The publication of Rousseau and Revolution is more than a cause for pleasure for the hundreds of thousands of readers of The Story of Civilization. It is a major event, for it marks the conclusion of a lifetime's work and the completion of what is certainly the most ambitious, widely read and best-known work of history in our time. With this volume Will and Ariel Durant bring to a splendid finale their "magnificent and monumental" ten-volume chronicle — over four decades in work — of our cultural, political, philosophical, religious and social heritage, from its roots in ancient Oriental and Greek society to the shaping of the modern world.
• • •
Rousseau and Revolution, ranging over a Europe in ferment, centers on the passionate rebel-philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the great exponent of the Romantic impulse toward self-exploration and social revolt, who contended with the great rationalist, Voltaire, for the mind of Europe; who condemned civilization as a disease, glorified the noble savage, proclaimed to the world with equal intensity his own love affairs and the natural Rights of Man, and who became the patron saint of the French Revolution and of its progeny — the worldwide social upheavals of two centuries.
With Rousseau as its focal point, the Durants' incomparable narrative progresses across a whole continent—to a Spain convulsed by the horrors of war, witnessed and preserved for our eternal outrage by Goya; to the Italy of Vivaldi and Tiepolo, of Casanova and Cagliostro; to the Imperial Russian court of Catherine the Great; to Poland, destroyed as a political entity, reborn as a romantic dream of nationalism.
The Durants show us the tragic reign of the Austrian Emperor Joseph II and paint for us a vivid and enduring portrait of the life and work of Mozart. We see Frederick the Great rebuilding Prussia, while Germany, still a mass of separated states, undergoes an epochal intellectual revolution — in science and philosophy with Immanuel Kant, in literature with the protean figures of Goethe and Schiller.
We feel again the ancient struggle of the Jews for existence and opportunity; we examine the tribulations of such republics as Switzerland and the Netherlands, of such monarchies as Denmark and Sweden; we study the bright career of Gustavus III and the splendor of the Swedish enlightenment.
Crossing the North Sea to England, we observe, beneath the delectable surface of aristocratic life as caught on the glowing canvases of Reynolds and Gainsborough, beneath the intellectual bonhomie of the London beloved of David Garrick and Samuel Johnson, a rising storm: the King at odds with Parliament, Parliament with the people, Britain with her colonies ... and the first disturbing wave of the Industrial Revolution that is to engulf and change the world.
The circle is closed in the France of Marie Antoinette — with the death of the octogenarian Voltaire, his intellect undimmed; with the breakdown and death of Rousseau; with the complex roots of the Revolution winding deep into every stratum of society; and finally with the storming of the Bastille. An old civilization dies in the birth pangs of the new as the Durants' great chronicle of 4,000 years that shaped our world is brilliantly concluded.
The publication of Rousseau and Revolution is more than a cause for pleasure for the hundreds of thousands of readers of The Story of Civilization. It is a major event, for it marks the conclusion of a lifetime's work and the completion of what is certainly the most ambitious, widely read and best-known work of history in our time. With this volume Will and Ariel Durant bring to a splendid finale their "magnificent and monumental" ten-volume chronicle — over four decades in work — of our cultural, political, philosophical, religious and social heritage, from its roots in ancient Oriental and Greek society to the shaping of the modern world.
• • • Rousseau and Revolution, ranging over a Europe in ferment, centers on the passionate rebel-philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the great exponent of the Romantic impulse toward self-exploration and social revolt, who contended with the great rationalist, Voltaire, for the mind of Europe; who condemned civilization as a disease, glorified the noble savage, proclaimed to the world with equal intensity his own love affairs and the natural Rights of Man, and who became the patron saint of the French Revolution and of its progeny — the worldwide social upheavals of two centuries. With Rousseau as its focal point, the Durants' incomparable narrative progresses across a whole continent—to a Spain convulsed by the horrors of war, witnessed and preserved for our eternal outrage by Goya; to the Italy of Vivaldi and Tiepolo, of Casanova and Cagliostro; to the Imperial Russian court of Catherine the Great; to Poland, destroyed as a political entity, reborn as a romantic dream of nationalism.
The Durants show us the tragic reign of the Austrian Emperor Joseph II and paint for us a vivid and enduring portrait of the life and work of Mozart. We see Frederick the Great rebuilding Prussia, while Germany, still a mass of separated states, undergoes an epochal intellectual revolution — in science and philosophy with Immanuel Kant, in literature with the protean figures of Goethe and Schiller. We feel again the ancient struggle of the Jews for existence and opportunity; we examine the tribulations of such republics as Switzerland and the Netherlands, of such monarchies as Denmark and Sweden; we study the bright career of Gustavus III and the splendor of the Swedish enlightenment.
Crossing the North Sea to England, we observe, beneath the delectable surface of aristocratic life as caught on the glowing canvases of Reynolds and Gainsborough, beneath the intellectual bonhomie of the London beloved of David Garrick and Samuel Johnson, a rising storm: the King at odds with Parliament, Parliament with the people, Britain with her colonies ... and the first disturbing wave of the Industrial Revolution that is to engulf and change the world. The circle is closed in the France of Marie Antoinette — with the death of the octogenarian Voltaire, his intellect undimmed; with the breakdown and death of Rousseau; with the complex roots of the Revolution winding deep into every stratum of society; and finally with the storming of the Bastille. An old civilization dies in the birth pangs of the new as the Durants' great chronicle of 4,000 years that shaped our world is brilliantly concluded.