Heroes of History: A Brief History of Civilization from Ancient Times to the Dawn of the Modern Age [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Will Durant (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 6, 2001

In the tradition of his bestselling masterpieces THE STORY OF CIVILIZATION and THE LESSONS OF HISTORY, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Will Durrant traces the lives and ideas of those who have helped to define civilization. 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 ended in the eighteenth century. The manuscript was recently found, 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.

Editorial Reviews

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.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (November 6, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743226127
• ISBN-13: 978-0743226127
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #693,833 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "A Brilliant Panorama of History's most Illustrious Figures", May 19, 2002

By 

Johannes Platonicus (South Bend, Indiana) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Heroes of History: A Brief History of Civilization from Ancient Times to the Dawn of the Modern Age (Hardcover)

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.

27 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars History as a sumptuous dessert., November 24, 2001

By 

E. Gilligan "Lace" (Newark, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heroes of History: A Brief History of Civilization from Ancient Times to the Dawn of the Modern Age (Hardcover)

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.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Figures of history, January 31, 2006

By 

Bryan Jacobs (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Heroes of History (Audio CD)

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".