This brilliant book examines the meaning of human civilization and history. Drawing from the experience of the past, it serves as an accessible guide to put the future in context. These are the lessons we need to know to live in optimistic confidence, rather than fear and ignorance. Four years before his death, Will Durant began work on an abbreviated version of his highly acclaimed 11-volume series, The Story of Civilization. The manuscript was recently discovered by Durant scholar John Little. The wit, knowledge, and unique ability of Durant to explain events and ideas are now passed on for the benefit of future generations - a fitting legacy from America's most beloved historian. Heroes of History first answers the question, what is civilization? It then explores the contributions of great minds from China and India through Egypt, the Greek and Roman empires, the Renaissance and the Reformation, and concludes with Shakespeare and Bacon. It offers the keyhole through which we can spy, in Durant's words, "... a special Country of the Mind, wherein a thousand saints, statesmen, inventors, scientists, poets, artists, musicians, lovers, and philosophers still live and speak, teach and carve and sing."