Will durant's purpose in writing the story civilization was not to create a definitive scholarly production but to make a large amount of information accessible and comprehensible to the educated public in the form of a comprehensive compoiste history given the massive undertaking in creating these volume over 50 years errors and incompleteness were inevitable by durant's own reckoning but no other historical survey matches let alone exceeds the breadth and depth of his project.Includes bibliographical references and index

including index and bibliography

being a history of Greek civilization from the beginnings, and of civilization in the Near East from the death of Alexander, to the Roman conquest; with an introduction on the prehistoric culture of Crete
3. Caesar and Christ, a history of Roman civilization and of Christianity from their beginnings to A.D. 325