The Story of Civilization by Will Durant

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JM

JM

Puritan Board Doctor
The library I work for will often get full sets of world histories given to us for our collection or book sale. Most often the donations we receive do not fit our criteria for our collection and if our history section for our books sale is full they are recycled. This means I can rescue them for free. About once a year a nice set is given to the library by Durant so the next time one pops up I’ll grab it.

If I’m not mistaken he is an unbeliever. Are his works worth they space they’ll take up?

Thanks,

j
 
He's an unbeliever, but yes it's worth picking up. Durant is an excellent writer and generally fair except when it comes to Calvinism.
 
Durant (1885-1981) was looked down on, in his time, by professional historians because he refused to write just for the academy. He dared to think that history belongs to everyone - not just to professional historians.
 
Philip said:
He's an unbeliever, but yes it's worth picking up. Durant is an excellent writer and generally fair except when it comes to Calvinism.
Click to expand...

Generally speaking, I would say Durant was fair to Christianity in his writings, although yes - he, like Thomas Jefferson, had no time for Calvinistic thought.

In 1975, he had an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times where he stated that western civilization could not survive long because its Christian moral heritage was being abandoned at an alarming rate. So he at least saw the fruit of a Christian culture although he could not embrace it in its totality.

If only he were alive to see things now . . . . .
 
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