20 Facts About Will Durant

William James Durant was an American historian and philosopher, best known for his 11-volume work, The Story of Civilization, which contains and details the history of Eastern and Western civilizations.

Will Durant was earlier noted for The Story of Philosophy, described as "a groundbreaking work that helped to popularize philosophy".

Will Durant sought to unify and humanize the great body of historical knowledge, which had grown voluminous and become fragmented into esoteric specialties, and to vitalize it for contemporary application.

William James Durant was born in North Adams, Massachusetts, to French-Canadian Catholic parents, Joseph Durant and Mary Allard, who had been part of the Quebec emigration to the United States.

From 1907 to 1911, Will Durant taught Latin and French at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey.

Will Durant was director and lecturer at the Labor Temple School in New York City from 1914 to 1927 while pursuing a PhD at Columbia University that he completed in 1917, the year he served as an instructor in philosophy.

In 1908, Will Durant worked as a reporter for Arthur Brisbane's New York Evening Journal.

Will Durant discussed the idea that philosophy had not grown because it had refused to confront the actual problems of society.

Will Durant received his doctorate from Columbia that same year.

Will Durant left teaching and began work on the 11-volume Story of Civilization.

Three posthumous works by Will Durant have been published in recent years, The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time, Heroes of History: A Brief History of Civilization from Ancient Times to the Dawn of the Modern Age and Fallen Leaves.

Will Durant was buried beside Ariel in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, in Los Angeles.

Will Durant is the most fearless writer that has been there.

In 1930, Will Durant visited British India to collect information for The Story of Civilization.

Will Durant fought for equal wages, women's suffrage and fairer working conditions for the American labor force.

Not only did Will Durant write about many topics, but he put his ideas into effect.

Will Durant worked to improve the understanding of viewpoints between people and tried to convince other to forgive human beings for their failings and waywardness.

Will Durant chided the comfortable insularity of what is known as Eurocentrism by pointing out in Our Oriental Heritage that Europe was only "a jagged promontory of Asia".

Will Durant complained about "the provincialism of our traditional histories which began with Greece and summed up Asia in a line" and said they showed "a possibly fatal error of perspective and intelligence".

Will Durant served as the history consultant for Anthony Mann's 1964 film The Fall of the Roman Empire.