/lit/ - Literature

Reminder that these books are insubstantial garbage; rambling, speculative and sourceless. Stop recommending them to people.

>>19686544
From the Reformation book on.

I only read the first third. The benefits are:

1. Good prose, it is fun to read.
2. Gibbon's Enlightenment style political philosophy bleeds in and is presented delightfully. Such as when he quips about how the move from citizen soldiers to professional, mercenary legions, "elevated war to an art, and degraded it to a trade."
3. It's quite detailed. You don't have the confusing time skips of modern surveys that try to to do as much in a fourth of the words.

Downsides are:
1. Very long and you begin to feel the opportunity cost of reading this and not other things.
2. Dated information. Not as bad as you'd think. I read Gibbon maybe a year or two after listening to the History of Rome, which was my default insomnia podcast for awhile. The narrative of events has changed but it hasn't changed much. Mostly what Gibbon is lacking is archeological findings on day to day Roman life, and better understanding of its economy (good analysis of surviving documents containing economic data is also missing).

I also found it a bit short on this history of art and ideas. Politics take center stage.

For other excellent prose, and philosophical analysis on the era, I HIGHLY recommend Durant. It's like Gibbon on prose, but written by a philosophy PhD who really gets into the history of ideas, art, and literature. Someone who got to spend their entire life traveling the world and consulting experts on every facet of Western history, while also being an expert in the history of philosophy in his own right.

I would start with the Life of Greece and then read Caesar and Christ. That covers Rome to Constantine. If you like it, he covers Western civilization, with a narrowing lens to scope the project at times, all the way to Napoleon.

>>19310984
Not a big fan personally. An intentionally provocative work that didn't stand the test of time.

Now Durant is great, but he was overly optimistic about the ability to transmit culture to the masses.

Where can I find a complete collection of the audiobook of "The Complete Story of Civilization. I really enjoy history but as of recent my attention span spiked down, however I was able to complete a audiobook of a novel which was a rather enjoyable experience. And being someone who enjoys writing, more historical stuff to put in my work would be cool. I checked internet archive for it but it was removed, and the youtube one is missing volumes.

This is what the ideal narrative history series looks like. You may not like it, but this is what peak accessibility, enjoyment, and prose looks like.