Transition

I fell in love with Will Durant's writings when I began flipping through an old edition of his 11-Volume "History of Civilization" series, a monumental work. Durant's writing skills are exquisite, almost lyrical, and absorbing. All my life, I found history books to be dry and dull, almost like plumbers manuals. Durant had the gift of bringing it all to life. Durant's book "Transition" is his autobiography up to the time of his daughter's birth. It was originally published in 1927, and it reveals a great deal about his character. Durant had a brilliant mind, but as an idealistic young man, he was also a firebrand who had associations with people who were not merely counter-cultural or even revolutionary, but anarchists. He never quite stepped over the line into anarchy himself, but he flirted with those who did until he realized how self-defeating such an approach is. For ex., he tells the story about his trip to New York with 3 of his buddies to protest a political candidate. One of those friends actually brought a bomb, and ended up exploding the bomb in their hotel room. Durant was supremely fortunate to have survived that event with no real lasting injuries. Durant was always a self-admitted socialist, and he was critical of capitalism all his life. Nevertheless, he offered some deeply thought-provoking analyses of history that are very timely, and quite relevant to the present day. "Transition" shows us the man behind the thought, his human struggles, his loves, his mistakes and his regrets, and ultimately his growth in personal integrity. We learn how the revolutionary learned to use the power of historical insight to make the points that bombs and violence never could make.