Our Oriental Heritage: The Story of Civilization, Volume I Kindle Edition

Why I read this bookI want to understand the world around me, how it works, where it is going. The past is all we have to study in this regard. It tells us what people did, thus what they are likely to do again, instead of the delusional ideas they have about themselves.“Wise men say, not without reason, that whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who have been, and ever will be, animated by the same passions; and thus they must necessarily have the same results. … I believe that the world has always been the same, and has always contained as much good and evil, although variously distributed among the nations according to the times.” —Niccolo MachiavelliWill Durant has a lot to teach me, and I like his tone and approach. He wants to see the big patterns in human behavior and derive whatever lessons may be found there. In this book he shares his definition of a civilization and traces our earliest knowledge of people living in large, organized societies. I felt as though I were reading letters from my distant ancestors.If you want the latest scholarship or a political deconstruction, Durant won’t appeal to you. For me, these distinctions are only relevant if you are already knowledgeable about the history, and if you are, there is no need to read Durant. I do not know the history, and the general topics Durant covers are not likely to be wiped out by new discoveries. I knew little about the Peloponnesian Wars, for example, so now I know more. Nobody from Harvard is going to shock the world next week with proof the wars never happened. More important to me is to walk through this long story with a companion I like. I like Will Durant. I like his voice from the early 20th century, and he is the perfect companion for me.He writes, “The world has almost forgotten [Polybius]; but historians will long continue to study him because he was one of the greatest theorists and practitioners of historiography; because he dared to take a wide view and write a “universal history”; and because, above all, he understood that mere facts are worthless except through their interpretation, and that the past has no value except as our roots and our illumination.” [Vol. 2]The big questions for me were:1. Would I commit to completing the entire “Story of Civilization?” (yes)2. How could I fit it into my busy life? (see below) and3. Would it be worth the time?” (yes again)How I read the whole setI set a daily goal to reach the end within one year. When I took away the extensive notes, bibliographies and indexes, the eleven volumes in my set totaled 9,300 print pages. It looks like the number of "pages" in Kindle is different, but since the amount of content on screen is adjustable, that number is ambiguous. Back to ink on paper: If I gave myself a full year, about 26 pages per day would do it. I didn’t like waiting that long to finish, so I set my daily rate at 40, finishing in 233 days, about 8 months. Durant writes meaty pages, so I had to prioritize my 40 above other activities to get through them. After a few weeks, however, 40 pages per day was just normal life.We can take inspiration from a character in the story, Caius Plinius Secundus, known as “Pliny the Elder.” He had to work all his life for the Roman navy, but managed to write a small library of nonfiction books. His nephew described him arising before 2 a.m. and stealing every spare minute for his studies. “He once reproved me for walking; ‘you need not have lost those hours,’ he said, for he counted all time lost that was not given to study.”I bought each volume on Kindle and also checked out the paper copy from my local library. The Kindle allowed me to listen to my computer read pages (by invoking the text-to-speech feature) while I cooked breakfast or worked in the yard. Every extra minute spent reading speeds completion. The other value in the Kindle is the highlights and notes feature. Once you mark or note passages, you can go to a website and copy them all at once. You can also export the notebook directly from Kindle, but this document has formatting difficulties, in my experience. The combination of paper and Kindle helped break up the work.If you embark on this journey, I salute you. For me it was well worth the price in money, time and concentration. If you want to know what I took away from this study, see my review of “The Age of Napoleon.”

The book arrived quickly. No surprises, no misleading descriptions. Everything is as expected.

I'm a fan of history but yet wasn't familiar with the Durants' work until recently and decided to pick up this book on a whim. Despite being 25% through the Kindle edition after a few months, I can't say enough good things about the first volume of The Story of Civilization.The breadth and scope is amazing. Despite it being written 75 years ago, this is a history book I wish I could have read 20 years ago as a teenager. I've always been bothered by the question of "How did we get here?" in the most general sense. This book fills in the gaps in my knowledge and understanding and leads to even more questions. And better yet, the author admits readily that the book won't cover everything and some will be incorrect.Our Oriental Heritage is broken up into 5 books: The Establishment of Civilization, The Near East, India and Her Neighbors, The Far East and Japan. Better and more educated people than I can critique the historical content, but the tone of the book is great. It's a conversational, easy style that very few academic writers can master. And despite the size of the book (over a thousand pages!) it's a lot less intimidating once you get into it, and realize that a sizable portion of the book is endnotes, showing how much of a research effort this book was.I've learned a ton of interesting anecdotes, enough that you could repeat to someone and have them say that it's pretty cool - where did you learn that? and immediately point them to this book. And from the rise and fall of civilizations, you can draw parallels to our own and wonder if the same fate will happen to us.The Kindle edition didn't have any glaring errors that I saw - I've read previous reviews but either they've been corrected or I've been completely oblivious to them that it didn't matter.I just wish I could have read this book years ago. The entire collection of The Story of Civilization might have changed my life.

Durant had a unique ability to get to the heart of his subject. I enjoy his dry wit and incisive observations, which appear just often enough to not become distractions. He was enormously knowledgable, well-traveled, and sympathetic with the peoples he described.I enjoy the older--30s-40s--approach, that weighs evidence without judging it. I also appreciate that as he talks about a civilization, he separates different aspects, such as art and literature, into sections that I can gloss over if I like.I consider this particular volume a must-read.

Great approach of history from a very cultivated author. His collection should be available in any college and university.Excellent book.

Have just finished the first volume . It is an interesting read. Some of his prejudices come across in the book but at the time he was writing this was quite normal . He is witty . I would certainly read them .

Great history book by a great historian - for serious students of history. Not for those who watch the History Channel version of the past. This one's for the grown ups. Durant always writes history with a rare wit, insight and charm. Great understanding of human nature.

Yes much is outdated. But much of it is relevant. The insightful views of events by Mr Durant make it an enjoyable and informative read.

Very good