Your question is perfectly good, not offensive in the least.

This was, for its time, considered to be a very good series of books, and it was quite popular: which is why you've likely run across it in a library, or ( big sets of books now having very low value) drastically discounted in a used book store. And I still like the one on the Reformation: I think that might have been their ( both Will and Ariel ) best effort.

That said, it's old. There has been a lot of research, archaeology, done on the ancient world since 1935! The series is also Eurocentric. It's not as painfully triumphalist as something from the 19th c., and doesn't slap on the whitewash, but just the focus on western civilization marginalizes a lot of other countries and people and cultures that are important. Also, using something called "civilization" as the organizing principle tends to create a lot of judgements about progress, progress towards modern ideals. Judging past events as bad or good is OK, but it often gets in the way of understanding why they happened, why those people acted the way they did.

I've read about 1/3 of it through The Age of Faith. IIRC, I started the Renaissance before getting distracted by other shiny things. However, this was all 5-10 years ago, so it is all in soft focus by now.

I vote that it is not whitewashed. Still, he and his brilliant sometimes-coauthor wife Ariel are products of their times. They spend pages and ink on the portion of humanity where they have expertise. Surely there are sentences here and there that acknowledge Civilization and Western Civilization are not the same thing, but he and his intended audience are part of Western Civ, so that is where he focuses, nttawwt. This is not racism or chauvinism at all, but it is a species of bias that one really has to expect from a competent and well-meaning author stuck writing a century ago.

The word "Oriental" has evolved and been the subject of lots of drama scholarly revision since he used it with no intention of insult. Egyptians were in the big Oriental tent. A meta-point of his work is "pay attention to all of these interesting and deep contributions that came to us from outside of Western Tradition", and some college sophomore may get hung up on this or that word...partly fueled by the work's routine use of dry humor. If you are interested in Chinese history, look elsewhere, but the Durants are very good at what they are qualified to write about.

Speaking of forbidden words, he has some fun with "savages". Early on, he states his aversion to the term, pointing out in so many (so sooo many) words that we are all products of our environment; if your ancestors had to put up with excess heat, cold, malaria, etc., it will show in who industrializes earlier, modes of government, modesty in clothing, etc.

After promising(not really) to not call people savages, he proceeds to use the word several times. HOWEVER, each time, he is making some ironic point, often tinged with self deprecating humor intended to educate and tweak the contemporary reader's nose. IIRC, while addressing the 'savagery' of how this or that tribe pierces itself, or does painful tattooing as part of a rite of passage to manhood, or their women mutilate themselves in odd, foreign attempts at 'beauty', he immediately brings up the counterpoint of every reader's (in the 1920s) sainted grandmother who wore a whalebone corset and had a 19 inch waist, and exactly who is the savage?

I vote read the books if you have 999 hours of spare time. It is well-written and gives a good account of the history of the study of history, at the very least.

Speaking of Civilization, I just found and got 20% into The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant. I recommend this one too. The phrasing and occasional conclusion were clearly not written in 2021, but it is thoughtful and fascinating on the whole. Its conclusions are mostly still valid, and it is a very good source as a historical document rather than a book on history - it gets you into the mind of people 1 century back who were rational and honest and trying to figure stuff out.

Unlike his other work, this one is 128 pages instead of his/their usual ~9,000,128 pages.

Lessons addresses the question of 'what is the point of reading history' and 'why have various things turned out as they have' and 'what useful patterns can be teased out of all of this messy data.'