Story

Story or stories may refer to:

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The Story of Civilization

The Story of Civilization, by husband and wife Will and Ariel Durant, is an eleven-volume set of books covering Western history for the general reader. The volumes sold well for many years, and sets of them were frequently offered by book clubs. An unabridged audiobook production of all eleven-volumes was produced by Books On Tape Inc. and was read by Alexander Adams (aka Grover Gardner).

The series was written over a span of more than four decades. It totals four million words across nearly 10,000 pages, but is incomplete. In the first volume (Our Oriental Heritage, which covers the history of the East through 1933), Will Durant stated that he wanted to include the history of the West through the early 20th century. However, the series ends with The Age of Napoleon because the Durants both died in the 1980s – she in her 80s and he in his 90s – before they could complete additional volumes.

The first six volumes of The Story of Civilization are credited to Will Durant alone, with Ariel recognized only in the Acknowledgements. Beginning with The Age of Reason Begins, Ariel is credited as a co-author.

Civilization

A civilization (US) or civilisation (UK) is any complex society characterized by urban development, symbolic communication forms (typically, writing systems), and a perceived separation from and domination over the natural environment by a cultural elite. Civilizations are intimately associated with and often further defined by other socio-politico-economic characteristics, including centralization, the domestication of both humans and other organisms, specialization of labor, culturally ingrained ideologies of progress and supremacism, monumental architecture, taxation, societal dependence upon farming as an agricultural practice, and expansionism.

Historically, a civilization was a so-called "advanced" culture in contrast to more supposedly primitive cultures. In this broad sense, a civilization contrasts with non-centralized tribal societies, including the cultures of nomadic pastoralists or hunter-gatherers. As an uncountable noun, civilization also refers to the process of a society developing into a centralized, urbanized, stratified structure.

Ariel Durant

Ariel Durant (/dəˈrænt/; 10 May 1898 – 25 October 1981) was a Russian-born American researcher and writer, the co-author of The Story of Civilization with her husband Will Durant.

Biography

Ariel Durant was born in Proskurov, Russian Empire (now Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine) as Chaya Kaufman to Jewish parents Ethel Appel Kaufman and Joseph Kaufman. The family emigrated to the United States in 1901. She met her future husband while a student at Ferrer Modern School in New York City. Will was then a teacher at the school, but resigned his post to marry Ariel, who was fifteen at the time of the wedding on October 31, 1913.

Ariel and Will Durant were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1968 for Rousseau and Revolution, the tenth volume of The Story of Civilization. In 1977 they were presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Gerald Ford, and Ariel was named "Woman of the Year" by the city of Los Angeles.

The Durants wrote a 420-page joint autobiography published by Simon & Schuster in 1978 (A Dual Autobiography; later ISBN 0-671-23078-6).

Will Durant

William James Durant (/dəˈrænt/; November 5, 1885 – November 7, 1981) was an American writer, historian, and philosopher. He is best known for The Story of Civilization, 11 volumes written in collaboration with his wife Ariel Durant and published between 1935 and 1975. He was earlier noted for The Story of Philosophy (1924), described as "a groundbreaking work that helped to popularize philosophy".

He conceived of philosophy as total perspective, or, seeing things sub specie totius, a phrase inspired by Spinoza's sub specie aeternitatis. He sought to unify and humanize the great body of historical knowledge, which had grown voluminous and become fragmented into esoteric specialties, and to vitalize it for contemporary application.

Will and Ariel Durant were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1968 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977.

Early life

Durant was born in North Adams, Massachusetts, of French-Canadian Catholic parents Joseph Durant and Mary Allard, who had been part of the Quebec emigration to the United States.