the story of civilization will durant volume 1

The author magically takes random events, turns it into information, processes it into knowledge by giving it narrative and then gives the listener wisdom he didn't have before. It's hard to condense 2000 or more years into a digestible understandable format, but the author does it and the listener really gets to understand our place in the universe a little bit better because of it. The section on Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism are the best I have ever read. The author seems to excel when he's talking about a country's philosophy and uses it to describe the country's culture. The book looks at history by each civilization and by function (philosophy, poetry, prose, people's language, government and so on). This book is a perfect listen for those who don't like history with all of its dates since he tells the story functionally not chronologically. One of the great books on Eastern Civilizations. Selfishly I want to encourage people to listen to these first two so Audible will get the rest of the series. This volume covers pre-history and the invention of language and art up to the ancient eastern influences on western civilization. Frankly none of the narration is perfect, but Robin Field does a good job in this volume. For me this was hundreds and hundreds of hours of fun and I did a little dance when I saw these were now available on Audible. Nevertheless this is a series that I would recommend to anyone over twelve that wants to learn about western history. Persians and Chinese may be rightfully chagrined at the short shrift given their influential cultures and I agree with those who argue that the authors focus on exceptional individuals and deemphasize the importance of randomness in history. Some people dislike the somewhat thematic instead of chronological approach, but I found it engaged me more than most histories. This history is very easy to listen to and it is hard for me to imagine anyone who would not find a lot of it interesting.

This series is eleven big volumes totaling something like 500 hours. I really like the authors’ quirky sense of humor and matter of fact tone. No history is perfect, and history written in the forties cannot help but be dated, yet the authors’ presentation, tone, and focus seem surprisingly up to date. I read this series years ago, then listened to them on cassette tape, and have begged for them on Audible for many years.

The story of civilization will durant volume 1