The Age of Faith, Volume 4

By: Will Durant

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki

A History of Medieval Civilization (Christian, Islamic, and Judaic) from Constantine to Dante, AD 325 - 1300

The fourth volume in Will Durant's Pulitzer Prize-winning series, The Age of Faith surveys the medieval achievements and modern significance of Christian, Islamic, and Judaic life and culture. Like the other volumes in the Story of Civilization series, this is a self-contained work, which at the same time fits into a comprehensive history of mankind. It includes the dramatic stories of St. Augustine, Hypatia, Justinian, Mohammed, Harun al-Rashid, Charlemagne, William the Conqueror, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard the Lionheart, Saladin, Maimonides, St. Francis, St. Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, and many others, all in the perspective of integrated history. The greatest love stories in literature - of Héloise and Abélard, of Dante and Beatrice - are here retold with enthralling scholarship.

©2011 Will Durant (P)2014 Blackstone Audiobooks

Epic

Everyone should be exposed to this time period of history through this work in seeing the transformation of people groups from savages to civilized, to organized states, of states that rise and fall, and the slow but steady growth of Europe under Christianity. The blossoming of Islam and the subsequent stumbling and fall of it's luminaries sweeps before you.
What I loved is Durant's weaving - he'll tell one epic, then another of the same time period and bring back the same characters so the reader can see how they fit in a different context.
Stefan Rudnicki's narration is awesome for this work, a steady, constant, almost invisible narration allowing the story to shine through.
Loved every part of it and I'm much richer for the listen, especially for the new understanding of our culture and how it developed, albeit slowly in fits and starts.

Bugs

Bugs in chapters xvI, XVII, and and the first three chapters of Book IV....so far.

A history of heresies.

A history of heresies. As byzantine as the cultures and faiths it covers.

Durant's fourth volume in his "The Story of Civilization" continues its epic march through...well...everything to bring us the story of the great monotheistic faiths (and their impacts on their respective cultures) from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance. Durant covers everything from the rise and splintering of Islam, the Jewish diaspora, and the inevitable doctrinal hair-splitting that engulfed the Christian faith during the Middle Ages.

While Durant approaches this series from a squarely Occidentalist focus, he treats all sides with requisite respect and writes eloquently of the art and poetry of (and faith traditions) of non-Western peoples.

Here, we get Goths, Holy Roman Empires, vassals, flying buttresses, Catharists, and tonsures galore. When I say Durant covers everything, I mean it. While Durant has never been terribly interested in warfare or battles (traditional "history"), you'd be hard pressed to find a topic that Durant doesn't cover at least to some degree.

That breadth of topics is also the book's weakest point. Because Durant covers so much geographic, artistic, civilizational, religious, and temporal territory, the history is less rigorous than it otherwise might be in a more focused/limited work (contrast with volumes "The Life of Greece" and "Caesar and Christ" -- limited primarily to the Greek and Roman states). An example of this is when Durant covers the history of Scotland from 300-1300 AD in about 7 pages. William Wallace is rolling over in his grave. And don't even get me started on the vagaries of Catholic or Islamic heresies -- you'd have more luck counting the stars in the sky than keep track of them all.

Ultimately, this is a forgivable sin (an indulgence even) since Durant writes so well about so much. Another reviewer described him as a "popularizer" -- and insofar as Durant brings (and keeps) the story of Civilization alive to the general public (even if this book is 70 years old), "popularizer" ain't a bad thing to be.

Very informative

Quite lengthy at times, but totally worth the investment. Patience is a virtue. Hard to wrap your head around all the information. Be ready to bookmark!

Incredible Reading

Durant's lifetime of research is obvious in this epic work, covering every angle and aspect of a far-reaching and complex history.

And I don't think any other narrator could have given this multilingual treasure a more fitting voice.