The Lessons of History
Written by the authors of the 10 volume The Story of Civilization, this short (fewer than 120 pages) work notes "events and comments that might illuminate present affairs, future probabilities, the nature of man, and the conduct of states." Its 13 chapters discuss historiography (what is history), history and the earth, history and biology, race, character, morals, religion, economics, socialism, government, war, growth and decay. The final chapter asks, "Is progress real?"
Stats for nerds
16recommend
26mentions
24people
2008–2026years
69% recommend31% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- > Violence is not a panacea, but often, the outlet.
This couldn't be further from the truth.
History demonstrates categorically that violence is the last and most reliable form of recourse available to the disempowered, once society has trended too far towards either an excess of freedom or an excess of equality. And, in fact, our position in that balance between freedom and equality is perpetually oscillating, tending to finally reverse direction only in response to violent revolt.
This cycle has repeated over and over, essentially since the dawn of civilization. This was among the most important insights of 'The Lessons of History' by Will and Ariel Durant. And it's baked on two very simple insights about human nature: (1) those in power rarely give it up willingly (they often do the opposite) and (2) fear, on average, is and always will be a far stronger motivator than appeals to a person's conscience.
- As stated in the book “Lessons of History,” this is what billionaires should be doing with the wealth that they’ve snatched from the poor, marginalized and unlucky.
When we started on this tech journey, the hope was for a better more equal world,
Instead we have the worst inequality since the Great Depression, mass surveillance on a global scale and the destruction of the middle class.
Inequality is a part of our society. Some are born with better genetics and opportunities in a lucky part of the world.
If you are lucky to become a billionaire your purpose is to serve humanity and redistribute that wealth to your workers and to society at large.
If not, the only eventual outcome is repression by the billionaire class or forced redistribution through violent revolution.
These are the lessons that history has taught us.
- Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant.
If you know you know.
- Books that I read (and re-read) in 2022 that I'd recommend to folks on HN. Ordered from most enjoyable / insightful to least.
- Edward O. Wilson - Biophilia
- Will Durant - The Lessons Of History
- Freeman J. Dyson - A Many-Colored Glass
- Venkatesh Rao - The Gervais Principle
- Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles
- Colin Wilson - The Outsider
- Stanislaw Lem - Cyberiad
- Antonio Martinez - Chaos Monkeys
- Ben Horowitz - What You Do Is Who You Are
- Alice Flaherty - The Midnight Disease
- Oliver Sacks - Musicophilia
- Ken Binmore - Rational Decisions
- Josh Kaufman - The Personal MBA
Edit: All these books made the cut, there were others that I never completed / disliked / wouldn't recommend, or were just plain mediocre / bad.
- Lessons of History
Letters to a Young Poet
Letters from a Self Made Merchant to His Son
Sections of Meditations
Sections of Seneca
Bed of Procrustes
- Are you willing to vote against your own interests in the short-term (ex. your wait times for your non-emergency doctor visits due to Medicare for All may increase, but in exchange everyone has healthcare) to help those that are less fortunate than you in the long-term? I don't blame anyone for playing the hand they're dealt, minimizing their taxes, not donating money to charity. Those are the laws and norms we've agreed on - maximize your quality of life from there.
Related note I've been thinking about it a lot recently: Will & Ariel Durant wrote an 11 volume history of the rise and fall of Western Civilizations (after touching on China and the Middle East) called The Story of Civilization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Civilization
It was written in the 1930s-70s so it has some fascist, racist and pro-eugenics overtones. Different time, pretty expected - you'd have to be pretty high on Western Civilization to spend your entire life, all the way to your deathbed, writing about it. Conveniently, he wrote a summary of what his takeaways were after all of his research The Lessons of History https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GUIEYU/ref=dbs_a_def_r...
After studying the rise and fall of hundreds of states and civilizations, he credited excessive wealth inequality as one of the most consistent causes of a failed state - Romans, Greeks, Chinese, etc. Once you hit a certain level of inequality - norms fail, and it gets redistributed anyways. Since capitalism inherently concentrates wealth upward (returns on capital are higher than returns on labor), controlled income redistribution (e.g. The New Deal) is necessary to maintain stability.
Blog post with a few examples from the book https://fs.blog/2016/03/history-concentration-of-wealth/
It feels like a lesson that humans have repeated thousands of times, and we've managed to forget again.
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