Will Durant (1885–1981)

Nossa Herança Oriental (A História da Civilização #1) — ✲ 5.0/5.0
A velha mãe Àsia
1047 pp.

Quase cinco meses de leitura e por volta de novecentos e oitenta densas páginas (a última centena é "apenas" a extensa catalogação de notas, referências e bibliografia do autor), mas que de forma alguma me cansaram. Tanto que já vou emendar no próximo: Nossa Herança Clássica (Grécia)

Nossa Herança Oriental é um livro que todo mundo deveria ler, seja seu interesse pelas artes, show more literatura, política, guerras ou história. O fato de ter sido escrito em 1935 não incomoda, o Will é lúcido e pungente a todo tempo, principalmente quando o assunto é o contraste entre Ocidente e Oriente, mas também em muitos outros aspectos; chega um momento que você consegue sentir a ironia exalando de certos apontamentos e muitos excertos beiram o cômico (intencionalmente), brincando com a visão ocidental e americanizada da história com H maiúsculo.

Além disso, o fato de ter sido escrito antes da Segunda Guerra, torna certos apontamentos do Will ainda mais interessantes. Não sei se foi era a aura do momento ou se esse era o pensamento geral da época, mas no capítulo sobre o Japão, desde o início, da sua forçada modernização por parte de exigências (explícitas e implícitas) do Ocidente, Will praticamente crava que o que se seguiria seria algum tipo de guerra, retaliação, entre Japão, Estados Unidos e Rússia.

A prosa e a seleção do autor sobre o que mostrar das antiquíssimas sociedades é um deleite, desde Elam até a China, e vossas respectivas letras, guerras e artes. Eu aposto: é impossível você terminar de ler esse livro sem ter feito, no mínimo, umas cinquenta anotações ou destaques. É de longe o melhor e mais interessante livro de “história” — na verdade, é muito mais que só um livro de história — que já li.

A única ressalva é quanto aos primeiros capítulos, ainda sim interessantes, mas que tateiam sobre as Fundações da Civilização, o que o faz ficar muito nas suposições. Mas conforme avança e mais fatos e informações temos, o livro tende a melhorar. O interesse próprio do leitor tornará certos capítulos melhores e mais interessantes que outros, mas todos os capítulos, e a tentativa de apreender e passear por milhares de anos da civilização é louvável: Suméria, Egito, Babilônia, Assíria, com um Interlúdio (Hititas, Fenícios, Frígios e outros Semitas), e então Judéia, Pérsia, Índia, China e Japão. É em tamanho, escopo e em qualidade, um livrasso.

Tenho quase umas duzentas anotações nesses livro, mas é melhor concluir com uma parte da própria conclusão do Will e da Ariel:

"A Europa e a América são as filhas, muito estragadas de mimos, da velha Ásia, e nunca perceberam a riqueza de sua herança pré-clássica. Mas se fizermos a conta das artes e processos que o Ocidente tomou do Oriente ou que apareceram primeiro no Oriente, ver-nos-ermos, sem o perceber, desenhando um esboço da [nossa] civilização"

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As others have said in their reviews, this book is very dated. No one (at least no one I know) doubts Will Durant’s credibility, especially as evidenced by his and his wife Ariel’s epic 11-volume series “The Story of Civilization,” which, among other accolades, won the Pulitzer Prize. That said, this book was written in 1968 and the audio version, which I listened to, includes both excerpts from “The Lessons of History” as well as excerpts from interviews done with Will and show more Ariel. Those interviews must have been conducted over a long period of time judging from Will’s voice which ranges from that of a late middle age man to that of a cranky geezer. And the ideas he espouses in the interviews seem to follow the same trend. Will apparently was an atheist in his younger years but in his old age had become a true believer even to the point of claiming something I think is a real weakness in this book and in his thinking. And that is that morality is dependent on religion. He claims that in the time of the writing of this book, 1968, this country had experiences a moral collapse which he says coincides with the decline in interest and participation in organized religion. That’s just crazy, and in my view taints much of his later years and what he had to say. Additionally, had I read the last chapter, his summary, I probably wouldn’t have listened to the rest of the book. Much of it is just plain wrong. One thing Will did get right, unfortunately, is his prediction in the year of 1968 of the demise of democracy and as its last stage, authoritarianism. He hit that nail right on the head in this country and in this year of 2025. show less

Durant's 'heroes' of history are far from perfect. In most cases, their flaws exceed their virtues. But there is no doubt they were all influential. What I find most interesting is that in times of crisis, someone invariably arises who provides a pivot point that shifts the flow of history one way or another. Someone who has been pushed too far and who has the necessary combination of ideas, personality, and circumstances, ends up being a catalyst for change, sometimes good, sometimes not so show more good. The individuals are both a consequence of events and a catalyst for them. It's the wider events, though, that I find most interesting, and the same types of things seem to recur throughout human civilization.

Let me just provide a brief quote from the book (page 125 on the Roman Revolution of 133 B.C.) that describes one such repeating motif.

...in every civilization and in almost every generation, the natural inequality of economic ability, and the popular institution of inheritance, had produced an increasing concentration of wealth... Periodically such concentration is challenged by social unrest, sometimes by revolution.

Sound familiar? This kind of situation has arisen time and again since the dawn of recorded history. Sadly, we still haven't discovered a way to prevent it. show less

When I began my quest to learn about the history of philosophy and its many famous thinkers, I was introduced to Will Durant and his fantastic writing style in his wonderful work The Story of Philosophy. I found his writing to be passionate and sincere; as one reads his words one can sense his excitement as it exudes from the pages; we see it as he explains Plato's Republic or how he responds with witty erudition to the many aphorisms of Schopenhauer.

And so with Our Oriental Heritage, the show more first volume of eleven of Durants’ Story of Civilization series, we see that enthusiasm pour out as he gushes about the cultural achievements of the ancient Near East and the rest of Asia -- specifically India, China and Japan. Durant focuses on the art, poetry, literature, architectural achievements, economy, religions, and social structures of these timeworn countries.

Thanks to this work I was introduced to one of the oldest stories in the world, The Epic of Gilgamesh, which originated from Mesopotamia. After visiting Judea I leapt into the verses of the King James Bible; once Durant gave a wonderful tour of China, I couldn't help but read The Analects by Confucius, and I took to heart many of the Old Teacher's maxims.

Overall, this was an awesome book and I learned so much of the history and culture of Earths’ oldest and most venerable countries. show less