The Lessons of History

Will Durant (1885–1981) was an American historian, philosopher, and teacher best known for co-authoring The Lessons of History and the monumental 11-volume The Story of Civilization with his wife, Ariel Durant. Born William James Durant in North Adams, Massachusetts, he initially trained for the Catholic priesthood before redirecting his studies toward biology, philosophy, and socialism, eventually earning his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1917. Throughout his career, he worked as a dedicated educator and social activist who advocated for labor reform, women's rights, and racial equality. He first achieved widespread literary success with The Story of Philosophy in 1926, a groundbreaking work that made complex philosophical concepts accessible to the general public and funded his decades-long historical research. Over the next forty years, the Durants meticulously chronicled human history, culminating in The Lessons of History in 1968, a concise text that distilled the overarching themes, human behaviors, and cyclic patterns discovered during their lifelong research. That same year, they received the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for Rousseau and Revolution, the tenth volume of their civilization series, and they were later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Gerald Ford in 1977.