THE LESSONS OF HISTORY – TAUGHT
TO YOU IN THE PRIVACY OF YOUR OWN HOME BY WILL
AND ARIEL DURANT!
Eastern. Western.
Religious. Philosophical. Artistic.
History as man’s rise from savagery to civilization – history
as the record of the lasting contributions made to man’s
knowledge, wisdom, arts, morals, manners, skills – history
as a laboratory rich in a hundred thousand experiments in economics,
religion, literature, science, and government – history
as our roots and our illumination, as the road by which we
came and the only light that can clarify the present and guide
us into the future.
-- Will Durant (winner of the Pulitzer Prize
and Medal of Freedom)
Heroes Of Civilization will
provide you with the knowledge and power that comes from a first-class
education – without requiring you to spend years and thousands
of dollars to obtain it. Learn at your own pace in a manner that
will benefit you and your children.
This is the gift of your
heritage; your birthright as a human being, as gathered and transmitted
to you by our nation’s most popular historians and philosophers,
Will and Ariel Durant.
Will & Ariel Durant
Four years prior
to their passing, Will Durant set about – at the tender
age of 92 – writing the scripts for these talks (which would
grow to 21 in length). At the urging of their daughter, Ethel,
in the Spring and Summer of 1977, Will and Ariel invited a professional
audio crew into their home in Los Angeles with the result that
14 talks were recorded onto audio tape. Upon completion, Will’s
passion for writing returned, and he set about writing 7 additional
talks, which he then decided to edit into a book to be called “Heroes
of History” (these manuscripts would be discovered 24
years later and then edited and released by Simon and Schuster
in November, 2001). When the Durants passed away in 1981, their
daughter was too emotionally attached to the project to complete
it, and when she passed away several years later, the audio recordings
were put into storage with the rest of the Durant’s personal
affects – where they remained unnoticed and unknown until
the winter of 2000 when they were discovered by the Durant’s
literary executor John Little.
The Durant tapes would ultimately survive three
moves and a major flood prior to their discovery, after which
an extensive preservation and restoration campaign was undertaken
that proved successful in salvaging the recordings (save for
the ending paragraphs of three of the 14 talks, which were later
re-read by John Little). Now, 26 years after their creation,
this last project that the Durants worked on together is ready
to be released to the public, making it possible for future generations
to learn the wonders of history directly from Will and
Ariel Durant themselves.
The Durants, recipients of
the Pulitzer Prize for literature and decorated by their country
with the Medal of Freedom, have been America’s favorite
educators for over 70 years. Their books – from The Story
of Philosophy to Heroes Of History have been
a staple in American homes for generations, and have been enjoyed
by tens of millions of readers the world over. But never before
has an opportunity existed for people to hear the Durants teach
history directly – until now. These incredible recordings
offer you a first-rate education in the privacy of your own home
and at your own pace.
Through the magic of these
CDs (and cassettes) you will travel back in time with Will and
Ariel Durant as your guides to visit with the great men and women
of the past. In addition, you will come to understand yourself – your
thoughts, your problems, your desires, your art, your faith,
your soul and your species with a clarity never before thought
possible. These talks are a spacious promenade through the corridors
of time, allowing you to come to know your Eastern, Western,
Religious, Philosophical and Artistic heritage. Imagine the adventure
in understanding that will be imparted to you as you sit under
the Bodhi tree with Buddha, learn the natural and wonderful ways
of the “Tao” from Lao-tzu, consider the golden rule
with Confucius, attend Plato’s Academy, learn of the vast
contributions of Aristotle and listen in as Socrates defends
philosophy in the Agora. Perhaps you would like to visit with
David as he composes his famous psalms or stroll the shores of
Galilee with Jesus, or attend a play by Euripides in the Theater
of Dionysus, or learn of the epic and tragic love between Heolise
and Abelard? Now you can with these incredible recordings! These
recordings are your open sesame to the Elysian Fields; a veritable “City
of God,” which Durant described as:
A spacious Country of the Mind, wherein
a thousand saints, statesmen, inventors, scientists, poets,
artists, musicians, lovers, and philosophers still live and
speak, teach and carve and sing.
In these rare, professionally
produced recordings – never-before-released by the Durant
estate – the Durants speak openly and engagingly about our
mental, moral, aesthetic, scientific, artistic and philosophic
heritage, shining the light of knowledge upon the mountain peaks
of human history and the teachings of our greatest heroes, artists,
scientists, leaders, sages and saints, allowing new generations
to fully appreciate the meaning of history in a compelling and
highly educational medium.
To know the road by which
you came is to know yourself more intimately than you ever have
before. This is history not as the dreary succession of dates
and reigns, but history as an exciting voyage of self-discovery,
history as the one true psychology and the only true philosophy.
The Durants will reveal the method by which you can come to see
yourself in the lives and deeds of human history.
It is a mistake to think that the past
is dead. Nothing that has ever happened is quite without influence
at this moment. The present is merely the past rolled up and
concentrated in this second of time. You, too, are your past;
often your face is your autobiography; you are what you are
because of what you have been; because of your heredity stretching
back into forgotten generations; because of every element of
environment that has affected you, every man or woman that
has met you, every book that you have read, every experience
that you have had; all these are accumulated in your memory,
your body, your character, your soul. So with a city, a country,
and a race; it is its past, and cannot be understood without
it. -- Will Durant
These are classes you will
never tire of attending, and talks that you will profit from
listening to again and again. Heroes Of Civilization is
an invaluable gift for young and old alike, benefiting not only
college students who hunger for a more meaningful education but
every self-educating seeker after knowledge.
To hear a preview of HEROES
OF CIVILIZATION, click here.
To order a copy of HEROES OF CIVILIZATION,
click here.
© 2003 John Little and the Estate of Will and
Ariel Durant. All rights reserved.
Produced by John Little for
Northern River Productions, Inc.
Sound Engineer/Mix by: Brad Rundle (Project Sound)
Music by: Wayne Hawkins
Graphic Design by: James Bishop
.
