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William James Durant (November 5, 1885 – November 7, 1981) was an American writer, historian, and philosopher. He is best known for The Story of Civilization, 11 volumes written in collaboration with his wife Ariel Durant and published between 1935 and 1975. He was earlier noted for The Story of Philosophy, written in 1926, described as "a groundbreaking work that helped to popularize philosophy".
He conceived of philosophy as total perspective, or, seeing things sub specie totius, a phrase inspired by Spinoza's sub specie aeternitatis. He sought to unify and humanize the great body of historical knowledge, which had grown voluminous and become fragmented into esoteric specialties, and to vitalize it for contemporary application.
Will and Ariel Durant were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1968 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977.
Durant was born in North Adams, Massachusetts, of French-Canadian parents Joseph Durant and Mary Allard, who had been part of the Quebec emigration to the United States.
In 1900 Durant was educated by the Jesuits in St. Peter's Preparatory School and, later, Saint Peter's College in Jersey City, New Jersey. Historian Joan Rubin writes of this period, "Despite some adolescent flirtations, he began preparing for the vocation that promised to realize his mother's fondest hopes for him: the priesthood. In that way, one might argue, he embarked on a course that, while distant from Yale's or Columbia's apprenticeships in gentility, offered equivalent cultural authority within his own milieu."
In 1905 he began experimenting with socialist philosophy but, after World War I, began recognizing that a "lust for power" underlay all forms of political behavior. However, even before the war, "other aspects of his sensibility had competed with his radical leanings", notes Rubin. She adds that "the most concrete of those was a persistent penchant for philosophy. With his energy invested in Spinoza, he made little room for Bakunin. From then on, writes Rubin, "his retention of a model of selfhood predicated on discipline made him unsympathetic to anarchist injunctions to 'be yourself'... To be one's 'deliberate self,' he explained, meant to 'rise above' the impulse to 'become the slaves of our passions' and instead to act with 'courageous devotion' to a moral cause".
He graduated in 1907. He worked as a reporter for Arthur Brisbane's New York Evening Journal for ten dollars a week. At the Evening Journal, he wrote several articles on sexual criminals. In 1907, he began teaching Latin, French, English and geometry at Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey. Durant was also made librarian at the college.
In 1911 he left the seminary. He became the principal of Ferrer Modern School, an advanced school intended to educate the working-classes; he also taught there. Alden Freeman, a supporter of the Ferrer Modern School, sponsored him for a tour of Europe. At the Modern School, he fell in love with and married a fourteen-year-old pupil, Chaya (Ida) Kaufman, whom he later nicknamed "Ariel".
In 1917 while working on a doctorate in philosophy at Columbia University, Will Durant wrote his first book, Philosophy and the Social Problem. He discussed the idea that philosophy had not grown because it avoided the actual problems of society. He received his doctorate that same year from Columbia. He was also an instructor at the university.
The Durants also shared a love story as remarkable as their scholarship; they detail this in Dual Autobiography. After Will went into the hospital, Ariel stopped eating. Will died after he heard that Ariel had died. They died within two weeks of each other in 1981 (she on October 25 and he on November 7). Though their daughter, Ethel, and grandchildren strove to keep the death of his Ariel from the ailing Will, he learned of it on the evening news, and he himself died at the age of 96. He was buried beside his wife in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.
In 1933, he published Tragedy of Russia: Impressions from a Brief Visit and soon after, The Lesson of Russia. A few years after the books were published, social commentator Will Rogers had read them and described a symposium he had attended that included Will Durant as one of the contributors. He later wrote of Durant, "He is just about our best writer on Russia. He is the most fearless writer that has been there. He tells you just what it's like. He makes a mighty fine talk. One of the most interesting lecturers we have, and a fine fellow."
Will Durant fought for equal wages, women's suffrage and fairer working conditions for the American labor force. Durant not only wrote on many topics but also put his ideas into effect. Durant, it has been said widely, attempted to bring philosophy to the common man. He authored The Story of Philosophy, The Mansions of Philosophy, and, with the help of his wife, Ariel, wrote The Story of Civilization. He also wrote magazine articles.
He was trying to improve understanding of viewpoints of human beings and to have others forgive foibles and human waywardness. He chided the comfortable insularity of what is now known as Eurocentrism, by pointing out in Our Oriental Heritage that Europe was only "a jagged promontory of Asia". He complained of "the provincialism of our traditional histories which began with Greece and summed up Asia in a line" and said they showed "a possibly fatal error of perspective and intelligence".
About author and audiobooks:
Code:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Durant |
The Story of Civilization books
Will Durant - Our Oriental Heritage (read by Alexander Adams)
Will Durant - The Life Of Greece (read by Alexander Adams)
Will Durant - Caesar And Christ (read by Alexander Adams)
Will Durant - The Age Of Faith (read by Alexander Adams)
Will Durant - The Renaissance (read by Alexander Adams)
Will Durant - The Reformation (read by Alexander Adams)
Will Durant - The Age Of Reason Begins (read by Alexander Adams)
Will Durant - The Age Of Louis XIV (read by Alexander Adams)
Will Durant - The Age Of Voltaire (read by Alexander Adams)
Will Durant - Rousseau And Revolution (read by Alexander Adams)
Will Durant - The Age Of Napolean (read by Alexander Adams)
Code:
http://rapidgator.net/file/2c50c5209322a7bc5928b54842ad1f34/Our_Oriental_Heritage.rar.html
http://rapidgator.net/file/50001164e2bae91bb9fac10af046883e/The_Life_Of_Greece.rar.html
http://rapidgator.net/file/946e110bbfba3c34add5f15d31d8680e/Caeser_And_Christ.rar.html
http://rapidgator.net/file/d70557104604e784ac64ccca3158afe5/The_Age_Of_Faith.part1.rar.html
http://rapidgator.net/file/21071c8697bfe03dec43f49def80c10a/The_Age_Of_Faith.part2.rar.html
http://rapidgator.net/file/0ac5d582d11c4eebd3571e2334da1995/The_Renaissance.rar.html
http://rapidgator.net/file/72534203e7edc22ff6d07d69f7efa1cb/The_Reformation.part1.rar.html
http://rapidgator.net/file/b1e274580d06342508153133da2a6425/The_Reformation.part2.rar.html
http://rapidgator.net/file/94fb504ab8eaae4a75debd8ccc666a73/The_Age_Of_Reason_Begins.rar.html
http://rapidgator.net/file/16268f0c794e26a01f2dac6bfbbbf4e3/The_Age_Of_Louis_XIV.rar.html
http://rapidgator.net/file/736a4c41e504db78cd189fddc236ef57/The_Age_Of_Voltaire.rar.html
http://rapidgator.net/file/de9715fee49d5cc650198621e7ec1942/Rousseau_And_Revolution.part1.rar.html
http://rapidgator.net/file/eb124615b1b10b230e95ccd351ec1f75/Rousseau_And_Revolution.part2.rar.html
http://rapidgator.net/file/8ca4f7055c5f96ffd835683e4f28666a/The_Age_Of_Napolean.part1.rar.html
http://rapidgator.net/file/63b328234fad04c1d5cb80adfd1873cf/The_Age_Of_Napolean.part2.rar.html |
Other works
Will Durant - The Lessons Of History (read by Unknown narrator)
Code:
http://rapidgator.net/file/6fe4a54933cafdb47c7ac37a33a62978/The_Lessons_Of_History.rar.html |
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