I finished reading my hardback copy of the first printing of the book, The Age of Louis XIV, Part VIII of the Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant. The subtitle is "A History of European Civilization in the Period of Pascal, Moliѐre, Cromwell, Milton, Peter the Great, Newton, and Spinoza: 1648-1715." The book was published by Simon and Schuster, Inc. (New York) in 1963.
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| My copy of the book (no dust jacket). |
MY OVERALL OPINION
👍Thumbs up (i.e., that means I like it). Very glad I read it. Would recommend it to anyone who is curious about history, science, philosophy, culture, and theology.
WHY I READ THIS BOOK
The short answer was that I read the Age of Louis XIV because I wanted to find out more about the political climate at the time The Pilgrim's Progress (TPP) was written. The Christian aspect of TPP was obvious to me but I was also aware that the author, John Bunyon, had started writing it when he was in prison for his religious beliefs. TPP was mentioned or referenced several times in Part One of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott which I read last year.
Most of the material I encountered online was about the religious aspects of TPP. One day I realized that there might be something in The Story of Civilization series of books that I have carried around for many years barely touching except when I moved. This volume, Part VIII, includes about five (5) pages on John Bunyan. And that whetted my appetite for more. So I kept reading.
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| Illustration of statue in the Louvre (Paris) of Louis XIV by Francois Girardon. |
BOOK DETAILS
The main text portion concludes on page 721 and is followed by a Bibliographical Guide (10 pages), Notes (24 pages), and an Index (36 pages); the final two pages are "About the Authors." The endpapers contain four maps (see picture below).
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| Maps in the front endpaper. |
My copy of this volume also included a little pamphlet containing an essay by Gilbert Higher that was reprinted from the Book-of-the-Month Club News.
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| Click on the image to open a larger window to read this essay. |
It appears that the series is no longer published in a physical hard back book. Simon and Schuster appear to only offer an E-book version. Used copies of the books can still be found via the various used book sellers. You can read the book (and the entire series and more) online.
ORGANIZATION OF THE VOLUME
The text is divided into five (5) books:
- Book I: The French Zenith (1643-1715)
- Book II: England (1649-1714)
- Book III: The Periphery (1648-1715)
- Book IV: The Intellectual Adventure (1648-1715)
- Book V: France Against Europe (1683-1715)..
This volume is part VIII in a history whose beginning has been forgotten, and whose end we shall never reach. The subject is civilization, which we define as social order promoting cultural creation. It includes government,. economy (agriculture, industry, commerce, finance), morality, manners, religion, art, literature, music, science, and philosophy.
The scene is Europe. The time is from the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) to the death of Louis XIV, whose reign (1643-1715) dominated and named the age.
The pervading theme is the Great Debate between faith and reason.
MY READING APPROACH
I don't remember when I exactly started reading this volume. I suspect it was sometime in October 2020. I tried to read a section each day.Some of the longer sections I broke into two reading sessions. I like to read in the morning with a fresh cup of coffee by my side and a dawning day outside the window.
The vocabulary sometimes challenged me. As much as I hate to say this, I liked using Google's Dictionary. In addition to the definition of a word, it would demonstrate how to pronounce. And there was a second way to explore pronunciation: in American English and British English and to even slow the pronunciation. This was very engaging. I tried to find something similar that was not on Google but was not successful.
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| Example of Google Dictionary. |
I also would use Wikipedia to augment the text in order to find out more about people and places. Perhaps the ability to supplement the text with online material made the reading experience more satisfying for me.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
I really, really enjoyed reading this book. Nearly every day, their dry wit brought a smile to my face.
While I was reading the first part of the book, the 2020 US Presidential election was underway. Nearly everyday, I found something in the early days of Louis XIV that correlated with the contemporary political scene in the US. When I heard news commentators exclaim that some event or situation was unprecedented, I was often amused because I had just read something similar that happened in 17th Century France. Later, when I read about the English Civil War, I again found many touch points with the contemporary US political environment.
Earlier this year, while I was reading A Wrinkle In Time, I was reading in The Age of Louis XIV about physics (Newton) and astronomy (Halley) and then philosophy (Descartes, Locke, George Berkeley, Leibniz, and Spinoza). What is real? So much overlap between the two books at that time. Quite fascinating.
So much to learn.
NEXT
Am currently reading Ready Player One (started Saturday April 10, 2021).
Started Part IX of the Story of Civilization, The Age of Voltaire, on Thursday April 22, 2021.
-----------------------------Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XIV
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Civilization
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Durant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Durant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moli%C3%A8re
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Cromwell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Milton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_the_Great
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza
http://ricketwrite.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-pilgrims-progress.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Women
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bunyan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Girardon#/media/File:Louis_XIV_statue_equestre.JPG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Girardon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Highet
https://erenow.net/modern/the-age-of-louis-xiv/
http://ricketwrite.blogspot.com/2021/03/a-wwwrinnnkllle-innn-tttimme.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ready_Player_One
https://erenow.net/modern/the-age-of-voltaire-a-history-of-civlization-in-western-europe-from-1715-to-1756/
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Written Sunday 25 April 2021
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