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The first volume of Will Durant's Pulitzer Prize-winning series, Our Oriental Heritage: The Story of Civilization, Volume I chronicles the early history of Egypt, the Middle East, and Asia.

Best-selling historian and philosopher Will Durant devoted his entire life to studying the most significant eras, individuals, and achievements of human history. Here is a summation of Durant's work, as he presents the best of world history. Filled with Durant's renowned wit, knowledge, and unique ability to explain events in simple and exciting terms, it is a concise liberal arts education.

At Will Durant's death at 96, in 1981, his personal papers were dispersed among relatives, collectors, and archive houses. Twenty years later, scholar John Little discovered the previously unknown manuscript of Heroes of History in Durant's granddaughter's garage. Written shortly before he died, these 21 essays serve as an abbreviated version of Durant's best-selling, 11-volume series, The Story of Civilization.

Philosophy has often seemed like the castor oil of the disciplines: healthy, but never pleasurable, and best when swallowed quickly and forgotten. Will Durant’s classic The Story of Philosophy is a welcome remedy for this misconception, and—in view of the fact that it is nearly 100 years old—a remarkably refreshing one. This deluxe edition includes The Age of Faith, the fourth volume in the great series, The Story of Civilization. It covers the years 1095—the launching of the First Crusade—and 1300.

The final and most personal work from Pulitzer Prize - winning author and historian Will Durant - discovered 32 years after his death - is a message of insight for everyone who has sought meaning in life or the council of a wise friend in navigating life's journey. From 1968 to 1978, Will Durant made four public allusions to the existence of Fallen Leaves. One, in 1975, hinted at its contents: "a not very serious book that answers the questions of what I think about government, life, death, and God."

The Age of Napoleon, the 11th and final volume of the Story of Civilization, surveys the amazing chain of events that wrenched Europe out of the Enlightenment and into the age of democracy. In this masterful work, listeners will encounter the French Revolution from the storming of the Bastille to the guillotining of the king; and the revolution's leaders - Danton, Desmoulins, Robespierre, and Saint-Just - all cut down by the reign of terror they inaugurated.

The fourth volume in Will Durant's Pulitzer Prize-winning series, The Age of Faith surveys the medieval achievements and modern significance of Christian, Islamic, and Judaic life and culture. Like the other volumes in the Story of Civilization series, this is a self-contained work, which at the same time fits into a comprehensive history of mankind. It includes the dramatic stories of St. Augustine, Hypatia, Justinian, Mohammed, Harun al-Rashid, Charlemagne, William the Conqueror, and many more.

Here Durant tells the whole story of Greece from the days of Crete's vast Aegean empire to the final extirpation of the last remnants of Greek liberty, crushed under the heel of an implacably forward-marching Rome. The dry minutiae of battles and sieges, of tortuous statecraft of tyrant and king, get minor emphasis in what is preeminently a vivid recreation of Greek culture, brought to the listener through the medium of supple, vigorous prose.

An engrossing volume on the European Reformation by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Will Durant. The sixth volume of Durant's acclaimed Story of Civilization, The Reformationchronicles the history of European civilization from 1300 to 1564.

The early modern era in Europe set the mold for the Western world today. It was a complex, tragic, yet pivotal time. It marked the transition between the dominance of the Catholic church throughout Western Europe and the present age of science, reason, and skepticism. The path through this transition was an exciting yet bloody and sorrowful one. The wars between Catholics and Protestants in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries rivaled those of the present in cruelty and atrocity. Durant takes us through the religious wars between Catholics and Protestants in France.

The Age of Louis XIV is the biography of a period (1648 - 1715) that Spengler considered the apex of modern European civilization. "Some centuries hence," Frederick the Great correctly predicted to Voltaire, "they will translate the good authors of the age of Pericles and Augustus." Those authors are lovingly treated here.

In this masterful work, listeners will encounter: the poets Petrarch and Boccaccio, the fathers of the Renaissance; the paintings, sculptures, and architecture of Milan, Florence, and Venice; the life and accomplishments of Leonardo DaVinci; the Catholic church and the popes of Avignon and Rome; the politicians and philosophers of Italy, including the Borgia family, Julius II, and Machiavelli; the Italian Wars, the conflicts with France, and the country's decline.

Durant provides an immensely astute, clear, and enjoyable story of philosophy. He focuses not on schools of thought or subdisciplines, but on the most vigorous, powerful, and appealing thinkers in the Western philosophical tradition, starting with the founding figures of Plato and Aristotle, and taking us through Francis Bacon, the prime theorist of present-day scientific thought, and on to Spinoza, whom Durant prizes above all for his earnest effort to live his own philosophy.

Spanning eighty captivating hours, Durant Masterworks curates four of Will Durant's most celebrated works into a single, thematically rich portrait of Western thought from its origins to the modern age. This anthology traces the evolution of Western thought from ancient philosophy through medieval faith, early modern conflict, and the rise of England as a global power. Durant's storytelling is vivid, engaging, and deeply human, bringing history's greatest ideas and personalities to life with unmatched clarity.

Durant lucidly describes the philosophical systems of such world-famous “monarchs of the mind” as Plato, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Spinoza, Kant, Voltaire, and Nietzsche. Along with their ideas, he offers their flesh-and-blood biographies, placing their thoughts within their own time and place and elucidating their influence on our modern intellectual heritage. This book is packed with wisdom and wit.

The Age of Reason Begins brings together a fascinating network of stories in the discussion of the bumpy road toward the Enlightenment. This is the age of great monarchs and greater artists - on the one hand, Elizabeth I of England, Philip II of Spain, and Henry IV of France; on the other, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Montaigne, and Rembrandt. It also encompasses the heyday of Francis Bacon, Galileo, Giordano Bruno, and Descartes, the fathers of modern science and philosophy.

The third volume of Will Durant's Pulitzer Prize-winning series, Caesar and Christ chronicles the history of Roman civilization and of Christianity from their beginnings to A.D. 325.

In Little Blue Book Number 512, Will Durant delves into the life of Francois-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire (1694-1778). Described as unprepossessing, ugly, vain, flippant, unscrupulous, and at times dishonest, he was also tirelessly kind and considerate, demonstrating an unwavering commitment to both his friends and his principles. My trade is to say what I think, Voltaire proclaimed, and he did so with remarkable flair across ninety-nine sparkling and fruitful volumes. A staunch advocate for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the separation of church and state, Voltaires ...

The Story of Philosophy is a captivating intellectual journey that explores the evolution of human thought and the enduring legacy of great thinkers throughout history. Written by the renowned author Will Durant, this monumental work provides listeners with a comprehensive overview of the world's philosophical traditions, from ancient Greece to the modern era.

The best support, history, and analysis on the story of philosophy. Particularly appropriate for the non-academic who is better served by the audiobook with extensive references.