The Age of Reason Begins (The Story of Civilization Vol. 7)

NY: Simon and Schuster, 1961. Hardcover_cloth. VeryGood/Good. 6.63"x9.25" 729 indexed pages. BCE/BOMC. Red cloth. Gilt letters on front and spine. List of 59 Illustrations in frontal section plus endpaper maps of United Kingdom, Kingdom of France, Central & Eastern Europe, & Europe after the Peace of Westphalia. Top edge painted red. DJ design by Joseph B. Del Valle. Authors' photo by Bill Ray. Cloth sewn binding. Preface by Will Durant dated 1961. Tiny square blind-stamped on bottom right corner of back board. Spine straight, binding tight, pages clean w/soft tone. Not x-library, unclipped, & unmarked. No price on DJ. DJ has chips and tears to edges. Will require additional postage for weight. The Story of Civilization, Volume VII: A history of European civilization in the period of Shakespeare, Bacon, Montaigne, Rembrandt, Galileo, and Descartes: 1558-1648. This is the seventh volume of the classic, Pulitzer Prize-winning series. Source: Publisher
If there is a linchpin to understanding modern European history, it lies in the period of religious strife & scientific progress between the 1550s & 1650s. In The Age of Reason Begins, Will & Ariel Durant bring together a fascinating network of stories in their discussion of the bumpy road toward the Enlightenment. This is the age of great monarchs & greater artists: on the one hand, Elizabeth the First of England, Philip II of Spain & Henry IV of France; on the other, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Montaigne & Rembrandt. It also encompasses the heyday of Bacon, Galileo, Giordano Bruno & Descartes--the fathers of modern science & philosophy. But it is equally an age of extreme violence, a moment in which all Europe was embroiled in the horrible Thirty Years' War--in some respects, the real First World War. Whatever the case, this is a chapter in cultural history one can't set aside.
"Mr & Mrs Durant are admirably lucid...This is a book that can be commended very warmly."--The New York Times Source: Goodreads.