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Why aren't historians this based anymore?
"The empire of Darius lasted hardly a century. The moral as well as the physical backbone of Persia was broken by Marathon, Salamis and Plataea; the emperors exchanged Mars for Venus, and the nation descended into corruption and apathy.
The decline of Persia anticipated almost in detail the decline of Rome: immorality and degeneration among the people accompanied violence and negligence on the throne. The Persians, like the Medes before them, passed from stoicism to epicureanism in a few generations. Eating became the principal occupation of the aristocracy: these men who had once made it a rule to eat but once a day now interpreted the rule to allow them one meal—prolonged from noon to night; they stocked their larders with a thousand delicacies, and often served entire animals to their guests; they stuffed themselves with rich rare meats, and spent their genius upon new sauces and desserts.
A corrupt and corrupting multitude of menials filled the houses of the wealthy, while drunkenness became the common vice of every class.140b Cyrus and Darius created Persia, Xerxes inherited it, his successors destroyed it."
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>muh degeneracy
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Is Will Durant our guy?
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>>1999385
Because rich people today are mostly rich from capitalism and not from blood. The former don't get their children into being scholars. They also don't have that many children to begin with, so that they can afford to have one of them go into academia. Now you have historians from filth background, that don't have an aristocratic culture to imitate.
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>>1999407
>spending your servs taxmoney on expensive unproductive hedonims they dont partake in is not degenerated
I guess the french revolution was entirely based on bigotted peasants not liking the "degenerated" elite, these straight white males would all be trumpvoters today amirite?
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>>1999682
I heard he was a liberal supporter a.k.a libetard ?
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>>1999385
if you liked that you'll love this, White is on the side of the Chinese and is no colonialist but is very candid about the state of china in the 30s and 40s and how the social and economic development of China had been stultified by mismanagement
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>>1999705
>Durant fought for equal wages, women's suffrage and fairer working conditions for the American labor force. Durant not only wrote on many topics but also put his ideas into effect. Durant, it has been said widely, attempted to bring philosophy to the common man. He authored The Story of Philosophy, The Mansions of Philosophy, and, with the help of his wife, Ariel, The Story of Civilization. He also wrote magazine articles.
It doesn't sound too egregious (unless you are a /pol/ tard). Definitely not a SJW tier. But at any rate he should be judge mainly for his quality as a historian.
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>>1999385
>The decline of Persia anticipated almost in detail the decline of Rome
And disregard everything this man says
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>>1999385
>The decline of Persia anticipated almost in detail the decline of Rome
stopped reading here
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>>1999385
yea, we get it, civs are built by men who put future preference over present, are hardworking, and prefer incremental change through the hardwork. not sure how that connects with degeneracy or whatever as if those same great men cant be degenerates at least once a week or at some small part of the day.
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>>1999385
Because Reality and Archaeology intervened. The wars in Greek were just a minor frontier battle, claiming they were significant at all is like claiming Iraq foreshadows Americas collapse.
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>>1999714
Thanks senpai. I'm intend to read through the whole series and I'm only about to start the second one. It's a monstrous amount of material but it looks awesome.
I. Our Oriental Heritage
II. The Life of Greece
III. Caesar and Christ
IV. The Age of Faith
V. The Renaissance
VI. The Reformation
VII. The Age of Reason Begins
VIII. The Age of Louis XIV
IX. The Age of Voltaire
X. Rousseau and Revolution
XI. The Age of Napoleon
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>>1999385
> The moral as well as the physical backbone of Persia was broken by Marathon, Salamis and Plataea
But this is bullshit, Persian Empire continued to exist for 150 years, payrolled Spartan victory over Athenians and then established virtual hegemony over Greek states in 370s. It took a series of bad rulers, civil wars and fucking Alexander The Great to finish them.
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>>2000177
Not those guys, but here's the thing -- being famous and well-thought-of doesn't make you right. Our understanding of the past is changing all the time. A lot of very smart historians and archaeologists thought things 30, 20, even 10 years ago that we now know to be bullshit.
Do you really think they wouldn't be able to find any big-name contemporary historians to back their criticisms up? It's not like they're relying on their original research to counter him. They're not saying, "Wow, Durant was an idiot, all his books were fucking worthless," they're (hopefully) saying "His work was a product of its time, but we can do better now."
Not that I know nearly enough about the Achaemenids to know whether their criticisms are in fact valid, but in general, being old and famous and well-educated is by no means a guarantor that a writer won't sometimes be full of shit.
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>>1999980
He's not saying they're done, just that that after those battles it is just downhill road
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>>2000220
>Our understanding of the past is changing all the time. A lot of very smart historians and archaeologists thought things 30, 20, even 10 years ago that we now know to be bullshit.
True, but history seems to be one of those sciences that is most affected by the cultural context of its time.
With the current vouge of SWJ ""culture"" in academia, it would be weird if it didn't permeated, at least to some extent, to historians.
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Except Persia was on the rise again and was abruptly ended by Alexander.
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>>1999385
Because we know better now.
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>>1999385
>The moral as well as the physical backbone of Persia was broken by Marathon, Salamis and Plataea; the emperors exchanged Mars for Venus, and the nation descended into corruption and apathy.
Except this is bullshit, and the Persians were the de facto overlords of Greece until Alexander.
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>>2000919
History is not a science, it is a methodology your right that SJW's have gained a foothold but that has nothing to do with comparing the fall of Persia to the fall of Rome
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>>2000919
You're assuming post-modernist works must, necessarily, carry a left-wing/progressive agenda.
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>>2001266
>You're assuming post-modernist works must, necessarily, carry a left-wing/progressive agenda.
Doesn't it though?
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>>1999964
you'll like the reformation.
Its quite literally the best explanation I've ever heard of the 30 years war.
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>>2002011
The right hasn't caught on yet but a world where personal perspective is the only thing that matters can only benefit people with an axe to grind
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>>2002040
It's a shame he didn't have 20 more years. Supposedly the victorian era was going to be his next project.
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>>2000919
Gets called out on appeal to authority
>muh SJWs
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>>1999682
Definitely.
>>1999705
He was a liberal reformer who distrusted socialist radicalism and recognized the importance of religion as a basis of social life. Nothing wrong with that.
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>>2002047
Actually, the right has caught on. That's why the left is freaking out about "post-truth" and "fake news".
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>>2003974
Well leave it to the left to violently condemn it when the right adapt that same tactics they have been using for decades
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>>2003971
Aaaaaaaaaaa. I want that collection. I'm stucked with shitty ebooks.
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