Heroes of History: Description of influential events in the History of Mankind written by Will Durant

Heroes of History: Description of influential events in the History of Mankind written by Will Durant

I always like to read the books of Will Durant because of his writing style which is more for a layman than for a scholar. He always explained the events and ideas of history and philosophy in a simple and exciting way and also is approached towards history and is more optimistic. Very recently, I have read his two books names as The case for India and On the meaning of life and written my views about these two books in my blog. Just now, I have completed his one more book, “Heroes of History” which is nothing but the brief history of Civilization from Ancient Times to the dawn of the Modern age.  According to him, it is a mistake to think that the past is dead. In the present, the past is rolled up and has been concentrated in the lifetime. He further said,” You, too, are the past, often your face is your autobiography, you are what you are because of what you have been, of your heredity stretching back into forgotten generations; because of every element of environment that has affected you, every man and woman that has met you, every book that you have read, every experience that you have had ; all these are accumulated in your memory,  your character, your body, your soul. So with a city, a country and a race; it is its past, and cannot be understood without it”. Thus, Heroes of History is a life-enhancing book which gives complete knowledge of writers about history.

From Yogesh Gogwekar

Will Durant was a favorite teacher of history and philosophy in America and all his writings are accessible to all kind readers. He has written so many books but his two books i.e. eleven volumes of Story of Civilization and Lessons of History have won the Pulitzer-Prize. His book on philosophy i.e.  Story of Philosophy is nothing but the lives and opinions of great philosophers in which Durant profiles nine philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Spinoza, Voltaire, Kant, Schopenhauer, Spencer & Friedrich Nietzsche. It has also given an overview of some European & American philosophers like Henri Bergson, Croce, Russell, Santanya, William James & John Dewey. It is biographical information about their contributions towards philosophy. It is a great journey of Philosophical world which taught us the secret of scholars which tells us that in every man there is something wherein we may learn & we are his Pupil.

The book Heroes of History is an abbreviated version of his eleven volume of The Story of Civilization. Will Durant and his wife Ariel Durant started working on shorter versions of their collections which have been collected for Story of Civilizations. Their main intention to do this for television, but both died before completing this project. When the project was going on as a series of audio lectures, Durant started writing the dialogues which had wonderfully developed into a book and became a great summary of the Story of Civilization. When he started doing this project, his age was ninety two and completed twenty one chapters at the age of 96 before his death in 1981. After one year of his death, the manuscript was found in perfect order and the book Heroes of History has been published in 2001 i.e. after twenty years of his death.

Heroes of History have been divided in three parts- Ancient Civilizations, The classical Period and Renaissance Europe. In ancient Civilization, he had considered China, India, Middle East and Egypt. First Chapter, Durant explained about civilization with its meaning. In the second chapter, he devoted to China by explaining the biography of Kung Fu Tze popularly known as Confucius and also describes the teaching of Lao-Tse. He also mentioned the biography of Chinese poet Li Po. In Chapter three, he had spoken about Indian Civilization by mentioning the Indus valley and Vedic period. He also mentioned Gautama Buddha and his teachings. In Modern India he has given details of poetry of Rabindranath Tagore, Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and also mentioned about India under Indira Gandhi. In Chapter four, he talked about the history of Mesopotamia and Egypt by providing information about the Egyptian monarch Ikhnaton. In the next Chapter, he has spoken of the history of Israel-Palestine and also about excerpts from the Old Testament of the Bible.

In the Classical Period, he has written about Greece, Roman Empire and Jesus Christ. At the time of discussion about classical period, he described Solon, battle of Marathon, drama, philosophy and lifestyle off Periclean Athens, Alexander’s conquer, Roman Republic and Roman empire. He ended the classical period by describing the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. He devoted only one chapter i.e chapter number 14 to explain middle ages and growth of the Church.

From Chapter fifteen to twenty-one, he mentioned about Renaissance Europe.  In this, he talked about Medici and their proteges, About Rome and popes and concluded of Venice, Martin Luther, German Peasants’ war and communist, reformation of Catholic religion and ended with England under Elizabeth 1, William Shakespeare and Sir Francis Bacon.

Thus, Heroes of History had been written with historical facts and events with the opinions of the writer and reflections on his thinking. This is a good introductory book of history for all readers. It helps the readers to understand the history in a comfortable manner from a scholar and philosophical way. Even though the book is fantastic, I am surprised to note that Will Durant never mentioned about African civilization or Islamic world or about American or Australians. It might be possible that he wanted to do it but remained half way due to his death.

The book Heroes of History is a really fantastic book and I highly recommend every reader should read this book which is the introduction to history.

Mumbai

18/06/2020