Many years ago, before the days of The Story of Philosophy, Will Durant planned to write a history of the 19th century. He started to work on it only to find that his subject could be understood only in terms of what had come before. His researches gradually led him into the formation of a plan for writing a history of all civilization, ancient and modern, Occidental and Oriental. His enthusiasm was further spurred by two trips around the world and particularly by an intensive study of the history of the Far East.
Here, then, is the first volume of this STORY OF CIVILIZATION, OUR ORIENTAL HERITAGE, complete in itself. Dr. Durant worked on it steadily from 1927 to 1932, and the book represents the third complete rewriting. OUR ORIENTAL HERITAGE deals first with the establishment of civilization and then takes up, not in rapid review but in rich and fascinating detail, the colorful, complex dramas of the Near East, India and her neighbors, and the Far East. The story is carried up to the present.
Every one of the thousands of facts in OUR ORIENTAL HERITAGE has been checked and double-checked, but to guarantee against possible errors, extra copies of the manuscript were made and sent to specialists, including Professor Harry Wolfson of Harvard, Dr. Ananda Coomaraswamy of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Professor H. H. Gowen of the University of Washington, etc.
This volume, then, begins with a chapter on the nature and conditions of civilization; offers a 100-page Introduction on "The Establishment of Civilization" — an attempt to meet Voltaire's demand: "I want to know what were the steps by which men passed from barbarism to civilization." It goes on to record the cultural history — the economic and political organization, the science and art, the religion and morals, the literature and philosophy, the customs and manners — of Egypt, Sumeria, Babylonia, Assyria, Judea and Persia to their conquest by Alexander; and narrates the history of civilization in India from the Vedas to Gandhi, in China from Confucius to Chiang Kai-shek, and in Japan from the earliest times to the present day.
Those who have read OUR ORIENTAL HERITAGE in manuscript have compared it, and the series of which it is a part, with the great work of the French encyclopedists of the 18th century. THE STORY OF CIVILIZATION now comprises eight published volumes, with two more in preparation, and represents the most comprehensive attempt in our times to embrace the vast panorama of man's history and culture.
Description:
Many years ago, before the days of The Story of Philosophy, Will Durant planned to write a history of the 19th century. He started to work on it only to find that his subject could be understood only in terms of what had come before. His researches gradually led him into the formation of a plan for writing a history of all civilization, ancient and modern, Occidental and Oriental. His enthusiasm was further spurred by two trips around the world and particularly by an intensive study of the history of the Far East. Here, then, is the first volume of this STORY OF CIVILIZATION, OUR ORIENTAL HERITAGE, complete in itself. Dr. Durant worked on it steadily from 1927 to 1932, and the book represents the third complete rewriting. OUR ORIENTAL HERITAGE deals first with the establishment of civilization and then takes up, not in rapid review but in rich and fascinating detail, the colorful, complex dramas of the Near East, India and her neighbors, and the Far East. The story is carried up to the present. Every one of the thousands of facts in OUR ORIENTAL HERITAGE has been checked and double-checked, but to guarantee against possible errors, extra copies of the manuscript were made and sent to specialists, including Professor Harry Wolfson of Harvard, Dr. Ananda Coomaraswamy of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Professor H. H. Gowen of the University of Washington, etc. This volume, then, begins with a chapter on the nature and conditions of civilization; offers a 100-page Introduction on "The Establishment of Civilization" — an attempt to meet Voltaire's demand: "I want to know what were the steps by which men passed from barbarism to civilization." It goes on to record the cultural history — the economic and political organization, the science and art, the religion and morals, the literature and philosophy, the customs and manners — of Egypt, Sumeria, Babylonia, Assyria, Judea and Persia to their conquest by Alexander; and narrates the history of civilization in India from the Vedas to Gandhi, in China from Confucius to Chiang Kai-shek, and in Japan from the earliest times to the present day. Those who have read OUR ORIENTAL HERITAGE in manuscript have compared it, and the series of which it is a part, with the great work of the French encyclopedists of the 18th century. THE STORY OF CIVILIZATION now comprises eight published volumes, with two more in preparation, and represents the most comprehensive attempt in our times to embrace the vast panorama of man's history and culture.