Product Description

In the tradition of his own bestselling masterpieces The Story of Civilization and The Lessons of History, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Will Durant here traces the lives and ideas of those who have helped to define civilization, from its dawn to the beginning of the modern world.

Four years before his death, Will Durant began work on an abbreviated version of his highly acclaimed eleven-volume series, The Story of Civilization. The project was conceived as a series of audio lectures, but Durant soon realized that the dialogues could be developed into a book that would serve as a wonderfully readable introduction to the subject of history.

Durant completed twenty-one of a proposed twenty-three chapters before his death in 1981, at the age of ninety-six. Those chapters span thousands of years of human history -- from Confucius to Shakespeare, from the Roman Empire to the Reformation, finally ending in the eighteenth century. The manuscript was recently found by Will Durant scholar John Little -- twenty years after Durant finished it -- and its discovery is a major event, not only for lovers of his prose, but for students of history and philosophy the world over.

Heroes of History is a book of life-enhancing wisdom and optimism, complete with Durant's wit, knowledge, and unique ability to explain events and ideas in simple, exciting terms. It is the lessons of our heritage passed on for the edification and benefit of future generations -- a fitting legacy from America's most beloved historian and philosopher.

Will Durant's popularity as America's favorite teacher of history and philosophy remains undiminished by time. His books are accessible to readers of every kind, and his unique ability to compress complicated ideas and events into a few pages without ever "talking down" to the reader, enhanced by his memorable wit and a razor-sharp judgment about men and their motives, made all of his books huge bestsellers. Heroes of History carries on this tradition of making scholarship and philosophy understandable to the general reader, and making them good reading, as well.

At the dawn of a new millennium and the beginning of a new century, nothing could be more appropriate than this brilliant book that examines the meaning of human civilization and history and draws from the experience of the past the lessons we need to know to put the future into context and live in confidence, rather than fear and ignorance.

Will Durant's work is marked by his own special quality as a writer -- he is tough-minded, optimistic, courageous, and convinced that without a knowledge of the past there is no wisdom to guide us to the future. Heroes of History was his last word on the subject, and much of it has been aimed directly at the doubts and fears of people today. It is a major, and unexpected, literary and historical event.

This book is also available on audio tape and CD format, read by Will and Ariel Durant.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #112265 in Books
• Published on: 2001-11-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

Amazon.com Review
In this collection of biographical and historical sketches drawn from an unfinished manuscript discovered two decades after his death, Will Durant celebrates historical figures whose examples demonstrate that humans can, "when sufficiently inspired, rise to levels of greatness with the gods themselves."

Durant (1885-1981), the principal author of The Story of Civilization, saw history as a branch of philosophy, and he peppered his stories of great historical actors and events with moral lessons and observed patterns ("One of the most regular sequences in history is that a period of pagan license is followed by an age of puritan restraint and moral discipline"). These brief lectures, touching on leaders and innovators, such as Buddha, Marcus Aurelius, Leonardo da Vinci, and Martin Luther, afford him plenty of opportunity to reflect on the meaning of the past and to offer models for his readers to study and emulate.

Like Durant's other work, this book has an old-fashioned air about it: it is Eurocentric to the core, and it makes almost no mention of women, who surely contributed to the rise of civilizations. Still, fans of Durant's brand of sweeping narrative history will enjoy having these final words from the master. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly
This posthumous collection of essays by a Pulitzer Prize winner targets those who don't know much about history. Durant, who died in 1981 at the age of 96, is best known for the multivolume history of the world, The Story of Civilization, he wrote with his wife, Ariel. In these recently discovered essays, he again displays his talents for popularizing history, most notably a remarkable ability to summarize complicated thoughts and events in a few succinct words: this book of "heroes" covers figures ranging from Nero to Shakespeare and spans more than 2,000 years. After the first three essays, on Confucius, Buddha and Egypt's Ikhnaton, Durant turns his attention to Greece, Rome and the rise of the West. He devotes several chapters to Jesus and his followers over the centuries, asserting that the study of religion "sheds more light upon the nature and possibilities of man and government than the study of almost any other subject or institution open to human inquiry." Moreover, Durant derives moral and aesthetic satisfaction from religious expression: "To have conceived and adored [Mary], and raised a thousand temples in her honor, is one of the redeeming features of the human race." And Jesus's "presence and his faith were themselves a tonic; at his optimistic touch the weak grew strong." After a discussion of the medieval Church's crackdown on heretics, Durant observes simply, "Freedom is a luxury of security." This book is likely to find a wide audience among those looking for an introduction to world history, but the absence of a bibliography and source notes may denote to scholars a certain lack of rigor. Agent, John Little.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The purpose of this collection of essays, published 20 years after Durant's death at age 96, is both to serve as a pr?cis of his 11-volume history, The Story of Civilization, and, according to the introduction, to teach moral lessons. Unfortunately, the book suffers from numerous flaws, including questionable organization. While many of the chapter subheadings do not in fact pertain to the text, they are arranged according to outdated concepts. It has been a long time since any professional historian has accepted the notion that the Middle Ages spawned the "classical, Epicurean, pagan Renaissance in the south, and the patristic, Stoic, puritan Reformation in the north." Furthermore, the text is laced with minor factual errors and unjustified suppositions. Since we don't know in what year Jesus was crucified, it is inaccurate to claim, for instance, that the tenth of Nisan corresponds to "our April 3." Durant also moves through 2000 years of Indian history in fewer than three pages and bases part of his interpretation on general environmental factors, saying, for instance, "the soul of India is heat." Not recommended.
- Frederic Krome, Jacob Rader Marcus Ctr. of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

"A Brilliant Panorama of History's most Illustrious Figures"
Will Durant's "Heroes of History" is the product of many years of dutiful scholarship; and it provides a brilliant panorama of History's greatest figures from ancient times to the dawn of the Modern Era. Durant's composite sketch of history, from Iknahton to Pope Paul III, from Confucius to Christ, from Socrates to Bacon, from Sophocles to Shakespeare, from Pericles to Lorenzo de' Medici, covers all the vicissitudes and periods in history necessary for an understanding of Western Civilization. Although, as may be seen from some of the people listed above, Durant not only treats Western Civilization but briefly touches on Eastern Civilization as well, making this work magnificent in its scope. For a good general introduction--and basically for a summary of Durant's famed "Story of Civilization--to the most influential movements and famous personages in history, this work will be a definite reward.

History as a sumptuous dessert.
This highly readable book of history is a group of essays written by renowned historian Will Durant. This book is more than a synopsis of his earlier, well-known series written with his wife Ariel.

This makes excellent reading for the would-be history-buff or for someone who wants to understand how the human race has gotten to the point it's at today.

I cannot emphasize enough how easy-to-read this text is and, yet, the details that bring history alive have not been boiled down into pablum.

Figures of history
This is another book from Durant, which brings his Civilization series to the popular audience. He show the reader the major themes of history through the lives of some of its most influencial figures.

Some of the major topics include: ancient China (Confuscious), ancient Egypt (the Pharoahs), the Old Testament (the Prophets) classical Greece (Plato), the Roman Empire (the Emperors), the New Testament(Christ), the Renaisance (da Vinci), the Catholic Church (the Popes), the Reformation (Luther), and the scientifc revolution(Bacon).

As always, reading Durant is a humbling experience, to learn how the debates and trials of modern times have been played out countless times before in our past. This is a good book, but I prefered Will and Ariel's book "The Lessons of History".