Our Oriental Heritage

The Story of Civilization, Volume 1

By: Will Durant

Narrated by: Robin Field

Length: 50 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

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 laws
• the Egyptians, who perfected monumental architecture, medicine, and mummification more than 3,500 years ago
• the Babylonians, who developed astronomy and physics, and planted the seeds of Western mythology
• the Judeans, who preserved their culture forever in the immortal books of the Old Testament
• the Persians, who ruled the largest empire in recorded history before Rome
• Indian philosophy, Chinese philosophers, and Japanese Samurais

©2013 Will Durant (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Get used to rewinding

This is the kind of book that's rare and valuable, if a bit aged. It has a wealth of information about antiquity and the ancient orient. If possible, after reading this book, check out the rest of the series and consider buying the hard copy.

Epic

A very long and densely packed book, but worth every minute. This is my inaugural foray into Durant and it is a daunting proposition to finish the whole series. If I finish a book a year I'll be of retirement age when I finish. As daunting as it is, I can only wonder at how much more was needed to write it.

I am a biblical scholar, so the backgrounds in the Ancient Near East were quite well received. Even so, reading about China, India, and Japan are also instructive in understanding the long standing place of each in our history. I have known Chinese folks who seemed to hate Japan, and I never understood why. Now I do. The backgrounds on Buddha, Confucius, Gandhi, Mencius, and the arts of the represented countries were enough to make reading this worthwhile.

This time through could be considered nothing more than a quick skim. Adler would be ashamed of what I will retain from this book, because I failed to make it my own. However, I did pick up some broad strokes and some interesting stories. I will long remember the story of the Chinese artist who was so talented, that at the end of his years he painted a landscape, painted the mouth of a cave in the side of a hill, walked into the cave and was never seen again. The story of the woman whose family was killed by tigers, the story of the sage who befouled a river after washing the ear that heard a suggestion that he rule the country. Homespun legends to be sure, but so captivating as to stick. While the pleasure was more momentary than not, the recitation of substantial passages of poetry from each of the countries gave a sense of what is missed in an education that focuses solely on the West.

Read it to lift yourself. You may not agree with the philosophical ramblings of the author, but my guess is it is the rare person who will be able to keep up.

Pretty good but challenging

I have this book in hard copy and it was difficult to read because of my lack of familiarity with some of the content. I think it would help to have some introduction to these stories in advance. Also the author has a large vocabulary that he likes to use and makes comparisons to other historical figures and philosophers that I don't know., but this was the point of reading it in the first place. These are things I want to know. The reading of it on Audible was very helpful because it keeps a good pace and the reader could pronounce everything correctly. There are a lot of footnotes and quotes. I was able to pause and make notes in my book in the areas of greatest interest. There are a lot of little known treasures of information in here. It basically goes through all the East and far East civilizations and how they deveoped. It goes by categories like art, religion, philosophy, architecture, etc. and brings you from the earliest to current (1935). Very interesting book.

Extremely worthwhile listen

Quite a listen but very worthwhile. Will Durant is so astute, so analytical, so knowledgeable he is amazing. This book is extremely detailed, comprehensive and rich in humanity and even humor but especially in true appreciation of all cultures.

Enlightening and Eye Opening

Any additional comments?

All I can say is wow, this book is extremely enlightening and eye opening. It covers the formation of civilization of the human race. which started in Africa and Asia.

It was published in 1935, so if you are looking for the latest archaeological find on Egypt you won't find it here. But that's not what this book is about, this book is about exploring the development of the civilizing influenced on humanity, how cultures have risen and fallen and how human civilization has changed.

I highly recommend this book to all human beings.

Wow, great book, looking forward to the next 4 volumes. I’m so much smarter now than I was!

Wow, great book, looking forward to the next 4 volumes. I’m so much smarter now than I was!

A must listen by anyone.

Any additional comments?

This book was written in the 1930's and it needs to be updated. Other than that, this book is one of the best history books ever written.

Most of history is guessing... rest is predjudice

"But a nation, like an individual, can be too sensible, too practical, sane and unbearably right."
- Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage

I jumped into this series with not a small amount of skepticsm. How can you not be skeptical of a project that is basically 10,000 pages, in 11 volumes, totalling about 4 million words? But I was curious. This series is ubiquitous in used bookstores. I was more than curious. It almost seemed stupidly large. That was a selling point. It also seemed nearly (11/12) designed for a year-long big book quest. My worries increased when a friend of mine suggested I abandon my copy back to a "little free library or used bookstore". But I figured I'd give Vol 1 a shot. I was apprehensive because a History of Civilization written in 1935 is going to come from a completely different perspective than the one I'm used to from contemporary historians (academic or otherwise). But that same worry also made me curious. The fact that this series was published over forty years (Vol 1 = 1935; Vol 11 = 1975) made me interested to see if/how the Durant's approach to history changed from pre-WWII to post-Vietnam.

Vol 1: "Our Oriental Heritage" is 938 pages that span:

I. The Establishment of Civilization - pages 1 to 110
II. The Near East (Sumeria, Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, Judea, Persia, etc) - 111 to 386
III. India and Her Neighbors - 387 t0 634
IV. The Far East - 635 to 824
V. Japan - 825 to 944

The introduction almost turned me off. Durant's almost causal use of "savage" and "primative" to discuss early man and civilization irritated me, and there were brief periods where I was worried Durant was going to emerge as a fangirl of eugenics. But I also had to remember this was written by an American, white male intellectual in the middle of the 30s, almost 80 years ago. It is also a book aimed at the general reader not the academic. I kept on reader, because once engaged I'm an indulgent reader. And... it got better. Actually, it became quite good. I enjoyed his style. I felt Durant was (as much as an outsider can be) fair to most of his subjects. I enjoyed his horde of historical truisms/maxims/aphorisms that he sprinkled willy-nilly throughout the volume. I felt, after reading Vol I, like I learned a lot. It was just ambitous enough, broad enough, and interesting enough to warrent me continuing to Vol II next month. There was plenty of fluff, and I'm sure academics in any of the areas he covered could shake up his views considerably, but like Durant said: "most of history is guessing, and the rest is predjudice"

Some of my other favorite of Durant's historical aphorisms in Vol I, Section 1 The Establishment of Civilization:

"Societies are ruled by two powers: in peace by the word, in crisis by the sword" (22).
"Time sanctifies everything" (24).
"Liberty is a luxury of security; the free individual is a product and a mark of civilization" (29).
"To transmute greed into thrift, violence into argument, murder into litigation, and suicide into philosophy has been part of the task of civilization" (53).
"men are more easily ruled by imagination than by science" (56).
"It is the tendency of gods to begin as ogres and to end as loving fathers" (63).
"In the end a society and its religion tend to fall together, like a body and soul, in a harmonious death" (71).
"Possibly every discovery is a rediscovery" (107).

Amazing.

A wonderful chronology of man's earliest known history including Sumer, Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, India, China, and Japan. Their kings, their rises, their falls, their artistic prowess, their innovations, their inhabitants, their differences, their gods--all you could ever hope for in establishing a foundational knowledge of early history.

History done right!

All my life, I have heard about the brilliance of the Durants, but all my life, the thick volumes of the Durants books were too much for me, regardless of the brilliance.

BUT suddenly, Audible.com has brought out the 10 volume set of The History of Civilization, each volume of which is about 500 pages. Listening is about 50 hours per volume. As I'm bedbound, 50 hours is far more manageable than 500 pages.

But the brilliance I had heard about was definitely there. The lovely, easy use of language, his ability to view civilization as more than disparate disciplines, the delightful sense of humor that pops out at the least expected time ... He overwhelmed me. For each of the peoples he discussed, he shared the scientific knowledge, the economics, art, literature as well as the who did what when that is always part of history.

It's important to recognize that this book was written in the mid 30s. The progress we have made in civil liberties in the following decades can make reading uncomfortable. Recognize it for the artifact that it is and read on.

I'm going for the full ten volumes. That is my real rating!