The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time

Well, if you use the word in its largest sense,we would have to give the greatest share of influence to the technical inventors, to men like Edison. Doubtless the development of electricity has transformed the world even more than any Marxian propaganda. Then, if you think in terms of ideas, I think the influence of Darwin is still greater than the influence of Marx, but in a different field. The basic phenomenon of our time is not Communism; it’s the decline of religious belief,which has all sorts of effects on morals and even on politics because religion has been a tool of politics. But today in Europe it ceases to be a tool, it has very little influence in determining political decisions—whereas 500 years ago, the pope was superior in influence to any civil ruler on earth.

Later, during the same interview, the interviewer turned to his subject and asked:

Dr. Durant, of all the characters populating The Story of Civilization, whom would you have most liked to have known?

Durant contemplated the question seriously and then, poker-faced, replied, “Madame De Pompadour.”

The interviewer was dumbfounded.

“Why is that?” he asked.

A twinkle came to Durant’s eyes as he answered, “Well, she was beautiful, she was charming, she was luscious—what else do you want?”

I cite these two anecdotes not simply to reveal Durant’s views on the influence of inventors and biologists on human history, nor even his tendency to use wit to disarm journalists who took themselves or their vocations too seriously (he once noted that humor is akin to philosophy for they are both viewpoints born of a large perspective of life), but rather to show that his opinion on assessing the significance of individuals and events from human history was something that was constantly sought after—sometimes twice in the same interview.

It is entirely understandable that Durant should find himself asked to answer such questions.Any time a man spends over half a century researching and writing an eleven-volume integral history of civilization, it is natural that people are going to want to know what conclusions he has drawn from the enterprise; to know what eras, individuals, and achievements stood out in his mind as being the greatest or most significant.Who, for example, would Durant rate on his Roll of Honor of human thought as the greatest thinkers in human history? Who would he rate as the truly great poets; the ones that plucked notes upon heartstrings that continue to resonate hundreds and thousands of years after their passing? And what would be the absolute best books one should read in order to receive a meaningful—and useful—education? Over the course of Durant’s career, he responded to the increasing public demand for such qualified assessments by putting pen to paper and crafting a series of essays containing his personal ranking of “The Ten Greatest Thinkers,” “The Ten Greatest Poets,” “The One Hundred Best Books for an Education,” “The Ten Peaks of Human Progress,” and “Twelve Vital Dates in World History.” Certain of these essays were published in periodicals; others were presented as lectures to standing-room-only attendees. However, unless you happened to purchase those magazines, or were fortunate enough to attend one of those lectures, it would not have been possible to learn of his conclusions in these matters. Fortunately, all of these essays have been brought together in The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time.