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marisbest2's review
5.0
The most astounding part of this book (other than scope) is that it was written before WW2 and yet I would not have been surprised if it was written in the 21st century (with small exceptions). Its slightly moralistic, but it doesn't have the Western Supremacist outlook I expected (minus, perhaps the fact that China + India are treated in 2/3 of a single volume of an 11 volume set...) nor the exoticism/fetishization. Anyway, it seems well researched and was very interesting.
God Bless Audiobooks
God Bless Audiobooks
professor_x's review
5.0
When I began my quest to learn about the history of philosophy and its many famous thinkers, I was introduced to Will Durant and his fantastic writing style in his wonderful work The Story of Philosophy. I found his writing to be passionate and sincere; as one reads his words one can sense his excitement as it exudes from the pages; we see it as he explains Plato's Republic or how he responds with witty erudition to the many aphorisms of Schopenhauer.
And so with Our Oriental Heritage, the first volume of eleven of Durants’ Story of Civilization series, we see that enthusiasm pour out as he gushes about the cultural achievements of the ancient Near East and the rest of Asia -- specifically India, China and Japan. Durant focuses on the art, poetry, literature, architectural achievements, economy, religions, and social structures of these timeworn countries.
Thanks to this work I was introduced to one of the oldest stories in the world, The Epic of Gilgamesh, which originated from Mesopotamia. After visiting Judea I leapt into the verses of the King James Bible; once Durant gave a wonderful tour of China, I couldn't help but read The Analects by Confucius, and I took to heart many of the Old Teacher's maxims.
Overall, this was an awesome book and I learned so much of the history and culture of Earths’ oldest and most venerable countries.
And so with Our Oriental Heritage, the first volume of eleven of Durants’ Story of Civilization series, we see that enthusiasm pour out as he gushes about the cultural achievements of the ancient Near East and the rest of Asia -- specifically India, China and Japan. Durant focuses on the art, poetry, literature, architectural achievements, economy, religions, and social structures of these timeworn countries.
Thanks to this work I was introduced to one of the oldest stories in the world, The Epic of Gilgamesh, which originated from Mesopotamia. After visiting Judea I leapt into the verses of the King James Bible; once Durant gave a wonderful tour of China, I couldn't help but read The Analects by Confucius, and I took to heart many of the Old Teacher's maxims.
Overall, this was an awesome book and I learned so much of the history and culture of Earths’ oldest and most venerable countries.
darwin8u's review
4.0
"But a nation, like an individual, can be too sensible, too prosaically sane and unbearably right."
- Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage
I jumped into this series with not a small amount of skepticsm. How can you not be skeptical of a project that is basically 10,000 pages, in 11 volumes, totalling about 4 million words? But I was curious. This series is ubiquitous in used bookstores. I was more than curious. It almost seemed stupidly large. That was a selling point. It also seemed nearly (11/12) designed for a year-long big book quest. My worries increased when a friend of mine suggested I abandon my copy back to a "little free library or used bookstore". But I figured I'd give Vol 1 a shot. I was apprehensive because a History of Civilization written in 1935 is going to come from a completely different perspective than the one I'm used to from contemporary historians (academic or otherwise). But that same worry also made me curious. The fact that this series was published over forty years (Vol 1 = 1935; Vol 11 = 1975) made me interested to see if/how the Durant's approach to history changed from pre-WWII to post-Vietnam.
Vol 1: "Our Oriental Heritage" is 938 pages that span:
I. The Establishment of Civilization - pages 1 to 110
II. The Near East (Sumeria, Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, Judea, Persia, etc) - 111 to 386
III. India and Her Neighbors - 387 t0 634
IV. The Far East - 635 to 824
V. Japan - 825 to 944
The introduction almost turned me off. Durant's almost causal use of "savage" and "primative" to discuss early man and civilization irritated me, and there were brief periods where I was worried Durant was going to emerge as a fangirl of eugenics. But I also had to remember this was written by an American, white male intellectual in the middle of the 30s, almost 80 years ago. It is also a book aimed at the general reader not the academic. I kept on reader, because once engaged I'm an indulgent reader. And... it got better. Actually, it became quite good. I enjoyed his style. I felt Durant was (as much as an outsider can be) fair to most of his subjects. I enjoyed his horde of historical truisms/maxims/aphorisms that he sprinkled willy-nilly throughout the volume. I felt, after reading Vol I, like I learned a lot. It was just ambitous enough, broad enough, and interesting enough to warrent me continuing to Vol II next month. There was plenty of fluff, and I'm sure academics in any of the areas he covered could shake up his views considerably, but like Durant said: "most of history is guessing, and the rest is predjudice"
Some of my other favorite of Durant's historical aphorisms in Vol I, Section 1 The Establishment of Civilization:
"Societies are ruled by two powers: in peace by the word, in crisis by the sword" (22).
"Time sanctifies everything" (24).
"Liberty is a luxury of security; the free individual is a product and a mark of civilization" (29).
"To transmute greed into thrift, violence into argument, murder into litigation, and suicide into philosophy has been part of the task of civilization" (53).
"men are more easily ruled by imagination than by science" (56).
"It is the tendency of gods to begin as ogres and to end as loving fathers" (63).
"In the end a society and its religion tend to fall together, like a body and soul, in a harmonious death" (71).
"Possibly every discovery is a rediscovery" (107).
- Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage
I jumped into this series with not a small amount of skepticsm. How can you not be skeptical of a project that is basically 10,000 pages, in 11 volumes, totalling about 4 million words? But I was curious. This series is ubiquitous in used bookstores. I was more than curious. It almost seemed stupidly large. That was a selling point. It also seemed nearly (11/12) designed for a year-long big book quest. My worries increased when a friend of mine suggested I abandon my copy back to a "little free library or used bookstore". But I figured I'd give Vol 1 a shot. I was apprehensive because a History of Civilization written in 1935 is going to come from a completely different perspective than the one I'm used to from contemporary historians (academic or otherwise). But that same worry also made me curious. The fact that this series was published over forty years (Vol 1 = 1935; Vol 11 = 1975) made me interested to see if/how the Durant's approach to history changed from pre-WWII to post-Vietnam.
Vol 1: "Our Oriental Heritage" is 938 pages that span:
I. The Establishment of Civilization - pages 1 to 110
II. The Near East (Sumeria, Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, Judea, Persia, etc) - 111 to 386
III. India and Her Neighbors - 387 t0 634
IV. The Far East - 635 to 824
V. Japan - 825 to 944
The introduction almost turned me off. Durant's almost causal use of "savage" and "primative" to discuss early man and civilization irritated me, and there were brief periods where I was worried Durant was going to emerge as a fangirl of eugenics. But I also had to remember this was written by an American, white male intellectual in the middle of the 30s, almost 80 years ago. It is also a book aimed at the general reader not the academic. I kept on reader, because once engaged I'm an indulgent reader. And... it got better. Actually, it became quite good. I enjoyed his style. I felt Durant was (as much as an outsider can be) fair to most of his subjects. I enjoyed his horde of historical truisms/maxims/aphorisms that he sprinkled willy-nilly throughout the volume. I felt, after reading Vol I, like I learned a lot. It was just ambitous enough, broad enough, and interesting enough to warrent me continuing to Vol II next month. There was plenty of fluff, and I'm sure academics in any of the areas he covered could shake up his views considerably, but like Durant said: "most of history is guessing, and the rest is predjudice"
Some of my other favorite of Durant's historical aphorisms in Vol I, Section 1 The Establishment of Civilization:
"Societies are ruled by two powers: in peace by the word, in crisis by the sword" (22).
"Time sanctifies everything" (24).
"Liberty is a luxury of security; the free individual is a product and a mark of civilization" (29).
"To transmute greed into thrift, violence into argument, murder into litigation, and suicide into philosophy has been part of the task of civilization" (53).
"men are more easily ruled by imagination than by science" (56).
"It is the tendency of gods to begin as ogres and to end as loving fathers" (63).
"In the end a society and its religion tend to fall together, like a body and soul, in a harmonious death" (71).
"Possibly every discovery is a rediscovery" (107).
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