The third volume of Will Durant’s Pulitzer Prize-winning series, Caesar and Christ chronicles the history of Roman civilization and of Christianity from their beginnings to 325 AD. In this masterful work, listeners will learn about:

– the Etruscan civilization of ancient Italy – the birth of the Roman Republic and the beginnings of Roman law – the great reigns of Caesar and Antony – the people of Rome–the artisans, tradesmen, and scientists – the places of Rome’s great empire – the beginnings of Christianity and its growth – the rise of Constantine and the fall of the empire

The final and most personal work from Pulitzer Prize–winning author and historian Will Durant—discovered thirty-two years after his death—is a message of insight for everyone who has sought meaning in life or the council of a wise friend in navigating life’s journey.

From 1968 to 1978, Will Durant made four public allusions to the existence of Fallen Leaves. One, in 1975, hinted at its contents: “a not very serious book that answers the questions of what I think about government, life, death, and God.” And in 1975: “I propose…to answer all the important questions, simply, fairly, and imperfectly.” Even into his nineties, he worked on the book daily, writing it out on legal notepads. Upon his death in 1981, no one, not even the Durant heirs, knew if he had completed it, or even if it still existed. Thirty-two years later, in a granddaughter’s attic trunk, the manuscript was discovered.

Fallen Leaves is Will Durant’s most personal book. It is precisely as he described: twenty-two short chapters on everything from youth and old age, religion and morals, to sex, war, politics, and art. The culmination of Durant’s sixty-plus years spent researching the philosophies, religions, arts, sciences, and civilizations from across the world, Fallen Leaves is the distilled wisdom of a gifted scholar with a renowned talent for rendering the insights of the past accessible. In its preface Durant mentions that over the course of his career he received letters from “curious readers who have challenged me to speak my mind on the timeless questions of human life and fate.” With Fallen Leaves he accepted their challenge. It contains strong opinions, elegant prose, and deep insights into the human condition as only Will Durant could provide, as well as his revealing conclusions about the perennial problems and greatest joys we face as a species.

At Will Durant’s death in 1981, his personal papers were dispersed among relatives, collectors, and archive houses. Twenty years later, scholar John Little discovered the previously unknown manuscript of Heroes of History in Durant’s granddaughter’s garage. Written shortly before he died, these twenty-one essays serve as an abbreviated version of Durant’s bestselling, eleven-volume series, The Story of Civilization. Durant traces the lives and ideas of those who have helped to define civilization, from Confucius to Shakespeare, from the Roman Empire to the Reformation, spanning thousands of years of human history. A volume of life-enhancing wit and wisdom, Heroes of History draws upon Durant’s expansive knowledge and singular ability to translate distant events and complex ideas into easily accessible principles.

The first volume of Will Durant’s Pulitzer Prize-winning series, Our Oriental Heritage: The Story of Civilization, Volume I chronicles the early history of Egypt, the Middle East, and Asia. In this masterful work, readers will encounter:

Sumeria, birthplace of the first cities and written lawsthe Egyptians, who perfected monumental architecture, medicine, and mummification more than 3,500 years agothe Babylonians, who developed astronomy and physics, and planted the seeds of Western mythologythe Judeans, who preserved their culture forever in the immortal books of the Old Testamentthe Persians, who ruled the largest empire in recorded history before RomeIndian philosophy, Chinese philosophers, and Japanese samurais

The Pulitzer Prize-winning volume on European civilization by acclaimed historians Will and Ariel Durant

Rousseau and Revolution, the tenth volume of the Story of Civilization, ranges over a Europe in ferment, but centers on the passionate rebel–philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the great exponent of the romantic impulse toward self-exploration and social revolt, who contended with the great rationalist Voltaire for the mind of Europe. Rousseau condemned civilization as a disease, glorified the noble savage, proclaimed to the world with equal intensity his own love affairs and the natural rights of man, and became the patron saint of the revolution and the worldwide social upheavals of two centuries.

The fourth volume in Will Durant’s Pulitzer Prize-winning series, The Age of Faith surveys the medieval achievements and modern significance of Christian, Islamic, and Judaic life and culture. Like the other volumes in the Story of Civilization series, this is a self-contained work, which at the same time fits into a comprehensive history of mankind. It includes the dramatic stories of St. Augustine, Hypatia, Justinian, Mohammed, Harun al-Rashid, Charlemagne, William the Conqueror, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard the Lionheart, Saladin, Maimonides, St. Francis, St. Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, and many others, all in the perspective of integrated history. The greatest love stories in literature–of H+(r)loise and Ab+(r)lard, of Dante and Beatrice–are here retold with enthralling scholarship.

The Age of Louis XIV is the biography of a period (1648-1715) that Spengler considered the apex of modern European civilization. “Some centuries hence,” Frederick the Great correctly predicted to Voltaire, “they will translate the good authors of the age of Pericles and Augustus.” Those authors are lovingly treated here: Pascal, Racine, and Boileau, Madame de S+(r)vign+(r), Madame de la Fayette, and above all the philosopher-dramatist Moli+?re, who so memorably exposed the vices and hypocrisies of the age.

Central to the book is the “Sun King” himself, Louis XIV. Louis XIV ruled France for over seventy years, longer than almost any European ruler in history. He is the subject of a character study that runs through seven chapters, revealing the flesh and blood beneath the purple and the crown. He is seen at his worst in his struggle with Jansenists and Huguenots, at his best in his patronage of literature and art, and at his most human in his love affairs with Henrietta Anne of Orl+(r)ans, Louise de La Valli+?re, Madame de Montespan, and Madame de Maintenon.

From France the narrative passes to the Netherlands, and after pausing to examine the domestic idylls of Vermeer, shows the Dutch opening their dikes to save their land from Louis XIV and sending William of Orange to become king of England and a leader of the European alliance against Louis’ hegemony.

In England we contemplate the heyday of virtue under the Puritans and study the strange character of Cromwell. We see Milton’s passionate career as part of the vain effort to prevent the Stuart Restoration. We find Charles II, the “Merry Monarch,” with more manners than morals, attend boisterous Restoration plays; we skim the diaries of Evelyn and Pepys; and we follow Jonathan Swift from genius to insanity.

Crossing the North Sea we trace the tragic heroism of Charles XII of Sweden and the attempt of Peter the Great to lead Russia from barbarism to civilization. We accompany the noble Sobieski of Poland as he rescues Vienna from the Turks. We visit Italy and Spain. We see the Jews proscribed and impoverished in Europe but rising to riches in Amsterdam and following Sabbatai Zevi in a desperate hope of regaining Palestine and freedom.

All this forms the background for the “intellectual adventure” of the European mind in its passage from superstition, mythology, and intolerance to education, science, and philosophy, for this was the age when Newton and Leibniz gave simultaneous birth to calculus, when Newton bound the planets and the stars with a chain of universal gravitation. Toward the end of the volume the authors revert to their favorite subject, philosophy, and devote a full chapter, with love and care, to Spinoza.

The book ends with the sunset of Le Roi Soleil: Louis punished for his aggressions by a swarm of enemies gathering around him; fighting till his people are destitute and disillusioned, till his treasury and his heart are empty; dying defeated and repentant, begging his grandson and successor not to imitate his taste for splendor and war; and followed in his funeral by the insults of the crowd.

An engrossing volume on European civilization by Pulitzer Prize-winning historians Will and Ariel Durant

The Age of Napoleon, the eleventh and final volume of the Story of Civilization, surveys the amazing chain of events that wrenched Europe out of the Enlightenment and into the age of democracy. In this masterful work, listeners will encounter

the French Revolution–from the storming of the Bastille to the guillotining of the king; the revolution’s leaders Danton, Desmoulins, Robespierre, Saint-Just–all cut down by the reign of terror they inaugurated; Napoleon’s meteoric rise–from provincial Corsican military student to emperor and commander of the largest army in history; Napoleon’s fall–his army’s destruction in the snows of Russia, his exile to Elba, his escape and reconquest of the throne, and his ultimate defeat at Waterloo by the combined forces of Europe; the birth of Romanticism and the dawning of a new age of active democracy and a rising middle class, laying the foundation for a new era.

This seventh volume of Will and Ariel Durant’s renowned Story of Civilization chronicles the history of European civilization from 1558 to 1648.

The Age of Reason Begins brings together a fascinating network of stories in the discussion of the bumpy road toward the Enlightenment. This is the age of great monarchs and greater artists–on the one hand, Elizabeth I of England, Philip II of Spain, and Henry IV of France; on the other, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Montaigne, and Rembrandt. It also encompasses the heyday of Francis Bacon, Galileo, Giordano Bruno, and Descartes, the fathers of modern science and philosophy. But it is equally an age of extreme violence, a moment in which all Europe was embroiled in the horrible Thirty Years’ War–in some respects, the real first world war. This chapter in cultural history is one that can’t be missed.

The Age of Voltaire, the ninth volume of the Story of Civilization, is an in-depth examination of France and England in the first half of the eighteenth century. In this masterful work, listeners will encounter

the English ideas that inspired the Enlightenment in France–skepticism, scientific experiment, constitutional government, “natural rights,” and individual liberty; the salons of Paris, where the wits and thinkers of all Europe gathered to exchange ideas; the philosophes–intellectuals, playwrights, and poets who consulted and consorted with kings and queens; Voltaire himself–the incarnation of the Enlightenment and a devotee of reason who still defended religious faith; Mme. Pompadour, patron of the philosophes, who seduced King Louis XV and through him influenced French policy; the Augustan Age in English literature–Alexander Pope’s poetry, Jonathan Swift’s satires, and the novels of Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding; and the growing parasitism of the aristocracy and rising power of the commercial class.

A wise and witty compendium of the greatest thoughts, greatest minds, and greatest books of all time–listed in accessible and succinct form–by one of the world’s greatest scholars.

From the “Hundred Best Books” to the “Ten Greatest Thinkers” to the “Ten Greatest Poets,” here is a concise collection of the world’s most significant knowledge. For the better part of a century, Will Durant dwelled upon–and wrote about–the most significant eras, individuals, and achievements of human history. His selections have finally been brought together in a single, compact volume. Durant eloquently defends his choices of the greatest minds and ideas, but he also stimulates readers into forming their own opinions, encouraging them to shed their surroundings and biases and enter “The Country of the Mind,” a timeless realm where the heroes of our species dwell.

From a thinker who always chose to exalt the positive in the human species, The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time stays true to Durant’s optimism. This is a book containing the absolute best of our heritage, passed on for the benefit of future generations. Filled with Durant’s renowned wit, knowledge, and unique ability to explain events and ideas in simple and exciting terms, this is a pocket-size liberal arts and humanist curriculum in one volume.

A concise survey of the culture and civilization of mankind, The Lessons of History is the result of a lifetime of research from Pulitzer Prize-winning historians Will and Ariel Durant.

The authors devoted five decades to the study of world history and philosophy, culminating in the masterful eleven-volume Story of Civilization. In this compact summation of their work, Will and Ariel Durant share the vital and profound lessons of our collective past. Their perspective, gained after a lifetime of thinking and writing about the history of humankind, is an invaluable resource for us today. The rare archival recordings of the Durants in conversation, made from 1957-1977, illuminate our present condition and offer insightful guidance for the future.

The second volume of Will Durant’s Pulitzer Prize-winning series, The Life of Greece: The Story of Civilization, Volume 2 chronicles the history of ancient Greek civilization. Here Durant tells the whole story of Greece, from the days of Crete’s vast Aegean empire to the final extirpation of the last remnants of Greek liberty, crushed under the heel of an implacably forward-marching Rome. The dry minutiae of battles and sieges, of tortuous statecraft of tyrant and king, get the minor emphasis in what is preeminently a vivid recreation of Greek culture, brought to the reader through the medium of supple, vigorous prose.

In this masterful work, readers will learn about:

– the siege of Troy- the great city-states of Athens and Sparta- the heroes of Homer’s epics- the gods and lesser deities of Mount Olympus- the teachings of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle- the life of Alexander the Great

An engrossing volume on the European Reformation by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Will Durant

The sixth volume of Durant’s acclaimed Story of Civilization, The Reformation chronicles the history of European civilization from 1300 to 1564. In this masterful work, listeners will encounter

the schism within the Roman Catholic Church and the formation of early Protestantism; the theology of Martin Luther and his societal impact; the rise of Humanism and the life of Desiderius Erasmus; the royal monarchies of England, France, Spain, and Italy; the imperial conquests of Christopher Columbus and the discovery of the Americas; the Bohemian revolution of Eastern Europe, the unification of Russia, and the rise of the Ottoman Empire; the teachings of John Calvin; andthe Counter-Reformation of the sixteenth century.

An engrossing volume on the Italian Renaissance by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Will Durant

The fifth volume of Durant’s acclaimed Story of Civilization, The Renaissance chronicles the history of Italy from 1304 to 1576. In this masterful work, listeners will encounter

the poets Petrarch and Boccaccio, the fathers of the Renaissance; the paintings, sculptures, and architecture of Milan, Florence, and Venice; the life and accomplishments of Leonardo Da Vinci; the Catholic church and the popes of Avignon and Rome; the politicians and philosophers of Italy, including the Borgia family, Julius II, and Machiavelli; the Italian Wars, the conflicts with France, and the country’s decline.

The product of eleven years of research, The Story of Philosophy is an endlessly inspiring and instructive chronicle of the world’s greatest thinkers, from Socrates to Santayana. Written with exacting and scrupulous scholarship, it was designed both to command the respect of educators and to capture the interest of the layman.

Durant lucidly describes the philosophical systems of such world-famous “monarchs of the mind” as Plato, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Spinoza, Kant, Voltaire, and Nietzsche. Along with their ideas, he offers their flesh-and-blood biographies, placing their thoughts within their own time and place and elucidating their influence on our modern intellectual heritage. This book is packed with wisdom and wit.

The Story of Philosophy is a key book for any listener who wishes to survey the history and development of philosophical ideas in the Western world.