Author

Books by Will & Ariel Durant

Will Durant (1885–1981) and Ariel Durant (1898–1981) were American historians who spent forty years writing The Story of Civilization, an eleven-volume history of human intellectual and cultural life from ancient Mesopotamia through Napoleon. Will won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1968 for Rousseau and Revolution, co-written with Ariel, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977. Ariel, who collaborated on the final six volumes and received equal credit from 1961 onward, shaped the project's scope and voice as much as her husband. They died within two weeks of each other in 1981.