A review by harinid
The Lessons of History by Ariel Durant, Will Durant

5.0

It is extremely rare to come across a book that succinctly summarises our heritage and our life as humans let alone one written by historians. The book weaves a narrative of our heritage, our history while examining it in the context of religion, politics, progress and economics. In doing each of those explorations in a few pages, the book demonstrates the cyclicality of history- a fact that we often forget, being born in a particular context. As he argues in the chapter on progress, we may have gained institutionalities, but if we haven't really changed as human beings, have we really progressed?