★★★★☆ | History | Digital | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
The eleventh and final volume of the Story of Civilization, covering the years from the beginning of the French Revolution through Waterloo. Napoleon’s rise, dictatorship, stunning victories and ultimate defeat were thrilling to read.
From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. — Napoleon
★★★★★ | History | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
In 208 eloquent pages, Durant shares his views on death, religion, education, war, politics, spirituality, and, through it all, the meaning of life. Truly a gift to humanity from a scholar who devoted his long life to the study of history.
…★★★★★ | History | Print + Digital | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
The tenth volume of the incredible Story of Civilization series by Will and Ariel Durant. This one, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1968, provides an immensely readable history of Europe leading up to the French Revolution. Reading this series has been such an education. My only wish is that I had read them sooner.
…★★★★★ | History | Print + Digital | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
Continuing my quest to read all eleven volumes of Will Durant’s Opus, The Story of Civilization. Volume IX centers on science and philosophy overtaking religion through thinkers like Voltaire and Diderot. The church did its best to stop it, but in the end, the French Enlightenment steered the faithful away from religion toward the beginnings of existentialism. While this movement addressed religious corruption and the horrors of inquisitions, there is also a feeling of great loss as civilization let go of its rudder of morality and faith.
…★★★★★ | History | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
My straight-through reading of this mammoth 11-volume history continues. Volume VIII shares a detailed view of Europe in the 17th Century. So much war and bloodshed and atrocity, and yet brilliance too.
Let us agree that in every generation of man’s history, and almost everywhere, we find superstition, hypocrisy, corruption, cruelty, crime, and war: in the balance against them we place the long roster of poets, composers, artists, scientists, philosophers, and saints. That same species upon which poor Swift revenged the frustrations of his flesh wrote the plays of Shakespeare, the music of Bach and Handel, the odes of Keats, the Republic of Plato, the Principia of Newton, and the Ethics of Spinoza; it built the Parthenon and painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; it conceived and cherished, even if it crucified, Christ. Man did all this; let him never despair.
Will Durant
★★★★★ | History | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
My quest to read all eleven volumes of Durant’s Story of Civilization continues. Volume VII has returned to the shelf with hundreds of scribbles and notes and many, many exclamation marks. If you think the world is crazy now, you ought to revisit these darker times of wholesale human butchery, religious wars and inquisitions. This has been an eye-opening and hair-raising experience.
★★★★☆ | History | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads Highlights
Volume VI of the amazing Story of Civilization series. So much of this period of history was new to me. I am getting such an education in history and philosophy.
…★★★★☆ | History | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
Volume V of the eleven-volume Story of Civilization by Will Durant.
★★★★★ | History | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
I finished this fourth installment of Will Durant’s Story of Civilization after three months of slow, careful reading. The Age of Faith begins with the fall of Rome and carries through the end of the Middle Ages. The writing is clear, colorful, engaging, often horrifying, and occasionally laugh-out-loud hilarious. Along the way, I encountered kings and popes, treachery and atrocities, saints and philosophers, economic systems, the building of cathedrals and castles, and primers on the great works of literature and philosophy across a thousand years of recorded time.
…★★★★★ | History | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
Volume III of the eleven-volume Story of Civilization by Will Durant. I knew so little about the rise and fall of Rome and the formation of Christianity before reading this. I feel so much more informed. My favorite so far!
There is no greater drama in human record than the sight of a few Christians, scorned or oppressed by a succession of emperors, bearing all trials with a fierce tenacity, multiplying quietly, building order while their enemies generated chaos, fighting the sword with the word, brutality with hope, and at last defeating the strongest state that history has known. Caesar and Christ had met in the arena, and Christ had won.
★★★★★ | History | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
I paused reading this history to read The Odyssey by Homer to give me a better insight to that classic’s role in Greek history.
My mind seems most interested in philosophy these days, so my notes and highlights below tend to center on that area of the book vs. historical events, of which there were many.
…★★★★★ | History | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
It took me more than twenty years to read this first volume of the epic Story of Civilization by Will Durant. Now, I hope the read the remaining ten volumes over the course of the next year. My history education is underway!
…★★★☆☆ | History | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads
The book describes how QAnon and other conspiracy theories emerged to be a major forces in politics. I am reading this to better understand the beliefs of a family member. The writing here is not great. The author repeats himself and does a poor job of relating stories. But at least I have a better understanding of this bizarre cult.
★★★★☆ | History | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
I read William Manchester’s massive biography of Winston Churchill in the evenings over many months. I think of this an a pleasure read because the writing is so lyrical and evocative of another time and place. So many leadership and life lessons to be gleaned from studying Churchill.
I am patiently waiting to reach the end of the Story of Civilization before resuming this amazing biography of Churchill with the second volume.
★★★★☆ | History | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads
I read this before undertaking the epic 11-volume Story of Civilization that Durant wrote over the course of forty years. He boils down the critical themes of history that he learned over the course of his lifetime of study. If you don’t have the time or inclination to read his opus, this is a good primer.
Highlights
Biology and History
Freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies. Leave men free, and their natural inequalities will multiply almost geometrically, … only the man who is below the average in economic ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom; and in the end superior ability has its way.
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