3 Review(s)

The author presents a compilation of thoughts and minds that he perceives as being the greatest in all of humanity. Summary Of The Book The Greatest Minds And Ideas Of All Time is a neat compilation of the author’s selection of humanity’s greatest ideas and achievements and personalities. The author begins by explaining the need to look back and acknowledge the great achievements of humanity, and revere the great minds through human history. For this is the legacy of the human species, and this is what can provide inspiration for further progress. In his selection of the best, he begins with thinkers first. Thought is abstract and hard to define, but it is the base of all achievements, so he lists his pick of the great thinkers of humanity like Confucius and Darwin. The author then moves on to list great poets. He picks Homer, Dante, Shakespeare and Shelley among others in his choice of poets. He then moves on to list the hundred greatest books. Books are recorded thoughts, and reading has long been one of humanity’s ways of acquiring and expanding knowledge. The author here selects hundred books that he thinks will help advance human thought. He divides the hundred books into 12 groups. The first two small groups are introductory books on knowledge, and books on Asia and Africa. Then he lists book on Greece and Rome, the age of Christianity, The Italian Renaissance, Europe in the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, America, and finally, the tenth group dealing with the twentieth century. Next, The Greatest Minds And Ideas Of All Time moves on to the field of human achievements. The author lists Fire, Speech, Agriculture, Tools, Morality, Science, and Writing among his picks. He then moves on to list what he considers are the twelve vital dates in human history. He picks the death of Socrates, Confucius and Buddha, and the birth of Christ, the invention of the Gutenberg press, Columbus’ discovery of America, the invention of the steam engine, and the French revolution among his selections. The Greatest Minds And Ideas Of All Time has compiled a series of essays by the author, in which he listed his picks of the greatest in thought, achievements, dates etc. About Will Durant William James Durant was an American philosopher, historian and writer. Other books by Durant - The Lessons of History, Heroes of History: A Brief History of Civilization from Ancient Times to the Dawn of the Modern Age, The Story of Philosophy, A Guide to Plato, On the Meaning of Life, and The Story of Civilization. His books are on human history, philosophy and civilizations. Will Durant was born in 1885 in Massachusetts. After graduation, he worked as a reporter for sometime, then joined the faculty of Seton Hall University in New Jersey. Some years later, he left that institution and joined Ferrer Modern School as Principal. Later he resigned from that post and studied for his doctorate in philosophy at Columbia University. He also began publishing a series of educational pamphlets that were hugely popular. These were compiled and published by Simon & Schuster in 1926 as The Story of Philosophy which became a bestseller and gave financial independence to Will Durant and his wife, to work on their huge, eleven volume book, The Story of Civilization.