Even the Thirty Years’ War, one of the bloodiest and most important struggles in European history, is somewhat lifeless in Durant’s hands. Yet when the camera zooms out from the personalities of individual rulers to the dynamics of armed conflicts, Durant falters. True, the portrait he paints of Elizabeth is vivid and engrossing and his coverage of Richelieu is nearly as strong. Very often I felt bored or confused during these sections, since it seemed as though Durant, no political animal, was rushing to get through them. The political and military history are related at supersonic speed. Probably because of its genesis, this volume is less satisfying as a self-contained work than its predecessors. Then, for good measure, the Durants wrote two more. So, in his words, “one of the present authors, at an unseemly age, becomes a prima donna making a succession of farewell tours.” The projected single volume became three.
But he soon realized that there was far too much information to compress. So continues my slow Odyssey through European history, with Durant as my leisurely guide.ĭurant originally planned a single, massive volume, to be entitled The Age of Reason, that would have taken the reader from the end of his volume on the Reformation (around 1560) all the way to the French Revolution.
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