#988737 in Books 1954Ingredients: Example IngredientsPDF # 1 #File Name: B0000DSW4P1052 pages
Review
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful. "Amazing" is an understatementBy NickI'm a fan of history but yet wasn't familiar with the Durants' work until recently and decided to pick up this book on a whim. Despite being 25% through the Kindle edition after a few months; I can't say enough good things about the first volume of The Story of Civilization.The breadth and scope is amazing. Despite it being written 75 years ago; this is a history book I wish I could have read 20 years ago as a teenager. I've always been bothered by the question of "How did we get here?" in the most general sense. This book fills in the gaps in my knowledge and understanding and leads to even more questions. And better yet; the author admits readily that the book won't cover everything and some will be incorrect.Our Oriental Heritage is broken up into 5 books: The Establishment of Civilization; The Near East; India and Her Neighbors; The Far East and Japan. Better and more educated people than I can critique the historical content; but the tone of the book is great. It's a conversational; easy style that very few academic writers can master. And despite the size of the book (over a thousand pages!) it's a lot less intimidating once you get into it; and realize that a sizable portion of the book is endnotes; showing how much of a research effort this book was.I've learned a ton of interesting anecdotes; enough that you could repeat to someone and have them say that it's pretty cool - where did you learn that? and immediately point them to this book. And from the rise and fall of civilizations; you can draw parallels to our own and wonder if the same fate will happen to us.The Kindle edition didn't have any glaring errors that I saw - I've read previous reviews but either they've been corrected or I've been completely oblivious to them that it didn't matter.I just wish I could have read this book years ago. The entire collection of The Story of Civilization might have changed my life.15 of 15 people found the following review helpful. Wonderful to have on Kindle; but...By J. BevanThis set was a very popular Book of the Month Club offering; back in the day. I have that set which became water damaged many years ago. As we've moved into the age of eBooks; I have hoped for the release of these volumes. I have downloaded volume one; and; as others have noted; there are problems with the text. However; these problems don't belong to Kindle or ; but rather to Simon Schuster. When I have come upon "typos" in the Kindle edition; I have gone back to the paper version to check whether they existed there. I have found none in the original printed version.Twenty years ago; or so; there was a CD-ROM of these volumes released. It wasn't particularly well produced and was rather rudimentary as multimedia presentations go. However; it did have the entire text in what was essentially an ASCII format. I was curious whether that version of the digital text was the basis of these eBooks. But that version was apparently not the source since that version does not contain the errors found in the present version.This leads me to believe that the paper version was run through some sort of an OCR process. But for those of us who have owned OCR programs -- even very good ones -- we know that careful "editing" of the OCR output is ALWAYS required. So the root cause of these problems either stems from too much trust in an OCR process OR from digital editors who weren't doing their job. But; again; these culprits don't belong to but to the publisher.At the end of the day; I am still very pleased to have these volumes presented on Kindle. Since the total is 8;000 to 10;000 pages; being able to carry around the whole set on a portable device is a wonderful thing.As to the content; well; it is the magnum opus of a gifted writer and historian who has written what he admits to be an impossible work to unify and integrate the history of the world (no less) for "the rest of us." It is an extraordinary gift and remains so over 75 years after the first publication of this volume. The content is recommended without reservation and is 5 star all the way. The technical execution is sloppy on the part of a major publisher.2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Enjoying learning!By Rita K ScottWe have owned a hardcover set of the Durant series for probably 25 or 30 years and have moved them from house to house; never finding the time or inclination to read them. This year; one of my New Year's resolutions was to read something I could learn from and not just thrillers; detective stories; etc. To do this; I chose to start on the Durant series. I began with Durant's The Lessons of History-a fairly short; but helpful series of essays and a fairly "global" approach to history and the kinds of things which influenced it and the development of civilization. Because the Durant Civilization Series volumes are so large and heavy; I was delighted to find it available for the Kindle.At this point; I as still reading Vol. I-"savoring" it as I go. I will definitely finish it and move on to the remaining volumes of the series.
