A Dual Autobiography"In this magnificently readable autobiography by the authors of The Story of Civilization, Will and Ariel Durant celebrate and examine a lifetime of ideas, friendships, triumphs and love. The story of their life together, rich in brilliant anecdotes and with the names of the countless famous people they knew, is a passionate record of their shared experience as lovers, as husband and wife, as world travelers, and as the authors of one of the most famous and successful works of scholarship in American literary history. Ariel and Will Durant met and fell in love in 1912. He was a teacher at the anarchist Ferrer Center in New York, a young man already in love with the world of ideas, who had quit the seminary (to his family's chagrin) in search of freedom. She was fourteen years old, so young that she roller-skated on her way to City Hall for her marriage, the daughter of penniless immigrants struggling to survive in the New World, inheritor of all the rebellious traditions and the determination to survive of the Russian ghetto from which her family came. Together they shared not only a burning love for each other but a passionate hunger for ideas. Their book takes us with them on their incredible and fascinating intellectual journey, beginning with their interest in anarchism (which brought them close to Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman) and going on through a long, shared lifetime that brought them honors, fame and the acquaintanceship of almost every major literary and intellectual personality in Europe and the United States. Their book is remarkably frank and deeply moving, at once a star-studded history of the decades through which they lived and worked and a passionate, intimate and powerful tribute to a great and enduring love."--Dust jacket. |
Contents
EXPLANATORY | 9 |
The Anarch 18981912 | 11 |
The Atheist 18851912 | 28 |
Copyright | |
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Alden American Angeles Ariel Ariel Durant asked audience beautiful began called Cannes Catholic chapter Charlie Chaplin Chicago Church City DEAR Dick Simon dinner dollars drove Emma Goldman Ethel face father feel felt Ferrer Ferrer Center Flora Franklin Roosevelt friends gave Greenwich Village H. L. Mencken happy heard hour hundred January John July knew Labor Temple Lake Hill later lecture letter living look Los Angeles Louis Louis XIV March Mary Max Schuster moral morning mother never night October political President reached religion Renaissance Russia sent sisters social socialist soon Story of Civilization Story of Philosophy Strathroy Street talk teacher tell thought thousand tion told took tour train trip Voltaire volumes walked week wife Will's write wrote York