The Lessons of History

In this illuminating and thoughtful book, Will and Ariel Durant have succeeded in distilling for the reader the accumulated store of knowledge and experience from their four decades of work on the ten monumental volumes of "The Story of Civilization." The result is a survey of human history, full of dazzling insights into the nature of human experience, the evolution of civilization, and the culture of man.

With the completion of their life's work, they look back and ask what history has to say about nature, the conduct and the prospects of man, seeking the great lives, the great ideas, and the great events of the past for the meaning of man's long journey through war, conquest, and creation - and for the great themes that can help us to understand our own era.