Will Durant - The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time

BY WILL DURANT

The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time

Heroes of History

The Story of Philosophy

Transition

The Pleasures of Philosophy

Adventures in Genius

BY WILL AND ARIEL DURANT

The Story of Civilization

I. OUR ORIENTAL HERITAGE

II. THE LIFE OF GREECE

III. CAESAR AND CHRIST

IV. THE AGE OF FAITH

V. THE RENAISSANCE

VI. THE REFORMATION

VII. THE AGE OF REASON BEGINS

VIII. THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV

IX. THE AGE OF VOLTAIRE

X. ROUSSEAU AND REVOLUTION

XI. THE AGE OF NAPOLEON

Interpretations of Life

The Lessons of History

WILL DURANT
Compiled and edited by John Little

Simon & Schuster
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Copyright 2002 by John Little, Monica Ariel Mihell, and William James Durant Easton

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DESIGNED BY PAUL DIPPOLITO

Manufactured in the United States of America

7 9 10 8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Durant,Will, date.

The greatest minds and ideas of all time/Will Durant; compiled and edited by John Little.

p. cm.

Includes index.

1. CivilizationHistory. 2. Intellectual lifeHistory. I. Little, John R., date. II. Title.

CB69.D86 2002

909DC21 2002075852

ISBN: 978-0-743-23553-2

eISBN-13: 978-1-439-10714-0

www.SimonandSchuster.com

If a man is fortunate he will, before he dies, gather up as much as he can of his civilized heritage and transmit it to his children.And to his final breath he will be grateful for this inexhaustible legacy, knowing that it is our nourishing mother and our lasting life.

WILL DURANT

Keeping the above observation of Will Durants in mind, I should dedicate this compendium of the peaks of our human heritage to all children, and more prejudicially, to my children: Riley,Taylor, Brandon, and Benjamin; that they may learn and experience the noble strain in humanity and learn that man is capable of such great things that even the gods might be envious.

JOHN LITTLE

And to Edward and Benny Easton,whose grandparents worked so hard through so many decades to deliver this gift to them.

CHAPTER ONE
A Shameless Worship of Heroes

CHAPTER TWO
The Ten Greatest Thinkers

CHAPTER THREE
The Ten Greatest Poets

CHAPTER FOUR
The One Hundred Best Books for an Education

CHAPTER FIVE
The Ten Peaks of Human Progress

CHAPTER SIX
Twelve Vital Dates in World History

The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time

In 1968, shortly after winning the Pulitzer Prize for literature, Will Durant and his wife, Ariel, consented to a television interview to be conducted in their home in Los Angeles, California. The interviewer, who fancied himself something of an intellectual, posed to Durant the following question:

If I were to ask you to name the person who has most influenced our century (the 20th century) would it be Karl Marx?

Durant paused for a moment and then replied:

Well, if you use the word in its largest sense,we would have to give the greatest share of influence to the technical inventors, to men like Edison. Doubtless the development of electricity has transformed the world even more than any Marxian propaganda. Then, if you think in terms of ideas, I think the influence of Darwin is still greater than the influence of Marx, but in a different field. The basic phenomenon of our time is not Communism; its the decline of religious belief,which has all sorts of effects on morals and even on politics because religion has been a tool of politics. But today in Europe it ceases to be a tool, it has very little influence in determining political decisionswhereas 500 years ago, the pope was superior in influence to any civil ruler on earth.

Later, during the same interview, the interviewer turned to his subject and asked:

Dr. Durant, of all the characters populating The Story of Civilization, whom would you have most liked to have known?

Durant contemplated the question seriously and then, poker-faced, replied, Madame De Pompadour.

The interviewer was dumbfounded.

Why is that? he asked.

A twinkle came to Durants eyes as he answered, Well, she was beautiful, she was charming, she was lusciouswhat else do you want?

I cite these two anecdotes not simply to reveal Durants views on the influence of inventors and biologists on human history, nor even his tendency to use wit to disarm journalists who took themselves or their vocations too seriously (he once noted that humor is akin to philosophy for they are both viewpoints born of a large perspective of life), but rather to show that his opinion on assessing the significance of individuals and events from human history was something that was constantly sought aftersometimes twice in the same interview.

It is entirely understandable that Durant should find himself asked to answer such questions.Any time a man spends over half a century researching and writing an eleven-volume integral history of civilization, it is natural that people are going to want to know what conclusions he has drawn from the enterprise; to know what eras, individuals, and achievements stood out in his mind as being the greatest or most significant.Who, for example, would Durant rate on his Roll of Honor of human thought as the greatest thinkers in human history? Who would he rate as the truly great poets; the ones that plucked notes upon heartstrings that continue to resonate hundreds and thousands of years after their passing? And what would be the absolute best books one should read in order to receive a meaningfuland usefuleducation? Over the course of Durants career, he responded to the increasing public demand for such qualified assessments by putting pen to paper and crafting a series of essays containing his personal ranking of The Ten Greatest Thinkers, The Ten Greatest Poets, The One Hundred Best Books for an Education, The Ten Peaks of Human Progress, and Twelve Vital Dates in World History. Certain of these essays were published in periodicals; others were presented as lectures to standing-room-only attendees. However, unless you happened to purchase those magazines, or were fortunate enough to attend one of those lectures, it would not have been possible to learn of his conclusions in these matters. Fortunately, all of these essays have been brought together in The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time.

To formulate a ranking system and then apply it to such a broad array of human achievement is a difficult undertaking, to be sure, but Durant (as always) succeeds brilliantly; he not only presents compelling evidence for his selections, but also stimulates the reader to form his or her own opinions and to look beyond immediate surroundings and present culture and into a timeless realm, which he called The Country of the Mind, a sort of cerebral retirement home wherein the heroes of our species dwell after having served their time and purpose in their respective eras and where to be human is something to be lauded. Indeed, the title of the first chapter of this book serves to frame its very thesis: A Shameless Worship of Heroes.