Digital Rare Book :
The Story of Civilization : Our Oriental Heritage
By Will and Ariel Durant
Published by Simon & Schuster, New York - 1954
"...a veritable masterpiece !"

Many years ago, before the days of The Story of Philosophy, Will Durant planned to write a history of the 19th century. He started to work on it only to find that his subject could be understood only in terms of what had come before. His researches gradually led him into the formation of a plan for writing a history of all civilization, ancient and modern, Occidental and Oriental. His enthusiasm was further spurred by two trips around the world and particularly by an intensive study of the history of the Far East.

Here, then, is the first volume of this STORY OF CIVILIZATION, OUR ORIENTAL HERITAGE, complete in itself. Dr. Durant worked on it steadily from 1927 to 1932, and the book represents the third complete rewriting. OUR ORIENTAL HERITAGE deals first with the establishment of civilization and then takes up, not in rapid review but in rich and fascinating detail, the colorful, complex dramas of the Near East, India and her neighbors, and the Far East. The story is carried up to the present.