The Age of Faith, Volume 4

By: Will Durant

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki

Length: 61 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

A History of Medieval Civilization (Christian, Islamic, and Judaic) from Constantine to Dante, AD 325 - 1300

The fourth volume in Will Durant's Pulitzer Prize-winning series, The Age of Faith surveys the medieval achievements and modern significance of Christian, Islamic, and Judaic life and culture. Like the other volumes in the Story of Civilization series, this is a self-contained work, which at the same time fits into a comprehensive history of mankind. It includes the dramatic stories of St. Augustine, Hypatia, Justinian, Mohammed, Harun al-Rashid, Charlemagne, William the Conqueror, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard the Lionheart, Saladin, Maimonides, St. Francis, St. Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, and many others, all in the perspective of integrated history. The greatest love stories in literature - of Héloise and Abélard, of Dante and Beatrice - are here retold with enthralling scholarship.

©2011 Will Durant (P)2014 Blackstone Audiobooks

Very informative

Quite lengthy at times, but totally worth the investment. Patience is a virtue. Hard to wrap your head around all the information. Be ready to bookmark!

Incredible Reading

Durant's lifetime of research is obvious in this epic work, covering every angle and aspect of a bar and complex history.

And I don't think any other narrator could have given this multilingual treasure a more fitting voice.

Epic

Everyone should be exposed to this time period of history through this work in seeing the transformation of people groups from savages to civilized, to organized states, of states that rise and fall, and the slow but steady growth of Europe under Christianity. The blossoming of Islam and the subsequent stumbling and fall of it's luminaries sweeps before you.
What I loved is Durant's weaving - he'll tell one epic, then another of the same time period and bring back the same characters so the reader can see how they fit in a different context.
Stefan Rudnicki's narration is awesome for this work, a steady, constant, almost invisible narration allowing the story to shine through.
Loved every part of it and I'm much richer for the listen, especially for the new understanding of our culture and how it developed, albeit slowly in fits and starts.

Bugs

Bugs in chapters xvI, XVII, and and the first three chapters of Book IV....so far.

A history of heresies.

A history of heresies. As byzantine as the cultures and faiths it covers.

Durant's fourth volume in his "The Story of Civilization" continues its epic march through...well...everything to bring us the story of the great monotheistic faiths (and their impacts on their respective cultures) from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance. Durant covers everything from the rise and splintering of Islam, the Jewish diaspora, and the inevitable doctrinal hair-splitting that engulfed the Christian faith during the Middle Ages.

While Durant approaches this series from a squarely Occidentalist focus, he treats all sides with requisite respect and writes eloquently of the art and poetry of (and faith traditions) of non-Western peoples.

Here, we get Goths, Holy Roman Empires, vassals, flying buttresses, Catharists, and tonsures galore. When I say Durant covers everything, I mean it. While Durant has never been terribly interested in warfare or battles (traditional "history"), you'd be hard pressed to find a topic that Durant doesn't cover at least to some degree.

That breadth of topics is also the book's weakest point. Because Durant covers so much geographic, artistic, civilizational, religious, and temporal territory, the history is less rigorous than it otherwise might be in a more focused/limited work (contrast with volumes "The Life of Greece" and "Caesar and Christ" -- limited primarily to the Greek and Roman states). An example of this is when Durant covers the history of Scotland from 300-1300 AD in about 7 pages. William Wallace is rolling over in his grave. And don't even get me started on the vagaries of Catholic or Islamic heresies -- you'd have more luck counting the stars in the sky than keep track of them all.

Ultimately, this is a forgivable sin (an indulgence even) since Durant writes so well about so much. Another reviewer described him as a "popularizer" -- and insofar as Durant brings (and keeps) the story of Civilization alive to the general public (even if this book is 70 years old), "popularizer" ain't a bad thing to be.

Excellence in presentation of history

It is unfair to give only five stars for this book, when thousands of much inferior books receive five stars. But the highest possible rating is only five stars.

I listened to the superior reading by Mr. Rudnicki, and was truly impressed, especially when he pronounced foreign words correctly.

As far as Will Durant is concerned, his erudite writing and style has not been duplicated yet. This is the fourth book by Will Durant I have read, and will read all the others I have already purchased.

Fantastic.

This is truly the finest of classical historiography. Durant was one of a kind and he culmination of the era just before the much needed, but much destructive fracturing of cultural and history in our critical, modern and postmodern age.

His is a delicate handling and deep understanding that ranges elegantly through kings, migrations, arts, technology, metaphysics, religion, and notably the common man or woman. And all of this in such writing as to do justice to those sensitive souls he chronicles.

The narrator is also notability masterful in his craft. His emphasis restrained but always in the right place and his pronunciations of many languages acceptable, if not always perfect.

Best audiobook ever (to date) 🌟

The writing is instructive and peppered with delightful details that bring warmth the the subject. The writing is excellent and you wouldn't know it wasn't published this year. It's well structured so that subjects that are perhaps less interesting to the reader are easy to skip past. S. Rudinicki is a superb talent, not just thanks to his uniquely engaging voice but also because his performance is flawless. No peculiar breaths or noise, perfect cadence, like the voice of a beloved father reading a story. I was really impressed by this production which, at 61 hours, must have been an epic undertaking. Do not hesitate on this one. It is excellent.

Faith, fiction of men

Compared to the previous volumes, especially Our Oriental Heritage and the Life of Greece, it is interesting to learn how religion was conceived to organize faith like the Greeks and Romans organized the city-states and government.

The narration is very well laid out to provide a very good understanding of organized faith and the comparison between christianity, islam and judaism.

It is by no means injurious to faith. More a revelation of men's tendency to control and exact power through faith.

amazing book

such a wonderful book, just wish the chapters had the actual chapter labels , not too big of a deal just an inconvenience that would certainly make the experience much better and navigation much much easier.
now, the book itself is short on military history military descriptions, but the history and descriptions of medieval society in it's whole from judaic civilization to islamic civilization to the frozen mystical north is absolutely amazing. I truly felt the essence of medieval society in it's whole for a while. amazing experience. I'd highly recommend it, one of my favorites.