The Lessons of History

published	1997 by MJF Books
binding	Hardcover
isbn	1567310249 (isbn13: 9781567310245)
description	In this illuminating and thoughtful book, Will and Ariel Durant have succeeded in distilling for the reader the accumulated store of knowledge and...more [close] In this illuminating and thoughtful book, Will and Ariel Durant have succeeded in distilling for the reader the accumulated store of knowledge and experience from their four decades of work on the ten monumental volumes of The Story of Civilization. The result is a survey of human history, full of dazzling insights into the nature of human experience, the evolution of civilization, the culture of man. With the completion of their life's work they look back and ask what history has to say about the nature, the conduct and the prospects of man, seeking in the great lives, the great ideas, the great events of the past for the meaning of man's long journey through war, conquest and creation -- and for the great themes that can help us to understand our own era. To the Durants, history is "not merely a warning reminder of man's follies and crimes, but also an encouraging remembrance of generative souls...a spacious country of the mind, wherein a thousand saints, statesmen, inventors, scientists, poets, artists, musicians, lovers, and philosophers still live and speak, teach and carve and sing...." Designed to accompany the ten-volume set of The Story of Civilization, The Lessons of History is, in its own right, a profound and original work of history and philosophy. [close]
date added	02-25-07 edit book

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Danger rated it:

02/12/08

bookshelves: crap----just-crap-

Read in December, 2007

recommended to Danger by: Kevin, I think.
recommends it for: people looking for a few scattered clever quotes

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 th...more 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 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. No wonder my father enjoys it so much, since he too is no more (and probably considerably less) than the average street kid or drug dealer. This is philosophy in its cheapest and most generic form.

In the same way that they say statistics will be used to support any point, it would seem that 3500 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.

I also saw a great deal of reactionary sentiment against the “upstart” 1960s youth culture.
A great deal of time is spent lamenting the decay of morality and religion (even when they, themselves agree that these things are false societal constructs designed to keep power in the hands of those in control, and not natural or even particularly healthy attributes of mankind).

<font size="-1">“Is democracy responsible for the current debasement of art? The debasement, of course, is not unquestioned; it is a matter of subjective judgment; and those of us who shudder at its excesses – its meaningless blotches of color [Pollack?], its collages of debris [pop art?], its Babels of cacophony [rock music?] – are doubtless imprisoned in our past and dull to the courage of experiment. The producers of such nonsense are appealing not to the general public – which scorns them as lunatics, degenerates, or charlatans – but to gullible middle-class purchasers who are hypnotized by auctioneers and are thrilled by the new, however deformed.”</font>

As is shown repeatedly throughout the book, the Durants believe that the only art worthy of the title is the realism of Renaissance painters, the stark geometry of Greek architecture, or the predictable mathematics of classical music. While I won’t disagree that there were certainly some artists of these eras, for the most part those who are considered by the traditionally “educated” to be great artists are truly no more than great technicians, capable of great dexterity and numerical understanding. In my mind, true art is deconstruction of all that the “educated” human mind holds true and certain. It is that which brings one back to the deeper, eternal, animal nature, which creates an anarchy of the soul and frees the viewer from the constraints attached by society. It is that which is capable of undoing the indoctrination of life in the modern world and creating a direct channel between the Chaos Mind and the human spirit.
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Christian rated it:

09/07/07

Read in July, 2006

recommends it for: The Syndicate

I fucking love history, but it's difficult to think of "doing" history the way people "do" math. Or even English. Developments in formalism and deconstruction proved there are myriad ways to "read" literature. Lessons of History gets beyond textbook, content-only history. History is assumed to be too complex to have one interpretation. Durant looks at through a multitude of lens-geography, biology, economics, political. Each essay is rather cursory, but the point is...more

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