The Lessons of History
Will and Ariel Durant spent decades writing the eleven-volume Story of Civilization, and near the end they condensed what they had learned into this slim book of barely more than a hundred pages. Each short chapter takes one theme, such as biology, race, religion, economics, war, or progress, and asks what history actually teaches about it. The Durants write with calm, plain wisdom and resist easy conclusions, often pointing out where the lessons are mixed or uncomfortable. Ray Dalio names it one of three books he would give every graduating student, calling the Durants perhaps the greatest historians of all time.
What you might want to know about The Lessons of History
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Two historians distill a lifetime of studying civilization into a short book of patterns that recur across thousands of years of human history.
It is short, around 100 to 130 pages depending on the edition. The Durants distilled their much longer Story of Civilization into this brief book.
Dalio calls the Durants perhaps the greatest historians of all time and names this one of the three books he would give every graduating high school or college senior.
The Lessons of History was written by Will Durant, published in 1968 by Simon & Schuster.
The Lessons of History is 128 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Lessons of History takes most readers 2 to 3 hours to finish.
The Lessons of History is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.