking shape according to those beliefs. Where the book diverges from reality is the supposition that mastering nature is what defines a civilization. What would Durant say about the way that nature is violently convulsing on mankind's irresponsible exploitations of its sources of energy, that too in support of monarchic regimes?
I have rated the book highly because it is succinct, well written, thought provoking and in many ways accurate. However I would advise any reader to explore a wider selection of reading before accepting all conclusions here at face value.
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 better the issues most meaningful in my daily life and behavior.
I am at this website because I am ordering copies for those of my grandchildren now in high school. I can think of nothing that I can give them more valuable than the insights, perspectives, and wisdom in this book.
Litera scripta manet.
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 onto the bookshelves of the prosaic postwar generation of American public. The doublespeak and contradictory statements make the book read like a Kerry speech.
One can't simultaneously say that greed and hoarding are positive human behaviors and praise the charitable throughout history for their generosity, or say that fear and respect for one's elders goes hand in hand with true creativity and individuality. This isn't thinking, it's highly-skilled, well-educated apery of thought.
In the same way that they say statistics will be used to support any point, it would seem that 5,000 years of chaotic human behavior may be used in the same manner. Like anything created by mainstream Western, Judeo-Christian culture, this book seeks only to preserve the foundations upon which it was built.
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