The Durants are much more interested in religion, art, architecture, music, writing, calligraphy, history, philosophy, medicine, textiles, ceramics, metal and wood working, and culture generally, than in the war strategies, generals, armies, and battles. Nonetheless, the Durants often stress the vast and deep influence from Islamic and Jewish cultures on Christian cultures in everything from language, religion, poetry, and music to agriculture, architecture, science, and medicine, demonstrating that “The continuity of science and philosophy from Egypt, India, and Babylonia through Greece and Byzantium to Eastern and Spanish Islam, and thence to northern Europe and America, is one of the brightest threads in the skein of history.” They are humanist citizens of the globally connected “Country of the Mind,” optimistically believing that “Civilization … is the co-operative product of many peoples, ranks, and faiths and no one who studies its history can be a bigot of race or creed.” There are seven chapters on Islamic history and three on Jewish, while twenty-eight chapters concern Christian history. The tome (a 60+ hour audiobook) is divided into five books, The Byzantine Zenith, Islamic Civilization, Judaic Civilization, The Dark Ages, and The Climax of Christianity. The fourth volume in Will and Ariel Durant’s epic Story of Civilization, The Age of Faith (1950), begins with Julian the Apostate (332-63) and ends with Dante (1265-1321). The “Country of the Mind,” from Julian to Dante
0 kommentar(er)
