The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant - Brief Summary

This is my book summary of The Lessons of History past by Will and Ariel Durant. My notes are informal and contain my own thoughts. This summary includes key lessons and important passages from the book.

History is the most reliable path to understanding the present and antedating the problems of the future.

The aim of this book is not originality, but inclusiveness.

Our knowledge of any past event offcuts incomplete. Furthermost history is guessing and the rest is prejudice.

The historian always oversimplifies.

The rate of conversion increases and inventions cause acceleration to go ever faster.

History cannot be a skill, only an industry, a figure, and a way of life. An industry by ferreting out the facts. An art by seeking order in the mix-up of materials. A values by seeking perspective and thoughtful.

Overall perspective is an optical illusion. We must work with partial knowledge.

Only a fool would try to compress 100 centuries into 100 pages of conclusions. We proceed.

History is a recipe of the crimes and absurdities of humankind and the parting contributions. This enabled each age group to proceed through a greater ritual than the one before.

Knowledge: The contributions and perfection of humankind is the story of humankind. Our story is the story of collective education. So, let me tell you a story.

Idea: there are three worlds. The opening world is the external world. The otherworld was born when thoughts became possible and notice emerged. The third ecosphere emerged when our lives turn out to be alphanumeric. We can now live in a world where we are not really there and it is not in our thoughts, but it exists.

Last sciences tell us how we might behave. History tells us how we have behaved.

The present is simply the past rolled up into this present moment.

You are what you are because of your past.

We identify 1,000 things about the news of today, but rarely about the past. How can we understand our present without knowing our history?

Example of technology wild gamble: the invention of airliners totally redefines the world of trade and commerce. Previously, water was the primary mode of trade and it dictated which nations rose on the way to power (those with large shorelines like Greece and Italy). Then, quickly, in the air device shifted the power to realms with huge land masses in sentence to their coasts (USA, China, Russia).

The lesson of history is that man is tough.

History is the atlas of human character. To know just how man will act you must know how man has acted.

Humans will at all times be situated nobler than the space. Despite dying after a mere breakdown of time, we know of our existence while the universe identifies nothing of its longevity.

The influence of geographic factors diminishes as savoir-faire fosters. Man, not the earth, makes civilization.

Idea: Technology overpowers atmosphere as time goes on. This trend, nevertheless, started as soon as man was able to fashion tools, which was a form of equipment.

Evolution is real. Man influences his control over the location as time goes on and technology augmentations.

I really enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it to somebody else.