Quote:🌞 "I cannot imagine anyone so erudite that they cannot learn a great deal from this monumental work." -from the foreword by Richard Smoley
The great series The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant is one of the most monumental achievements in historical writing. In its eleven massive volumes, it tells the story of Western civilization from its origins to the age of Napoleon.
This volume, The Climax of Christianity, is taken from The Age of Faith, the fourth in the series. It covers the years between 1095-the launching of the First Crusade-and 1300: the age of Dante Alighieri, whose epic poem Divine Comedy is one of the greatest treasures of our civilization.
In between is a drama of world proportions: the struggle between Christendom and Islam over the Holy Land, leading first to warfare, then to interaction the conflicts between the peoples and the Holy roman Emperors over sacred versus secular power;...