Scan barcode
A review by richardiporter
The Lessons of History by Ariel Durant, Will Durant
4.0
Get ready for the single best man-splaining you've ever had.
Yeah, but seriously this book is good for students of history or those who want an overview that contains some moments of serious wisdom (e.g. the tension between the innovation and impetuousness of youth and the reflection and conservation of what has worked well for centuries of the old) and the obvious conservative biases of an old white guy (e.g.s the supremacy of Euro-western civilization, the importance of religion, fears of over-population especially of breeding of "the wrong kind of people" and thus the importance of birth control - for married people, to scare women with the fear of child birth and charge youthful males to t reat girls as they wished their sisters to be treated etc.)
There really are moments of brilliant synthesis and insight, wisdom, recognition of tensions and spectrums. The idea that concentration of wealth is a hugely dangerous thing and the absolute imperative to redistribute wealth - that without this itll still happen just with violence. Will is well tempered at times by his wife Ariel. And other times he is cringely-old white guy. Bear in mind this was first published in 1968 at the height of the American <> Vietnam War.
The mix, sometimes self aware of progressive views with conservatism makes the moments of un self aware conservatism and assumption based reasoning all the more disapointing. This should be read ideally AFTER Wingrow & Graeber's The Dawn of Everything to show the mistakes that are flatly wrong and where opinions creep in. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56269264-the-dawn-of-everything
Still well worth the time And this particular edition has cool audio interviews with Will and Ariel about their work.
Four stars means I liked it a lot, will likely read it again and strongly recommend it to any others with interest in the topics covered.
Yeah, but seriously this book is good for students of history or those who want an overview that contains some moments of serious wisdom (e.g. the tension between the innovation and impetuousness of youth and the reflection and conservation of what has worked well for centuries of the old) and the obvious conservative biases of an old white guy (e.g.s the supremacy of Euro-western civilization, the importance of religion, fears of over-population especially of breeding of "the wrong kind of people" and thus the importance of birth control - for married people, to scare women with the fear of child birth and charge youthful males to t reat girls as they wished their sisters to be treated etc.)
There really are moments of brilliant synthesis and insight, wisdom, recognition of tensions and spectrums. The idea that concentration of wealth is a hugely dangerous thing and the absolute imperative to redistribute wealth - that without this itll still happen just with violence. Will is well tempered at times by his wife Ariel. And other times he is cringely-old white guy. Bear in mind this was first published in 1968 at the height of the American <> Vietnam War.
The mix, sometimes self aware of progressive views with conservatism makes the moments of un self aware conservatism and assumption based reasoning all the more disapointing. This should be read ideally AFTER Wingrow & Graeber's The Dawn of Everything to show the mistakes that are flatly wrong and where opinions creep in. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56269264-the-dawn-of-everything
Still well worth the time And this particular edition has cool audio interviews with Will and Ariel about their work.
Four stars means I liked it a lot, will likely read it again and strongly recommend it to any others with interest in the topics covered.