Book Recommendation: The Lessons of History, by Will and Ariel Durant

Voltaire once observed that, “History never repeats itself. Man always does.”

Phrases like “More relevant than ever” are cliched. But, there’s always a point in history that parallels our own time.

And The Lessons of History, by Will and Ariel Durant, takes readers on a deep-dive into the fundamentals of human behavior. With topics covering race, morals, religion, economics, government, and societal decay; this is a book teeming with parallels that help us understand our present and prepare for our future.

Here are five lessons I found interesting.

The third biological lesson of history is that life must breed.

Today, we often hear about climate change and declining birthrates. Two conflicts which have plagued civilizations for a millennia.

As societies develop, experts warn that increased standards of living will destroy the environment. In early instances, this concern focused on the civilization running out of farmland. In later societies, the experts worried about the depletion of soil nutrients and how this would lower crop yields. Today, its pollution and synthetic chemicals altering the climate.