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Title a Misnomer

Reviewed: 11-19-23

I purchased this audio book because I enjoy various "history of philosophy" courses in the Great Course series. However this work is presented purely from a tradition Christian standpoint, and not a philosophical one. Frame does cover all the bases, but always brings it back to his Christian worldview, which is a shame. It is not even an apologetic, in that he does not defend his Christian position, but just states it, without any backup, again and again. I stayed with the book until the end, just to see how he would handle the various philosophers and Christian thinkers. My take is that he is too quickly dismissive of the Plato, Kant, and Hegel, and spends too much time on more contemporary thinkers, including some of his own associates. He even closes the work with a call to confess one's sins and come to accept Jesus as lord. Buyer beware.

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1 person found this helpful

Better than many of the reviews.

Reviewed: 02-11-23

I have done a considerable number of Great Courses in history and philosophy, and I found this one to be quite good. Some suffer from being to "classroom," just covering the main bullet points, where others wander all over the place, This comines both. Prof. Ambrosia brings his own knowledge to the table here when examining the various traditions, while leaving the student to come to their own conclusions. He covers all the basis here. Highly recommend.

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Great inside look, but glossed over bank problems

Reviewed: 12-07-22

Some exceptional reporting here. Just one complaint. Mr. Sorkin does not spend hardly any time at all undercoving the causes of the Great Financial Crises itself. Michael Lewis's book, "The Big Short," does this in spades. "Too Big To Fail " is all about how government dealt with the problem, but very little on how the problem arose in the first place. And there were gross errors, and perhaps crimes, that caused it. And no one at the banks suffered. Only American home owners. A lot of the unrest we see today is a direct result of this.

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Another great work by Mr. Gladwell.

Reviewed: 05-14-21

I loved this audio book. If you are a Gladwell fan, you will as well. I learned so much about WWII. One comment though - this was an audiobook before it was a book. There is music and recordings. Which all is great. However, there were annoying pauses between chapters, with no music. Just silence Sometimes these could last 10-15 seconds which is a very long time when listening. I though my battery ran dead! If I didn't know better, I would think that they were intentionally trying to pad the length of the audiobook. I would correct this going forward. Otherwise all great!

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Excellent Historical Review

Reviewed: 12-20-20

I highly recommend this Great Course. It is incredible how Prol. Liulevicius covers such a large amount of history while keeping it coherent. He achieves this by structuring it around key themes, for example the balance of power. This course also sets the stage for the World Wars of the 20th century. And also, his review of the Cold War is very good. I never knew how much was going on during this period that I actually lived through. Anyone will come away with a much better understanding of this part of the world after listening to this course.

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1 person found this helpful

Great Instructor, But A Mile Wide and Inch Deep

Reviewed: 11-23-20

First the good news. Professor Hardy is an outstanding lecturer. Truly one of the best I have heard in the Great Courses, and I have done many. He brings an excitement to the material, is wonderful to listen to, and communicates clearly and effectively. I did learn a new perspective of the East from this course, one that we too often ignore in the West. However, the chief problem I had was that just too many "great minds" were covered. So many in fact that you easily lose any perspective after a while. He sets it up as Indian and Chinese camps, but there was an intermingling of Buddhism, so even that got confusing. It was almost like reading an encyclopedia entry for an individual. Just the bare facts, then move on to the next. It was hard to see any large trends in thinking. Professor Hardy worried that he may not have included all the 'great minds." However, he would have been better off reducing the number from 30 or 40 down to maybe 10-12. In that way we could better see how the East dealt with the major philosophical issues he lays out in the beginning. I would still recommend this book however, as it does recap all of Eastern thinking, which can be beneficial to study, and because of the strength and energy of Prof. Hardy.

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4 people found this helpful

A Mile Wide and Inch Deep

Reviewed: 10-20-20

First let me say that I am a fan of Prof. Solomon, having completed two previous "Great Courses" of his, one on Existentialism, and one on Nietzsche. However, I felt that this particular course was not up to standard. To begin with, it is much more a psychology course that a philosophy course. So much of it just seems to be an inventory of human emotions. Solomon is an excellent lecturer, so the course is never boring. However I was expecting more. I would have eliminated over 2-3rds of the topics, and concentrated on one-third and gone much more in depth. So many topics are brought up only to be discarded after a few brief comments. For example he claims envy is the one emotion that is never positive. And doesn't really back it up. When I was starting my career I was envious of those with more money that could do more things in life than me. This motivated me. Nothing wrong with that. Another example is deja vu. He brings it up, but never really explains it. And finally, I don't think he adequately address the premise of the entire course, that emotions are intelligent. I am not saying there is no such thing as emotional intelligence, but Solomon did not go deep enough into what this means. To sum up, this is an important topic that deserves more depth than presented here..

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16 people found this helpful

A Classic.

Reviewed: 10-19-20

This is a must read for anyone interested in science, and in particular, the philosophy of science. This book is so well regarded that there is little I can say to add. Also, the reader was excellent. I would also suggest reading/listening to this before other works on the philosophy of science, as they will refer to this work often, and you are better off having it under your belt before investigating other works.

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First 75% Really Great. Last Part Not as Much.

Reviewed: 10-04-20

This is the fourth book on the philosophy of science that I have read. I found Prof. Godfrey-Smith's review of the field to be excellent, probably the best I have read. However, in the latter part of the book, he delves into his own beliefs, and this is where I felt the book dropped. After covering the very interesting work in the philosophy of science, he concludes the book by presenting his own beliefs, which turn out to be that of naturalism and materialism. I felt there were too many "I" statements in the latter part. He also seems to have ignored the issues involved in the hard problem of consciousness in this final section. I still find Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions to stand alone in the philosophy of science. Godfrey-Smith covers this work, but doesn't accept Kuhn's view that revolutions in science lead to truly different worlds. Our world is what we think it is. But I would still recommend this book for great review of the philosophy of science. And the narrator was quite good as well,

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6 people found this helpful

Amazing History of 20th Century Jews

Reviewed: 09-13-20

I am a big fan of Ron Chernow, the author, and I had previously read all of his books, except this. So I gave it a shot. I found it really fascinating, although I must say that I found the family lineage confusing most of the time. Particularly in the beginning, There were so many cousins, etc. that I wondered if it would be more than just a cute family album. But as the German Warburgs got nearer to the rise of Hitler, the story becomes compelling. And the portraits of several of the Warburg bankers, both in the U.S. and in Germany are quite interesting. I am not Jewish, but I would recommend this highly to my Jewish friends for its unique understanding of German Jews prior to WWII. I wish more had been covered on just how they made their money over many decades. Chernow did a better job of this with The House of Morgan and Titan, the Life of John D. Rockefeller. Chernow covers Siegmund Warburg's business rise in post war London very well, but others not so well, in terms of their business dealings. But I guess there is only so much one can cover in a long book. I thought the book's ending could have had a better summary, and it seems Chernow's comments on he death of Siegmund was the true "ending." I remain a Chernow fan after reading this book. One last comment - I noticed some reviewers pan the narrator. I disagree. He was more than adequate.

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2 people found this helpful