 |
| Educationist Gian Tu Trung, president of IRED Institute of Education, speaks at the launch ceremony of the “The Story of Civilization” book set in Vietnamese – PHOTO: MINH TUAN |
The 11-volume set of books was written by husband and wife Will and Ariel Durant in more than five decades. With a total of up to 50 books, “The Story of Civilization” covers 2,500 years of the history of humans.
Speaking at the launch ceremony, educationist Gian Tu Trung, president of IRED, said the “The Story of Civilization” book set has been translated into many different languages around the world, but this is the first time that the entire set has been translated into Vietnamese.
“IRED worked very hard to earn the rights to translate the entire set into Vietnamese, aimed at helping not only scholars, historians and researchers but also all readers in Vietnam have better access to knowledge about typical civilizations throughout history,” he said.
According to Trung, the book set is like a history dictionary, so the readers do not need to read the whole set but can pick any books about the civilizations they are interested in.
Durant said his purpose of writing the series 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 composite history.
It depicts all aspects of every civilization, from wars to cultural heritage, great persons, religions, literature, science, philosophy, arts and even the rise of mass media, which contributed to the formation, development and also the collapse of the civilizations.
The series won a Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1968 with the 10th volume titled “Rousseau and Revolution”. Will Durant was then awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977.
IRED has released three volumes of the series, including the first volume “Our Oriental Heritage”, the 10th volume “Rousseau and Revolution” and the 11th volume “The Age of Napoleon”. Other volumes are expected to be published until 2022.
