Heroes of History

By: Will Durant

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 12 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

At Will Durant's death at 96, 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 21 essays serve as an abbreviated version of Durant's best-selling, 11-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.

©2001 John Little, Monica Ariel Mihell, and William James Durant Easton (P)2003 The Audio Partners Publishing Corp.

Brilliant!

Easy to listen to. Well organized. Good narrator. This is a college education in a bottle. Every figure is a giant. Find out why.

all that this narrator reads is brilliant.

was a quick moving collection of introductions to the listener. well researched and expressive. I wish the author would have taken more chances by joining several known facts to hypothesize an opinion not generally accepted by the status quo. informative

Nice overview

A pretty good overview of world history - at least as much as can be covered in a few hours. The author even mentions names he's skipping over at various points, which provides a nice resource to go off and do additional resource.

The narration is fine - I love Grover Garner's voice, when it comes to these sorts of narratives.

A Must Read

Such a wonderful encapsulation of key developments and people in history. A Cliff's Notes of The Story of Civilization Vol 1. This becomes number 1 on my re-read list. I love the way Durant points out ideas or actions that pre-date commonly held attribution as firsts; or were forerunners to who was credited with the notion or discovery; and his comparisons of philosophical thinkers and their contributions to society and understanding. An example being the frustration and anger with the excesses of the Catholic Church BEFORE Luther called for a dialogue leading to the Reformation. I learned a lot but I think the re- read is in order.

List of names and dates

Probably if you are a great lover of Will Durant as an individual this book will speak to you as his summary of human history. For me it was more of a list of names and dates and I’m not sure I learned a huge amount from it. Reader did a fine job as per usual.

Another Exceptional Work by Will Durant!

My mind is filled with so much knowledge of great prople throughout history thanks to this book and others by Will and Ariel Durant.

The way in which Dr. Durant describes historical figures and the times in which they lived is enlightening and extraordinary.

Will Durant is a legend

This is truly a work of art. The beauty with which this book was written is astounding.

Buy this book

This book is awesome in scope and in execution. This guy writes like Gibbon!

Reserved Five Stars

I do give this book five stars because of Durant's sharp, clear writing and sparkling style, and also because to be able to accomplish a competent sweep through civilization in such a short space is quite an accomplishment. The one downside is that one feels this work to be exactly what it is, a condensation of Durant's voluminous work on world history, and one is very often left feeling, "wait, we're done with that already?! I want more!"

slightly disappointing

I was really looking forward to getting my hands on a book by this author as he is considered THE modern historian.

However, he made a blatant error in calling Jacob the eldest son of Abraham (he was a grandson) and constantly associating the word "Communism" (defined in the 19th Century) with the Church or New Testament is misleading in my opinion.

It is certainly fast-paced and a good overview of history, though he spent a lot of time discussing the arts, of which I am too ignorant to have appreciated fully.