William James Durant

William James Durant 1885-1981, American historian and essayist, b. North Adams, Mass. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1917 and published his doctoral dissertation, Philosophy and the Social Problem, in the same year. This was followed by The Story of Philosophy (1926), an immediate best seller that opened the way for a school of popularized history. Durant then embarked upon a life-long project, the writing of a comprehensive history of civilization. The Story of Civilization (11 vol., 1935-75; vol. 7-11 written with his wife, Ariel Durant) is a monumental work stretching from prehistory to the 19th cent.

Bibliography: See also their The Lessons of History (1968) and Interpretations of Life (1970).

Durant, Will[iam James] (1885–1981),popularizer of the history of ideas, whose books include The Story of Philosophy (1926), The Mansions of Philosophy (1929), Adventures in Genius (1931), and The Story of Civilization in ten volumes: Our Oriental Heritage (1935), The Life of Greece (1939), Caesar and Christ (1944), The Age of Faith (1950), The Renaissance (1953), The Reformation (1957), The Age of Reason Begins (1961), The Age of Louis XIV (1963), The Age of Voltaire (1965), and Rousseau and Revolution (1967). The last four were written with his wife Ariel and the last volume won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction (1968). Later works include The Lesson of History (1968), and, with his wife, Interpretations of Life (1970) and A Dual Autobiography (1977).