Anonymous
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From Yao to Mao: 5000 Years of Chinese History
- By: Kenneth J. Hammond, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Kenneth J. Hammond
- Length: 18 hrs and 14 mins
- Original Recording
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,960
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,684
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,668
For most of its 5,000-year existence, China has been the largest, most populous, wealthiest, and mightiest nation on Earth. And for us as Westerners, it is essential to understand where China has been in order to anticipate its future. These 36 eye-opening lectures deliver a comprehensive political and historical overview of one of the most fascinating and complex countries in world history.You'll learn about the powerful dynasties that ruled China for centuries; the philosophical and religious foundations-particularly Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism-that have influenced every iteration of Chinese thought, and the larger-than-life personalities, from both inside and outside its borders, of those who have shaped China's history. As you listen to these lectures, you'll see how China's politics, economics, and art reflect the forces of its past.From the "Mandate of Heaven," a theory of social contract in place by 1500 B.C.E., 3,000 years before Western philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, to the development of agriculture and writing independent of outside influence to the technologically-advanced Han Dynasty during the time of the Roman Empire, this course takes you on a journey across ground that has been largely unexplored in the history courses most of us in the West have taken.In guiding you through the five millennia of China's history, Professor Hammond tells a fascinating story with an immense scope, a welcome reminder that China is no stranger to that stage and, indeed, has more often than not been the most extraordinary player on it.
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5 out of 5 stars
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"Only powerful people have liberty." Sun Yat-sen
- By Kristi R. on 07-25-15
Objective history devolves into CCP propaganda
Reviewed: 08-31-23
Professor Hammond presents an insightful and objective history of China, right up until the rise of the 20th century. His depiction of the nationalists, the communists, and especially Mao - and most egregiously the great leap forward and the cultural revolution - sounds like it was dictated to him by CCP historians. it is grotesque that professor Hammond effectively stomps on the graves of tens of millions of innocent victims as he soft pedals some of the most vicious evil crimes in human history. He describes the forced collectivization of farms as a successful project that was only stymied by inept bureaucrats! He describes the cultural revolution as being akin to the Solidarity movement in Poland!! Please, if you are not familiar with the history of communist China, look elsewhere for the horrific truth of what was done to the Chinese people by this evil man.
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1 person found this helpful
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A Brief History of Life in Victorian Britain
- By: Michael Paterson
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 106
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 90
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Story4 out of 5 stars 88
The Victorian era has dominated the popular imagination like no other period, but these myths and stories also give a very distorted view of the 19th century. The early Victorians were much stranger than we usually imagine, and their world would have felt very different from our own. It was only during the long reign of the Queen that a modern society emerged in unexpected ways.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Brief, But Insightful
- By Troy on 07-17-13
- A Brief History of Life in Victorian Britain
- By: Michael Paterson
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
inaccuracies and falsehoods
Reviewed: 02-05-21
Reactionary and fabulous- not a reliable source for those seeking a good understanding of the period.
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Ravenna
- Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe
- By: Judith Herrin
- Narrated by: Phyllida Nash
- Length: 19 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 96
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
At the end of the fourth century, as the power of Rome faded and Constantinople became the seat of empire, a new capital city was rising in the West. Here, in Ravenna on the coast of Italy, Arian Goths and Catholic Romans competed to produce an unrivaled concentration of buildings and astonishing mosaics. For three centuries, the city attracted scholars, lawyers, craftsmen, and religious luminaries, becoming a true cultural and political capital.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Worthy book, stingy production.
- By Stephen Chakwin on 12-13-20
- Ravenna
- Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe
- By: Judith Herrin
- Narrated by: Phyllida Nash
brilliant, beautiful, important
Reviewed: 02-01-21
Thank you, Dr. Herrin for this exemplary account of a much overlooked period. The grace of your writing style and the depth of your erudition are to be treasured.
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4 people found this helpful
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Marxism
- Philosophy and Economics
- By: Thomas Sowell
- Narrated by: Christopher Louis
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,853
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,602
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,586
Marxism is a term that many people freely use, but few seem to grasp its implications. Sowell's book is the antidote to this problem. He writes in a fluid and easy-to-follow manner, leading the listener through the Marxian scheme of ideas. Along the way, he shatters some existing interpretations of Marx-interpretations that have developed through repetition rather than through scholarship.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A must read, but a hard one!
- By Keyvan on 09-19-16
- Marxism
- Philosophy and Economics
- By: Thomas Sowell
- Narrated by: Christopher Louis
Top notch
Reviewed: 01-20-21
So fitting that the most lucid account of Maxian economics should be given by a staunch libertarian! While I disagree with the latter ideology as well, I must thank Sowell for dismantling the edifice of Marx by simply doing justice to the incoherent morass of abstruse ideas that comprise it. No rants necessary here. Should be required material for undergraduates.
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1 person found this helpful
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Time of the Magicians
- Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer, Heidegger, and the Decade that Reinvented Philosophy
- By: Wolfram Eilenberger, Shaun Whiteside
- Narrated by: Rhett Samuel Price
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 144
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 118
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 117
The year is 1919. The horror of the First World War is fresh for the protagonists of Time of the Magicians, each of whom finds himself at a crucial juncture. Benjamin is trying to flee his overbearing father and floundering in his academic career, living hand to mouth as a critic. Wittgenstein, by contrast, has dramatically decided to divest himself of the monumental fortune he stands to inherit, in search of spiritual clarity.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Narrator butchers foreign many language quotations
- By William G. Brown on 08-31-20
- Time of the Magicians
- Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer, Heidegger, and the Decade that Reinvented Philosophy
- By: Wolfram Eilenberger, Shaun Whiteside
- Narrated by: Rhett Samuel Price
Worst pronunciation ever
Reviewed: 12-11-20
Topics include fee-nomenology, Witty-Wittgenstein, the Why-mar Republic, and Heidegger's teacher, Husaboo. I feel bad ragging on the guy, but who narrates a book like this without learning basic pronunciations? It adds to a feeling that you're hearing a book read by someone who didn't even know any of these thinkers or concepts existed before sitting down to narrate.
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15 people found this helpful
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The Parasitic Mind
- How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense
- By: Gad Saad
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6,264
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,422
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,391
Serving as a powerful follow-up to Jordan Peterson’s book 12 Rules for Life, Dr. Gad Saad unpacks what is really happening in progressive safe zones, why we need to be paying more attention to these trends, and what we must do to stop the spread of dangerous thinking. A professor at Concordia University who has witnessed this troubling epidemic firsthand, Dr. Saad dissects a multitude of these concerning forces (corrupt thought patterns, belief systems, attitudes, etc.) that have given rise to a stifling political correctness in our society.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Some pros and some cons
- By chris boutte on 10-11-20
- The Parasitic Mind
- How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense
- By: Gad Saad
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
Thank you, King Honey Badger!
Reviewed: 11-28-20
I read through all the one-star reviews: a lot of invective and ad hominem attack - not to mention atrocious grammar and spelling errors - but not a single specific criticism grounded in the text. I'm a college professor and can attest to the climate of self-censorship that's come to reign over the past few years. It's stifling and deeply joyless, and it constitutes a war on reason and the pursuit of truth. But students ARE thus all the more hungry for serious inquiry, even if they no longer know what it looks like.
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51 people found this helpful
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The String Quartets of Beethoven
- By: Robert Greenberg, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Robert Greenberg
- Length: 18 hrs and 31 mins
- Original Recording
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 218
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 187
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Story5 out of 5 stars 183
In this musically rich 24-lecture series, Professor Greenberg guides you in a deep encounter with these majestic works of art, offering you the rare opportunity to grasp the musical riches and spiritual greatness of the quartets in a clear and accessible way. Each of these lectures is a rare and life-enriching opportunity to know the scope of Beethoven's genius, his most unforgettable music, and the profound humanity and beauty that live through them.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Another excellent series
- By Sean on 05-15-15
- The String Quartets of Beethoven
- By: Robert Greenberg, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Robert Greenberg
Sifting through jokes for insights
Reviewed: 10-21-20
Greenberg's jokey asides are well-known, but he lays them on particularly thickly here, though I cannot imagine what it is about the Quartets that inspires this choice. Were his jokes insightful or in any way pertinent to the music it would be one thing, but they invariably serve only to lower the tenor of his discourse and to distract. My theory is that this is the American mass cultural way of apologizing for loving high art; it is deemed necessary to throw in some irrelevant baseball analogies, some cringy puns, and slang quotations from uncle so-and-so to relieve us of the embarrassment of being high-brow. The reality, I hope, for most people listening this is that we don't care whether it's high- low-brow - this is profound, life-changing music produced by a singular genius, and we want to study it because we already love it and we wish to deepen our understanding and enjoyment. It is an expression of the divine, and muddying it with near-constant goofiness and demotic drivel is frankly insulting to both listener and composer.
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7 people found this helpful
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In the Dust of This Planet
- Horror of Philosophy, Volume 1
- By: Eugene Thacker
- Narrated by: Robert Slade
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 102
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 85
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Story4 out of 5 stars 83
The world is increasingly unthinkable, a world of planetary disasters, emerging pandemics, and the looming threat of extinction. In this book, Eugene Thacker suggests that we look to the genre of horror as offering a way of thinking about the unthinkable world. To confront this idea is to confront the limit of our ability to understand the world in which we live - a central motif of the horror genre. In the Dust of This Planet explores these relationships between philosophy and horror.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Interesting jumble, ending on a hopeful note
- By Jeffrey D on 01-03-21
- In the Dust of This Planet
- Horror of Philosophy, Volume 1
- By: Eugene Thacker
- Narrated by: Robert Slade
Please . . .
Reviewed: 08-31-20
. . . don't pronounce Goethe like it's a condition caused by an iodine deficiency.
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Too Much and Never Enough
- How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man
- By: Mary L. Trump PhD
- Narrated by: Mary L. Trump PhD
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34,107
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29,145
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28,966
In this revelatory, authoritative portrait of Donald J. Trump and the toxic family that made him, Mary L. Trump, a trained clinical psychologist and Donald’s only niece, shines a bright light on the dark history of their family in order to explain how her uncle became the man who now threatens the world’s health, economic security, and social fabric.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I almost feel sorry Donald Trump.
- By Deb on 07-15-20
- Too Much and Never Enough
- How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man
- By: Mary L. Trump PhD
- Narrated by: Mary L. Trump PhD
Vitally important
Reviewed: 08-05-20
Ms. Trump's account of her family's deep disturbance and sadism and its creation of the man who has done more to destroy civil society in one presidential term than I'd once thought possible is essential reading for anyone interested in unravelling the corruptions of our time. I salute her bravery.
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1 person found this helpful
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Europe in the High Middle Ages
- By: William Chester Jordan
- Narrated by: Leon Nixon
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 66
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4 out of 5 stars 61
It was an age of hope and possibility, of accomplishment and expansion. Europe's High Middle Ages spanned the Crusades, the building of Chartres Cathedral, Dante's Inferno, and Thomas Aquinas. Buoyant, confident, creative, the era seemed to be flowering into a true renaissance - until the disastrous 14th century rained catastrophe in the form of plagues, famine, and war. In Europe in the High Middle Ages, William Chester Jordan paints a vivid, teeming landscape that captures this lost age in all its glory and complexity.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Excellent history, incompetent narrator
- By Mr. Johnson on 02-01-20
- Europe in the High Middle Ages
- By: William Chester Jordan
- Narrated by: Leon Nixon
Excellent history, incompetent narrator
Reviewed: 02-01-20
I struggle to understand how a narrator could mispronounce so many words. From "ChrisTendom" to "scholatisism" to the Pope as "Vaicar" of Christ, it was a continuous mess. He has a good reading voice, but that doesn't matter when he calls mendicants "menckens" and so forth.
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12 people found this helpful