Durant - Fallen leaves: last words on life, love, war, and God

Thank you for downloading this Simon & Schuster eBook.

Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Simon & Schuster.

C LICK H ERE T O S IGN U P

or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com

We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster eBook.

Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Simon & Schuster.

C LICK H ERE T O S IGN U P

or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com

ALSO BY WILL DURANT

The Story of Philosophy (1926)

Transition (1927)

The Mansions of Philosophy (1929)

The Case for India (1930)

Adventures in Genius (1931)

A Program for America (1931)

On the Meaning of Life (1932)

The Tragedy of Russia (1933)

The Story of CivilizationVol. 1: Our Oriental Heritage (1935)

The Story of CivilizationVol. II: The Life of Greece (1939)

The Story of CivilizationVol. III: Caesar and Christ (1944)

The Story of CivilizationVol. IV: The Age of Faith (1950)

The Story of CivilizationVol. V: The Renaissance (1953)

The Story of CivilizationVol. VI: The Reformation (1957)

The Story of CivilizationVol. VII: The Age of Reason Begins (1961)

The Story of CivilizationVol. VIII: The Age of Louis XIV (1963)

The Story of CivilizationVol. IX: The Age of Voltaire (1965)

The Story of CivilizationVol. X: Rousseau and Revolution (1967)

The Lessons of History (1968)

Interpretations of Life (1970)

The Story of Civilization -- Vol. XI: The Age of Napoleon (1975)

A Dual Autobiography (1977)

Heroes of History (2001)

The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time (2002)

Heroes of Civilization (audio) (2014)

Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 2014 by John Little, Monica Ariel Mihell, and William James Durant Easton

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition December 2014

SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

Interior design by Akasha Archer

Jacket design by Chris Sergio

Jacket photograph Jochen Schlenker/Getty Images

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Durant, Will, 18851981.

Fallen leaves : last words on life, love, war, and God / Will Durant. -- First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-4767-7154-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-4767-7156-4 (ebook) -- ISBN 978-1-4767-7155-7 (trade pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Philosophy, American--20th century. I. Title.

B934.D87 2014

191--dc23

2014021058

ISBN 978-1-4767-7154-0

ISBN 978-1-4767-7156-4 (ebook)

I particularly am writing a book called Fallen Leaves, expressing my feelings about the various writers of our time and about the problems of our time.

WILL DURANT (TELEVISION INTERVIEW, JANUARY 1968)

Durant is working on a new book, Fallen Leavesa not very serious book which answers the questions of what I think about government, life, death and God.

St. Petersburg Times , NOVEMBER 5, 1975

Dr. Durant also is planning something tentatively entitled Fallen Leaves. In which I proposeperhaps with Ariels helpto answer all the important questionssimply, fairly and imperfectly, he said.

B.B.H. Independent , TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1975

Durant is using his European vacation to finish up what he describes as a little book of stray thoughts on everything. He writes on a yellow legal pad whenever he has a moment and he plans to finish the book before returning home to receive a joint honorary degree with his wife next month. Im anxious to get it done, said Durant. The pep is petering out.

Los Angeles Times , MAY 26, 1978

T hat was it. A total of four aggravatingly brief statements about a book that no one, not even the Durant heirs, knew existed. And, unless you happened to live in Los Angeles, where the above television interview was aired in 1968 and two of the three newspaper articles were published during the mid- to late 1970s, you would not have known anything about Will Durant even contemplating the writing of such a book. Frustrating indeed.

It was considered to be Durants most important work; the culmination of his sixty-plus years spent researching the philosophies, religions, arts, sciences, and civilizations of the world. It was to be the distilled wisdom and considered conclusions about our species perennial problems and greatest joys, from a man who had not only read about life but had lived it through some of the worlds most profound and cataclysmic momentstwo world wars, the Great Depression, the rise of socialism and anarchism, the decline of religious belief, and the gradual change in American morals from the Victorian era to Woodstock. Durant had been born in 1885, when the primary mode of transportation between towns was the horse and carriage; he died in 1981twelve years after man had first walked on the surface of the moon. What changes he had witnessedand what interesting and often predictable cycles of human behavior! Certainly such patterns, particularly when viewed against the backdrop of human history, would be worth sharing for the benefit and education of future generations. What, for instance, was to be said for religious faith, after Darwin and science had toppled God from his throne in heaven and put nothing in his place but the gloomy angst of existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre? What is it in our nature that makes wars and conflict seemingly unavoidable? And what is the deeper meaning of life, love, and happiness? What is the purpose of art? Of science? What educational approach is bestand what makes man (or one man, at least) attracted to woman? Herein were to be the answers to such questions as only a thinker and writer of Durants caliber could answer them. It was to be a message of insight for those who had sought meaning in life or the council of a learned friend in navigating lifes journey. And it was also believed to be a manuscript that had inexplicably been lost.

I had only learned of the manuscript after I had undertaken the move of the Durant archive to my home in Ontario, Canada. And then it had been as a result of several months poring over newspaper clippings, old essays, letters, audio recordings, decaying movie film, magazine articles, and cryptic jottings that became the fodder for certain volumes of The Story of Civilization. There were of course many delightful surprises during this period; chiefly the discovery of Dr. Durants manuscript for Heroes of History and the audio recordings that he created with his wife, Ariel, for that project (both written and recorded during his ninety-third year). Evidently Durant had still been working on Fallen Leaves in some capacity during this period. But then after happening upon the tantalizing fragments given above there was nothing, no scrap of paper even indicating such a title, no evidence at all that such a manuscript ever existed. As the Durant archive had been well picked over by manuscript houses shortly after his passing, I knew that I hadnt seen absolutely everything he had written. I contacted his granddaughter, Monica Mihell, about getting in touch with these archive houses to at least see what they had in inventory from the Durant papers. Some were cooperative; others would not return calls.