The Lessons of History

Will and Ariel Durant are our curmudgeonly hosts along with the bristling, intelligent voice of Grover Gardner in this recap of some prime historical data and observations of humanity's past and its potential future. The Durants--elderly, wise, and prickly--banter with their interviewer and each other in the archived live segments, providing rich and witty counterpoints to Gardner's reading of the text. It's especially interesting to contrast Will Durant's sometimes garbled, professorial voice with his clear and incisive writing style. Ariel's sharp, birdlike presence is felt throughout as well. This classic, influential work is handled impressively by Audio Partners. D.J.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine


This historical essay updates, corrects and further explains the Durants' previous Story of Civilization series, offering insights into some of its major themes, events and characters. It's extremely difficult to create an engaging recording from a dry work of nonfiction. But that's exactly what Russ Holcomb does with his buoyant reading and careful articulation of unfamiliar historical terms. Holcomb imbues this work with a lightness of tone which will attract many new readers who would otherwise eschew its written counterpart. E.E.L. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


This summary of the history of civilization is jam packed with information and conclusions complete on 3 CDs. Written in 1968, some of the conclusions about where society and the world are going are very dated, especially comments about economics, computers and communication. Read in a no nonsense manner, there are noticeable fluctuations in volume within paragraphs and from disc to disc, made more noticeable by the lack of background hiss. The narrator tends to swallow the ends of sentences. Nevertheless, this summation of The Lessons of History that wraps up The Story of Civilization sheds light on trends and themes of various aspects of society including war, economics, systems of government and technology. M.B.K. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine