In the course of his dynamic synthesis of world history, Will Durant now attacks the absorbing, perennially fascinating problem of Greek civilization. Not since Mahaffy's eight epochal volumes, almost half a century ago, has a historian grappled so boldly with the whole complicated structure of that civilization which has laid its spell on every enlightened generation of thinkers and dreamers.
The Life of Greece is a large, generous book whose amplitude of scope and audacious generalizations recall the golden age of historical writing, before specialization had invaded the field. Dr. Durant tells the whole story of Hellas, from the days of Crete's vast Aegean empire to the final extirpation of the last remnants of Greek liberty, crushed under the heel of an implacably forward-marching Rome. The dry minutiae of battles and sieges, of tortuous statecraft of tyrant and king, get the minor emphasis in what is pre-eminently a vivid re-creation of Greek culture, brought to the reader through the medium of a supple and vigorous prose.
Will Durant looks at the life of Greece, and looks at it whole — quite as whole, indeed, as a cultivated fifth-century Athenian, with his eager, constantly searching mind, looked at the superb picture of Periclean Athens. The best insight into Dr. Durant's method of writing history can be found in the following sentence from the section on the Age of Pericles: "When Pericles, Pheidias, Anaxagoras, Aspasia, and Socrates attended a play by Euripides in the Theater of Dionysus, Athens could see visibly the zenith and unity of the life of Greece: statesmanship, art, science, philosophy, literature, religion, and morals living no separate career as in the pages of chroniclers, but woven into one many-colored fabric of a nation's history."
The familiar analogy between Athens and the great modern democracies is fruitfully enlarged upon in The Life of Greece. The astute Pericles had to face much the same sort of problems that the astute Franklin D. Roosevelt had to face. The building of the Parthenon was part of Pericles' WPA program. Many lived on the dole, and the administration of the dole money was not without its scandals. Taxation and tax evasion were both as ingenious as they are today. The class war, family limitation, sexual freedom, and the conflict between religion and science played their part in a civilization resembling our own in everything except machines.
Not since The Story of Philosophy has Will Durant found a subject that so appeals to him as Hellas. The Life of Greece teems with epigram and wit and a philosopher's considered judgment. "A nation is born stoic, and dies epicurean." "The games of the young are as old as the sins of their fathers." "This persistent effort to subordinate fancy to reason is the dominant quality of the Greek mind, even of Greek poetry. Therefore Greek literature is 'modern,' or rather, contemporary; we find it hard to understand Dante or Milton, but Euripides and Thucydides are kin to us mentally, and belong to our age. This is because, though myths may differ, reason remains the same, and the life of reason makes brothers of its lovers in all times, and everywhere." Like a great drama, The Life of Greece finds a climax in fifth-century Athens, and Will Durant's picture of the city of Pericles is a masterpiece of synthesis, compressing into about two hundred pages the high spots and eternal significances of what many have considered the most fruitful epoch in history.
The Life of Greece may well take its place as the most brilliant story of a magnificently endowed people whose career ended in tragedy and unwanted assimilation because they discovered a world view too late.
Description:
In the course of his dynamic synthesis of world history, Will Durant now attacks the absorbing, perennially fascinating problem of Greek civilization. Not since Mahaffy's eight epochal volumes, almost half a century ago, has a historian grappled so boldly with the whole complicated structure of that civilization which has laid its spell on every enlightened generation of thinkers and dreamers. The Life of Greece is a large, generous book whose amplitude of scope and audacious generalizations recall the golden age of historical writing, before specialization had invaded the field. Dr. Durant tells the whole story of Hellas, from the days of Crete's vast Aegean empire to the final extirpation of the last remnants of Greek liberty, crushed under the heel of an implacably forward-marching Rome. The dry minutiae of battles and sieges, of tortuous statecraft of tyrant and king, get the minor emphasis in what is pre-eminently a vivid re-creation of Greek culture, brought to the reader through the medium of a supple and vigorous prose. Will Durant looks at the life of Greece, and looks at it whole — quite as whole, indeed, as a cultivated fifth-century Athenian, with his eager, constantly searching mind, looked at the superb picture of Periclean Athens. The best insight into Dr. Durant's method of writing history can be found in the following sentence from the section on the Age of Pericles: "When Pericles, Pheidias, Anaxagoras, Aspasia, and Socrates attended a play by Euripides in the Theater of Dionysus, Athens could see visibly the zenith and unity of the life of Greece: statesmanship, art, science, philosophy, literature, religion, and morals living no separate career as in the pages of chroniclers, but woven into one many-colored fabric of a nation's history." The familiar analogy between Athens and the great modern democracies is fruitfully enlarged upon in The Life of Greece. The astute Pericles had to face much the same sort of problems that the astute Franklin D. Roosevelt had to face. The building of the Parthenon was part of Pericles' WPA program. Many lived on the dole, and the administration of the dole money was not without its scandals. Taxation and tax evasion were both as ingenious as they are today. The class war, family limitation, sexual freedom, and the conflict between religion and science played their part in a civilization resembling our own in everything except machines. Not since The Story of Philosophy has Will Durant found a subject that so appeals to him as Hellas. The Life of Greece teems with epigram and wit and a philosopher's considered judgment. "A nation is born stoic, and dies epicurean." "The games of the young are as old as the sins of their fathers." "This persistent effort to subordinate fancy to reason is the dominant quality of the Greek mind, even of Greek poetry. Therefore Greek literature is 'modern,' or rather, contemporary; we find it hard to understand Dante or Milton, but Euripides and Thucydides are kin to us mentally, and belong to our age. This is because, though myths may differ, reason remains the same, and the life of reason makes brothers of its lovers in all times, and everywhere." Like a great drama, The Life of Greece finds a climax in fifth-century Athens, and Will Durant's picture of the city of Pericles is a masterpiece of synthesis, compressing into about two hundred pages the high spots and eternal significances of what many have considered the most fruitful epoch in history. The Life of Greece may well take its place as the most brilliant story of a magnificently endowed people whose career ended in tragedy and unwanted assimilation because they discovered a world view too late.