The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time

It’s going to be a challenge to pry me away from Will Durant now — I am quite obsessed with his writing. Durant has an elite ability to collectivize disperse knowledge (granted, is he mostly focused on the domains of literature, history, historiography and the philosophy of science, which excludes so much) organize it, then draw emergent conclusions with some of the best prose you will have the pleasure of encountering. I wish he were around today; I would be so interested in seeing how he has changed and developed his thinking.

This book compiles multiple Durant essays, mostly from the end of his life, that synthesize his view of the top thinkers and poets of all time, the most important moments in history, notes on human progress, and his view of the 100 most essential books ever published.