Great Minds and Ideas

First, a little about the author. Durant was well-known as a philosopher and historian, and is best known for his eleven-volume The Story of Civilization. As he gathered the great ideas of philosophy, his desire was to make them accessible to the lay reader. Doing so, he believed, helped others have greater perspective, understanding and compassion, certainly qualities needed in our society today.

John Little, the world’s foremost authority on the work and philosophy of Durant, has compiled these six essays that previously were either published articles or lectures. They serve as a wonderful introduction to Will Durant’s work and his individual evaluation of the peaks of human achievement.

Durant has a great respect and reverence for the great men and women of history. He states, “Great men are not so much creators as midwives: they help to bring forth that which is already in the womb of time ... Great men may not be the causes of the events usually featured in history -- wars, elections, migrations, etc,; but they bring forth the inventions and discoveries demanded by the age. In this sense the growth of knowledge is the essence of history.” (website)

These essays found in the volume are listed here:

Chapter One: A Shameless Worship of Heroes. “I see men standing on the edge of knowledge, and holding the light a little farther ahead” (7).

Chapter Two: The Ten “Greatest” Thinkers. “Here, perhaps, is the true litany of saints; these are the names that should adorn our calendars, with those that gave new beauty to the world, or counseled it to a gentler humanity” (30).

Chapter Three: The Ten “Greatest” Poets. A list of those men “who, beyond all others, have brought me that strange mixture of music, emotion, imagery, and thought, which is poetry” (31).

Chapter Four: The One Hundred “Best” Books for an Education. Not only does Durant provide a list, he also tells us why. He also proposes that these books can be read in four years by reading just one hour a day. (Though that may seem a bit daunting!) How much more complete our understanding of our world and therefore ourselves would be if we read some of these books.

Chapter Five: The Ten “Peaks of Human Progress. “Progress is the domination of chaos by mind and purpose, of matter by form and will” (90).

Go To Page: 1 2