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36 Books That Changed the World
Certain works of literature, history, science, philosophy, political theory and religion offer powerful examples of how books can spark revolutions, birth great religions, spur scientific advancements, shape world economies, teach us new ways of thinking, and much more. And with this fascinating collection crafted from our extensive library of courses, you can now get a single course that represents 36 of our best lectures on literary works that changed the world.
In the company of an unparalleled roster of award-winning professors from a range of disciplines, you'll get fresh perspectives on books you only thought you knew - and intriguing introductions to some works you may not have known played key roles in getting us to where we are today. These include The Analects, the Liber Abaci, A Dictionary of the English Language, The Jungle, The Feminine Mystique, and more.
If you've taken another course with these professors before, get a reminder of just why you enjoyed them. And if you've never heard some of them before, who knows? You may just discover your next favorite Great Courses professor. More than that, you'll rediscover just how powerful the printed word can be. You'll also learn how the mark of a truly great book isn't that it just changes the lives of individual readers-but the lives of entire civilizations.
In the company of an unparalleled roster of award-winning professors from a range of disciplines, you'll get fresh perspectives on books you only thought you knew - and intriguing introductions to some works you may not have known played key roles in getting us to where we are today. These include The Analects, the Liber Abaci, A Dictionary of the English Language, The Jungle, The Feminine Mystique, and more.
If you've taken another course with these professors before, get a reminder of just why you enjoyed them. And if you've never heard some of them before, who knows? You may just discover your next favorite Great Courses professor. More than that, you'll rediscover just how powerful the printed word can be. You'll also learn how the mark of a truly great book isn't that it just changes the lives of individual readers-but the lives of entire civilizations.
Audible Audio
Published August 22, 2014
31 people are currently reading
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About the author
Andrew R. Wilson
9 books15 followersAndrew R. Wilson is the John A. van Beuren Chair of Asia-Pacific Studies. Professor Wilson has lectured at military colleges and civilian universities across the United States and around the world.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 81 reviews
June 25, 2023
This collection of 36 roughly 30-minute lectures has been plucked from other Great Courses, which leads to varied results. Some lectures focus on historical context, others on literary analysis, some are conclusions or introductions of a long course on the book, and one particularly badly chosen selection summarizes the 10th book of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, referring to previous lectures. This makes for a very uneven listening experience.
The collection is Western, with only The Holy Quaran, The Bhagavad Gita, The Analects and The Art of War representing other cultures. Only the Art of War is a non-religious book. If they were trying to represent major world religions, the omission of The Dhammapada is pretty glaring. They could have also included the Tao Te Ching, or Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, both of which would have been fascinating.
Many of the later choices are American. It is extremely neglectful to leave out Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which laid the foundations of modern physics, and instead to include The Jungle, which only led to the creation of one agency in one country. Similarly, we could have done with just one of Common Sense and The Federalist Papers, in favor of The Theory of Relativity , which changed our understanding of the universe. And if we are talking American history, how about including African American authors whose work has changed our conception of race, such as Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and The Souls of Black Folk?
Only three are written by women, which is not surprising, however what is surprising is the lack of female lecturers. I am quite sure there are many female historians and professors of literature to choose from. There are only two (whose lectures I greatly enjoyed), but what’s egregious is that men teach the two feminist works in the collection: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and The Feminine Mystique. I was cringing hearing both of those men describing these two women as mentally unstable, airing the dirty laundry in their relationships, and calling Betty Friedan “dominant” and “bossy” as a young child - terms never used for men; nor do we hear that men “could not get along” with other men. We never hear of Benjamin Franklin’s skirt chasing or Hamilton’s feuds, which is fine because they are not relevant - but neither are they relevant for the women. Predictably the male lecturers sweep feminism under the rug as no longer needed - unfortunately this could not be further from the truth, especially now.
My favorite lectures were complete classes on a book, focusing on historical context and the impact of the book. Highlights for me were Herodotus’s The Histories, where professor Elizabeth Vandiver gives a fascinating overview of the history of the Greeks of the era as well as explains why this work is the first of writing history as a genre, and how it has influenced all histories written after. Fibonacci’s Liber Abaci was illuminating simply because I didn’t know anything about how influential the change from roman numerals to Arabic ones was. And the lesson on Common Sense provided much needed context to a book I have read but could not make heads or tails of because I did not know the history surrounding it.
Overall it is educational, mostly interesting, but haphazard and best used as a tool to explore more the books or historical periods that capture one’s attention.
Books I have added to my to-read list:
The Republic
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
The Wealth of Nations
The collection is Western, with only The Holy Quaran, The Bhagavad Gita, The Analects and The Art of War representing other cultures. Only the Art of War is a non-religious book. If they were trying to represent major world religions, the omission of The Dhammapada is pretty glaring. They could have also included the Tao Te Ching, or Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, both of which would have been fascinating.
Many of the later choices are American. It is extremely neglectful to leave out Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which laid the foundations of modern physics, and instead to include The Jungle, which only led to the creation of one agency in one country. Similarly, we could have done with just one of Common Sense and The Federalist Papers, in favor of The Theory of Relativity , which changed our understanding of the universe. And if we are talking American history, how about including African American authors whose work has changed our conception of race, such as Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and The Souls of Black Folk?
Only three are written by women, which is not surprising, however what is surprising is the lack of female lecturers. I am quite sure there are many female historians and professors of literature to choose from. There are only two (whose lectures I greatly enjoyed), but what’s egregious is that men teach the two feminist works in the collection: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and The Feminine Mystique. I was cringing hearing both of those men describing these two women as mentally unstable, airing the dirty laundry in their relationships, and calling Betty Friedan “dominant” and “bossy” as a young child - terms never used for men; nor do we hear that men “could not get along” with other men. We never hear of Benjamin Franklin’s skirt chasing or Hamilton’s feuds, which is fine because they are not relevant - but neither are they relevant for the women. Predictably the male lecturers sweep feminism under the rug as no longer needed - unfortunately this could not be further from the truth, especially now.
My favorite lectures were complete classes on a book, focusing on historical context and the impact of the book. Highlights for me were Herodotus’s The Histories, where professor Elizabeth Vandiver gives a fascinating overview of the history of the Greeks of the era as well as explains why this work is the first of writing history as a genre, and how it has influenced all histories written after. Fibonacci’s Liber Abaci was illuminating simply because I didn’t know anything about how influential the change from roman numerals to Arabic ones was. And the lesson on Common Sense provided much needed context to a book I have read but could not make heads or tails of because I did not know the history surrounding it.
Overall it is educational, mostly interesting, but haphazard and best used as a tool to explore more the books or historical periods that capture one’s attention.
Books I have added to my to-read list:
The Republic
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
The Wealth of Nations
August 7, 2022
Štai toks turinys:
1. The Epic of Gilgamesh by Grant L. Voth
2. Homer's The Odyssey by John M. Bowers
3. The Bhagavad Gita by Grant Hardy
4. Sun Tsu 's The Art of War by Andrew R. Wilson
5. Confucius's The Analects by Mark W. Muesse
6. Herodotus' Histories by Elizabeth Vandiver
7. Plato's The Republic by Dennis Dalton
8. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics by Robert C. Bartlett
9. Ovid's Metamorphoses by Elizabeth Vandiver
10. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations by Luke Timothy Johnson
11. St. Augustine's Confessions by William R. Cook & Ronald B. Herzman
12. The Koran by Grant Hardy
13. Fibonacci's The Liber Abaci by Dorsey Armstrong
14. Dante's The Divine Comedy by John M. Bowers
15. Machiavelli's The Prince by William R. Cook
16. Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs by Lawrence M. Principe
17. Shakespeare's Hamlet by John M. Bowers
18. Cervantes' Don Quixote by Ronald B. Herzman
19. The King James Bible by John Sutherland
20. Francis Bacon's The New Organum by Alan Charles Kors
21. Denis Diderot's & Jean le Rond d'Alembert's The Encyclopedie by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
22. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language by Seth Lerer
23. Thomas Paine's Common Sense by Peter Conn
24. Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations by Jerry Z. Muller
25. Madison's, Hamilton's, & Jay's The Federalist Papers by Daniel N. Robinson
26. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Arnold Weinstein
27. Mary Wolstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by John Sutherland
28. Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America by William R. Cook
29. Marx's & Engel's The Communist Manifesto by Jerry Z. Muller
30. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin by Arnold Weinstein
31. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
32. John Stuart Mill's On Liberty by Jay L. Garfield
33. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle by Peter Conn
34. Martin Heidegger's Being and Time by Lawrence Cahoone
35. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Irwin Weil
36. Betty Friedan The Feminine Mystique by Patrick N. Allitt
Prisipažįstu - praskipinau ketvirtadalį.
1. The Epic of Gilgamesh by Grant L. Voth
2. Homer's The Odyssey by John M. Bowers
3. The Bhagavad Gita by Grant Hardy
4. Sun Tsu 's The Art of War by Andrew R. Wilson
5. Confucius's The Analects by Mark W. Muesse
6. Herodotus' Histories by Elizabeth Vandiver
7. Plato's The Republic by Dennis Dalton
8. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics by Robert C. Bartlett
9. Ovid's Metamorphoses by Elizabeth Vandiver
10. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations by Luke Timothy Johnson
11. St. Augustine's Confessions by William R. Cook & Ronald B. Herzman
12. The Koran by Grant Hardy
13. Fibonacci's The Liber Abaci by Dorsey Armstrong
14. Dante's The Divine Comedy by John M. Bowers
15. Machiavelli's The Prince by William R. Cook
16. Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs by Lawrence M. Principe
17. Shakespeare's Hamlet by John M. Bowers
18. Cervantes' Don Quixote by Ronald B. Herzman
19. The King James Bible by John Sutherland
20. Francis Bacon's The New Organum by Alan Charles Kors
21. Denis Diderot's & Jean le Rond d'Alembert's The Encyclopedie by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
22. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language by Seth Lerer
23. Thomas Paine's Common Sense by Peter Conn
24. Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations by Jerry Z. Muller
25. Madison's, Hamilton's, & Jay's The Federalist Papers by Daniel N. Robinson
26. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Arnold Weinstein
27. Mary Wolstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by John Sutherland
28. Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America by William R. Cook
29. Marx's & Engel's The Communist Manifesto by Jerry Z. Muller
30. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin by Arnold Weinstein
31. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
32. John Stuart Mill's On Liberty by Jay L. Garfield
33. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle by Peter Conn
34. Martin Heidegger's Being and Time by Lawrence Cahoone
35. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Irwin Weil
36. Betty Friedan The Feminine Mystique by Patrick N. Allitt
Prisipažįstu - praskipinau ketvirtadalį.
May 4, 2015
I have somewhat mixed emotions about this collection, which is more of an assortment. The selections are really good, until perhaps the ones in 20th century. I'm not entirely sure I agree with all the selections especially after the 25th book.
The presentation is fragmented - each book being presented by different academics, which kind of breaks the flow. In addition some of the selections are transplanted from other courses, so it is or can be a repetition if you are already familiar with it.
Some of the books are presented almost as a dialogue and discussion ( very similar to podcast), which is slightly disappointing in a collection qualified as book. Overall good content, wish though they had tailored to it the actual title.
Also, there is quite a bit of overlap with Prof Rufus' 'Books That Have Made History', so if you have done that already, I'd find very little merit in doing this.
The presentation is fragmented - each book being presented by different academics, which kind of breaks the flow. In addition some of the selections are transplanted from other courses, so it is or can be a repetition if you are already familiar with it.
Some of the books are presented almost as a dialogue and discussion ( very similar to podcast), which is slightly disappointing in a collection qualified as book. Overall good content, wish though they had tailored to it the actual title.
Also, there is quite a bit of overlap with Prof Rufus' 'Books That Have Made History', so if you have done that already, I'd find very little merit in doing this.
February 7, 2017
This was a sort of interesting collection of brief (30-60 minute) lectures about various "important" books through history. Some of the books were worthwhile, some weren't, but often the lectures were not very great even for great books. A fundamental problem is most of the individual lectures were pulled out of larger series about each specific work, so it was often quite disjointed.
Overall, I'd probably skip it, or at least be willing to skip through and only listen to the better lectures.
Overall, I'd probably skip it, or at least be willing to skip through and only listen to the better lectures.
September 19, 2019
An interesting assortment of book. The Great Courses do enjoyable work and this was an odd mis-mash of courses where books were selected. This meant that it was sometimes disjointed with the presenter interested in different aspects of the books (e.g. economics, philosophy, psychology), but it also meant that the main concepts within the book were dug into quite thoroughly.
Any list like this cause some disagreement, but I thought it was quite interesting with books (oddly US centric) included that I had never heard of. Enjoyable for a taster of different books.
Any list like this cause some disagreement, but I thought it was quite interesting with books (oddly US centric) included that I had never heard of. Enjoyable for a taster of different books.
October 3, 2019
The Great Courses went through their previously published lectures and culled about 30 minute lectures on 36 influential books.
Why I started this book: I was interested in seeing what books made the list.
Why I finished it: Culled from other lecture series this was very uneven. Some lecturers spent time talking about the plot, others focused on authors, historical context and fallout, and so much more. Fascinating but it would have been better to listen to one lecture a day or pick another way to break it up, so that it would be harder to compare the lectures and their vastly different styles and focus. I also would have loved to know the basis of selection. 36 is a random number and I was left wondering if that was just the number of lectures that they had at the time of publication.
Why I started this book: I was interested in seeing what books made the list.
Why I finished it: Culled from other lecture series this was very uneven. Some lecturers spent time talking about the plot, others focused on authors, historical context and fallout, and so much more. Fascinating but it would have been better to listen to one lecture a day or pick another way to break it up, so that it would be harder to compare the lectures and their vastly different styles and focus. I also would have loved to know the basis of selection. 36 is a random number and I was left wondering if that was just the number of lectures that they had at the time of publication.
September 26, 2020
I know this is an American course primarily aimed at an American audience, but I wonder if this really can be called '36 books that changed the world' if a good third of them is tied specifically to American history, politics and worldview.
January 24, 2018
This is a set of lectures about important books in history. The lectures vary based on the book impact and the lecturers' ability to captivate the audience. Many of the books are quite long and difficult to process (i.e. Koran, Bible, Gita...) . The impact of the books is what defines their greatness.
Here are my favorite lectures:
Bhagavad Gita
Common Sense
The Koran
A Dictionary of the English Language
The Jungle
The spoiler contains a complete list of books and lecturers:
Here are my favorite lectures:
Bhagavad Gita
Common Sense
The Koran
A Dictionary of the English Language
The Jungle
The spoiler contains a complete list of books and lecturers:
July 26, 2018
I tend to enjoy these selections from the Great Courses - gives me the chance to preview some classes I might not have considered otherwise.
March 25, 2017
I miss college. I will always miss college. I miss listening to professors share their passions about people of history, places in time, concepts, and books. this collection of short lectures were intriguing and I enjoyed each one. If I were to create my own list of 36 books it would vary somewhat, but that may be due to the fact that I know little to nothing about some of these. For me that made this set of lectures even more compelling. This is my first Great Courses book, but it will not be my last. I have already purchased two more.
I highly recommend that you listen to each lecture in a separate sitting -- giving yourself time to absorb it much the way that you would if you were in the classroom with the professor.
I highly recommend that you listen to each lecture in a separate sitting -- giving yourself time to absorb it much the way that you would if you were in the classroom with the professor.
April 20, 2022
I have read eight books on the list, and am intrigued by several others.
1. The Epic of Gilgamesh by Grant L. Voth (interested)
2. Homer's The Odyssey by John M. Bowers (read)
3. The Bhagavad Gita by Grant Hardy
4. Sun Tsu 's The Art of War by Andrew R. Wilson
5. Confucius's The Analects by Mark W. Muesse (interested)
6. Herodotus' Histories by Elizabeth Vandiver
7. Plato's The Republic by Dennis Dalton
8. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics by Robert C. Bartlett
9. Ovid's Metamorphoses by Elizabeth Vandiver
10. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations by Luke Timothy Johnson
11. St. Augustine's Confessions by William R. Cook & Ronald B. Herzman
12. The Koran by Grant Hardy
13. Fibonacci's The Liber Abaci by Dorsey Armstrong
14. Dante's The Divine Comedy by John M. Bowers (curious)
15. Machiavelli's The Prince by William R. Cook (read)
16. Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs by Lawrence M. Principe
17. Shakespeare's Hamlet by John M. Bowers (read)
18. Cervantes' Don Quixote by Ronald B. Herzman (interested)
19. The King James Bible by John Sutherland (read)
20. Francis Bacon's The New Organum by Alan Charles Kors
21. Denis Diderot's & Jean le Rond d'Alembert's The Encyclopedie by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
22. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language by Seth Lerer
23. Thomas Paine's Common Sense by Peter Conn (maybe)
24. Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations by Jerry Z. Muller
25. Madison's, Hamilton's, & Jay's The Federalist Papers by Daniel N. Robinson (read)
26. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Arnold Weinstein
27. Mary Wolstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by John Sutherland (tried to read)
28. Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America by William R. Cook
29. Marx's & Engel's The Communist Manifesto by Jerry Z. Muller
30. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin by Arnold Weinstein (read)
31. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
32. John Stuart Mill's On Liberty by Jay L. Garfield
33. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle by Peter Conn (read)
34. Martin Heidegger's Being and Time by Lawrence Cahoone
35. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Irwin Weil (interested)
36. Betty Friedan The Feminine Mystique by Patrick N. Allitt (curious)
1. The Epic of Gilgamesh by Grant L. Voth (interested)
2. Homer's The Odyssey by John M. Bowers (read)
3. The Bhagavad Gita by Grant Hardy
4. Sun Tsu 's The Art of War by Andrew R. Wilson
5. Confucius's The Analects by Mark W. Muesse (interested)
6. Herodotus' Histories by Elizabeth Vandiver
7. Plato's The Republic by Dennis Dalton
8. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics by Robert C. Bartlett
9. Ovid's Metamorphoses by Elizabeth Vandiver
10. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations by Luke Timothy Johnson
11. St. Augustine's Confessions by William R. Cook & Ronald B. Herzman
12. The Koran by Grant Hardy
13. Fibonacci's The Liber Abaci by Dorsey Armstrong
14. Dante's The Divine Comedy by John M. Bowers (curious)
15. Machiavelli's The Prince by William R. Cook (read)
16. Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs by Lawrence M. Principe
17. Shakespeare's Hamlet by John M. Bowers (read)
18. Cervantes' Don Quixote by Ronald B. Herzman (interested)
19. The King James Bible by John Sutherland (read)
20. Francis Bacon's The New Organum by Alan Charles Kors
21. Denis Diderot's & Jean le Rond d'Alembert's The Encyclopedie by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
22. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language by Seth Lerer
23. Thomas Paine's Common Sense by Peter Conn (maybe)
24. Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations by Jerry Z. Muller
25. Madison's, Hamilton's, & Jay's The Federalist Papers by Daniel N. Robinson (read)
26. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Arnold Weinstein
27. Mary Wolstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by John Sutherland (tried to read)
28. Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America by William R. Cook
29. Marx's & Engel's The Communist Manifesto by Jerry Z. Muller
30. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin by Arnold Weinstein (read)
31. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
32. John Stuart Mill's On Liberty by Jay L. Garfield
33. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle by Peter Conn (read)
34. Martin Heidegger's Being and Time by Lawrence Cahoone
35. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Irwin Weil (interested)
36. Betty Friedan The Feminine Mystique by Patrick N. Allitt (curious)
September 21, 2023
1. The Epic of Gilgamesh by Grant L. Voth
2. Homer's The Odyssey by John M. Bowers
3. The Bhagavad Gita by Grant Hardy
4. Sun Tsu 's The Art of War by Andrew R. Wilson
5. Confucius's The Analects by Mark W. Muesse
6. Herodotus' Histories by Elizabeth Vandiver
7. Plato's The Republic by Dennis Dalton
8. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics by Robert C. Bartlett
9. Ovid's Metamorphoses by Elizabeth Vandiver
10. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations by Luke Timothy Johnson
11. St. Augustine's Confessions by William R. Cook & Ronald
12. The Koran by Grant Hardy
13. Fibonacci's The Liber Abaci by Dorsey Armstrong
14. Dante's The Divine Comedy by John M. Bowers
15. Machiavelli's The Prince by William R. Cook
16. Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs by Lawrence M. Principe
17. Shakespeare's Hamlet by John M. Bowers
18. Cervantes' Don Quixote by Ronald B. Herman
19. The King James Bible by John Sutherland
20. Francis Bacon's The New Organum by Alan Charles Kors
21. Denis Diderot's & Jean le Rond d'Alembert's The Encyclopedie by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
22. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language by Seth Lerer
23. Thomas Paine's Common Sense by Peter Conn
24. Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations by Jerry Z. Muller
25. Madison's, Hamilton's, & Jay's The Federalist Papers by Daniel N. Robinson
26. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Arnold
Weinstein
27. Mary Wolstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by John Sutherland
28. Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America by William R.Cook
29. Marx's & Engel's The Communist Manifesto by Jerry Z.
Muller
30. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin by Arnold
Weinstein
31. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species b Veias Gabriel
32. John Stuart Mill's On Liberty by Jay L. Garfield
33. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle by Peter Conn
34. Martin Heidegger's Being and Time by Lawrence Cahoone
35. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Irwin Weil
36. Betty Friedan The Feminine Mystique by Patrick N. Allitt
These lectures are cherry picked from different courses so the course feels disjointed and each entry way too short. But it is a good sampler and I actually found out things I did not know. Good lectures to listen to while traveling!
2. Homer's The Odyssey by John M. Bowers
3. The Bhagavad Gita by Grant Hardy
4. Sun Tsu 's The Art of War by Andrew R. Wilson
5. Confucius's The Analects by Mark W. Muesse
6. Herodotus' Histories by Elizabeth Vandiver
7. Plato's The Republic by Dennis Dalton
8. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics by Robert C. Bartlett
9. Ovid's Metamorphoses by Elizabeth Vandiver
10. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations by Luke Timothy Johnson
11. St. Augustine's Confessions by William R. Cook & Ronald
12. The Koran by Grant Hardy
13. Fibonacci's The Liber Abaci by Dorsey Armstrong
14. Dante's The Divine Comedy by John M. Bowers
15. Machiavelli's The Prince by William R. Cook
16. Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs by Lawrence M. Principe
17. Shakespeare's Hamlet by John M. Bowers
18. Cervantes' Don Quixote by Ronald B. Herman
19. The King James Bible by John Sutherland
20. Francis Bacon's The New Organum by Alan Charles Kors
21. Denis Diderot's & Jean le Rond d'Alembert's The Encyclopedie by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
22. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language by Seth Lerer
23. Thomas Paine's Common Sense by Peter Conn
24. Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations by Jerry Z. Muller
25. Madison's, Hamilton's, & Jay's The Federalist Papers by Daniel N. Robinson
26. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Arnold
Weinstein
27. Mary Wolstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by John Sutherland
28. Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America by William R.Cook
29. Marx's & Engel's The Communist Manifesto by Jerry Z.
Muller
30. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin by Arnold
Weinstein
31. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species b Veias Gabriel
32. John Stuart Mill's On Liberty by Jay L. Garfield
33. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle by Peter Conn
34. Martin Heidegger's Being and Time by Lawrence Cahoone
35. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Irwin Weil
36. Betty Friedan The Feminine Mystique by Patrick N. Allitt
These lectures are cherry picked from different courses so the course feels disjointed and each entry way too short. But it is a good sampler and I actually found out things I did not know. Good lectures to listen to while traveling!
July 4, 2024
I did learn something new about each of these books, but the concept has more potential than the execution. Each of these lectures are pulled from different series, by different professors, and there is no unifying voice linking concepts between the lessons or tying anything together at the end. A couple are very rushed and I was left with the sense that the clock ran out before the professor could make all their points. Lessons are 31 minutes long and they are put in order of publication date. For at least two books, this was the first time I'd heard of them. Most contain a little biographical information about the author around the main topic of the book they wrote. I was very disappointed in the lesson on The Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft as it spent 5 minutes on the book, and 26 minutes on biography telling us what a turbulent life Mary Wollstonecraft led, which men she was attached to, and that her first daughter was illegitimate before finally dying of child bed fever. 3.25 stars
September 27, 2021
Amazing audiobook. I loved the fact that there were multiple lecturers. My only complaint is that the book is too short.
June 16, 2025
June 16 2025: I have listened pretty voraciously to the chapters covering books 10 through to 36 over the past month or so --solid 5 stars overall for getting an introduction (though surprisingly not superficial introduction) to some of the great works of fiction and non-fiction over a very large period of history and a somewhat geographically broad swath of influential writing. If I were hypercritical I'd point out that the Feminine Mystique could have been reviewed by a female professor, and some of the contemporary commentary (early 2000s) is distinctly out of date now (one lecturer pointed out that it would seem absurd now to think that home ownership were not possible for the majority of working class as it would have been in modern history, but alas we seem to have circled back on that one).
Date ____ no idea, but likely summer of 2020.
Not finished yet (on lecture no. 10), but this has, so far, been a great introduction to great works I have not read or know much about (though the Epic of Gilgemesh, Homer's The Odyssey, and one or two works by Ovid are covered in some of our children's readings for homeschool; and I've read Hamlet several times, as well as the Feminine Mystic albeit 27 years ago). I'm curious about no. 28 and no. 29 back to back.
So far I'm not enticed to read any of the original works (except perhaps the Epic of Gilgamesh, and The Art of War) but I expect by the end I'll be adding Don Quixote and re-reading Hamlet again!
Each 'chapter' is worth rating separately... I am not inclined to rate very much on whether it seems pulled from a fuller lecture (and therefore kind of fragmented) or whether the 36 books 'tie together well' (I don't think that's the intention), but on whether it seems like a reasonably insightful introduction for me --was it interesting and did I learn the jist of what the work is about. Did it pique my interest and did it make sense ''enough'' to have some understanding of the work?
Overall, I think this collection is a 'speed dating' version of some classic works. A quick first impression to entice you to learn more if you want, and to tuck it away in the ''at least now I know SOMETHING about what this classic is about'' category. Some of the lectures are very academic for someone who hasn't even heard of them before, but that means I get a taste for some of the challenges and controversies scholars have around figuring out context, and intent of the author.
*****1. The Epic of Gilgamesh by Grant L. Voth
*****2. Homer's The Odyssey by John M. Bowers
*****3. The Bhagavad Gita by Grant Hardy
****4. Sun Tsu 's The Art of War by Andrew R. Wilson
****5. Confucius's The Analects by Mark W. Muesse
****6. Herodotus' Histories by Elizabeth Vandiver
****7. Plato's The Republic by Dennis Dalton
***8. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics by Robert C. Bartlett (pleasure and hedonism philosophy)
****9. Ovid's Metamorphoses by Elizabeth Vandiver
***10. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations by Luke Timothy Johnson
11. St. Augustine's Confessions by William R. Cook & Ronald B. Herzman
****12. The Koran by Grant Hardy
*****13. Fibonacci's The Liber Abaci by Dorsey Armstrong
14. Dante's The Divine Comedy by John M. Bowers
15. Machiavelli's The Prince by William R. Cook
16. Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs by Lawrence M. Principe
***17. Shakespeare's Hamlet by John M. Bowers
***18. Cervantes' Don Quixote by Ronald B. Herzman
****19. The King James Bible by John Sutherland
20. Francis Bacon's The New Organum by Alan Charles Kors
*****21. Denis Diderot's & Jean le Rond d'Alembert's The Encyclopedie by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
*****22. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language by Seth Lerer
****23. Thomas Paine's Common Sense by Peter Conn
****24. Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations by Jerry Z. Muller
****25. Madison's, Hamilton's, & Jay's The Federalist Papers by Daniel N. Robinson
****26. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Arnold Weinstein
****27. Mary Wolstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by John Sutherland
*****28. Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America by William R. Cook
*****29. Marx's & Engel's The Communist Manifesto by Jerry Z. Muller
****30. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin by Arnold Weinstein
*****31. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
****32. John Stuart Mill's On Liberty by Jay L. Garfield
****33. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle by Peter Conn
****34. Martin Heidegger's Being and Time by Lawrence Cahoone
*****35. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Irwin Weil
*****36. Betty Friedan The Feminine Mystique by Patrick N. Allitt
Date ____ no idea, but likely summer of 2020.
Not finished yet (on lecture no. 10), but this has, so far, been a great introduction to great works I have not read or know much about (though the Epic of Gilgemesh, Homer's The Odyssey, and one or two works by Ovid are covered in some of our children's readings for homeschool; and I've read Hamlet several times, as well as the Feminine Mystic albeit 27 years ago). I'm curious about no. 28 and no. 29 back to back.
So far I'm not enticed to read any of the original works (except perhaps the Epic of Gilgamesh, and The Art of War) but I expect by the end I'll be adding Don Quixote and re-reading Hamlet again!
Each 'chapter' is worth rating separately... I am not inclined to rate very much on whether it seems pulled from a fuller lecture (and therefore kind of fragmented) or whether the 36 books 'tie together well' (I don't think that's the intention), but on whether it seems like a reasonably insightful introduction for me --was it interesting and did I learn the jist of what the work is about. Did it pique my interest and did it make sense ''enough'' to have some understanding of the work?
Overall, I think this collection is a 'speed dating' version of some classic works. A quick first impression to entice you to learn more if you want, and to tuck it away in the ''at least now I know SOMETHING about what this classic is about'' category. Some of the lectures are very academic for someone who hasn't even heard of them before, but that means I get a taste for some of the challenges and controversies scholars have around figuring out context, and intent of the author.
*****1. The Epic of Gilgamesh by Grant L. Voth
*****2. Homer's The Odyssey by John M. Bowers
*****3. The Bhagavad Gita by Grant Hardy
****4. Sun Tsu 's The Art of War by Andrew R. Wilson
****5. Confucius's The Analects by Mark W. Muesse
****6. Herodotus' Histories by Elizabeth Vandiver
****7. Plato's The Republic by Dennis Dalton
***8. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics by Robert C. Bartlett (pleasure and hedonism philosophy)
****9. Ovid's Metamorphoses by Elizabeth Vandiver
***10. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations by Luke Timothy Johnson
11. St. Augustine's Confessions by William R. Cook & Ronald B. Herzman
****12. The Koran by Grant Hardy
*****13. Fibonacci's The Liber Abaci by Dorsey Armstrong
14. Dante's The Divine Comedy by John M. Bowers
15. Machiavelli's The Prince by William R. Cook
16. Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs by Lawrence M. Principe
***17. Shakespeare's Hamlet by John M. Bowers
***18. Cervantes' Don Quixote by Ronald B. Herzman
****19. The King James Bible by John Sutherland
20. Francis Bacon's The New Organum by Alan Charles Kors
*****21. Denis Diderot's & Jean le Rond d'Alembert's The Encyclopedie by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
*****22. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language by Seth Lerer
****23. Thomas Paine's Common Sense by Peter Conn
****24. Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations by Jerry Z. Muller
****25. Madison's, Hamilton's, & Jay's The Federalist Papers by Daniel N. Robinson
****26. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Arnold Weinstein
****27. Mary Wolstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by John Sutherland
*****28. Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America by William R. Cook
*****29. Marx's & Engel's The Communist Manifesto by Jerry Z. Muller
****30. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin by Arnold Weinstein
*****31. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
****32. John Stuart Mill's On Liberty by Jay L. Garfield
****33. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle by Peter Conn
****34. Martin Heidegger's Being and Time by Lawrence Cahoone
*****35. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Irwin Weil
*****36. Betty Friedan The Feminine Mystique by Patrick N. Allitt
February 22, 2022
This collection is useful as a way to try out a bunch of different professors and topics, and to see which classes or instructors you want to invest more time in (or stay away from). At the moment it’s even free with an Audible membership, so certainly worth a try! It draws from a range of courses in history, literature, religion, and philosophy. It’s easy to skip around as the lectures don’t need to be completed in sequence, and perhaps it’s better if you do skip around - I personally found the later lectures to be more interesting than the earlier ones.
Here’s the full list:
1. The Epic of Gilgamesh by Grant L. Voth
2. Homer's The Odyssey by John M. Bowers
3. The Bhagavad Gita by Grant Hardy
4. Sun Tsu's The Art of War by Andrew R. Wilson
5. Confucius's The Analects by Mark W. Muesse
6. Herodotus' Histories by Elizabeth Vandiver
7. Plato's The Republic by Dennis Dalton
8. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics by Robert C. Bartlett
9. Ovid's Metamorphoses by Elizabeth Vandiver
10. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations by Luke Timothy Johnson
11. St. Augustine's Confessions by William R. Cook & Ronald B. Herzman
12. The Koran by Grant Hardy
13. Fibonacci's The Liber Abaci by Dorsey Armstrong
14. Dante's The Divine Comedy by John M. Bowers
15. Machiavelli's The Prince by William R. Cook
16. Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs by Lawrence M. Principe
17. Shakespeare's Hamlet by John M. Bowers
18. Cervantes' Don Quixote by Ronald B. Herzman
19. The King James Bible by John Sutherland
20. Francis Bacon's The New Organum by Alan Charles Kors
21. Denis Diderot's & Jean le Rond d'Alembert's The Encyclopedie by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
22. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language by Seth Lerer*
23. Thomas Paine's Common Sense by Peter Conn*
24. Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations by Jerry Z. Muller
25. Madison's, Hamilton's, & Jay's The Federalist Papers by Daniel N. Robinson
26. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Arnold Weinstein
27. Mary Wolstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by John Sutherland
28. Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America by William R. Cook
29. Marx & Engel's The Communist Manifesto by Jerry Z. Muller
30. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin by Arnold Weinstein
31. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
32. John Stuart Mill's On Liberty by Jay L. Garfield
33. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle by Peter Conn
34. Martin Heidegger's Being and Time by Lawrence Cahoone
35. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Irwin Weil
36. Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique by Patrick N. Allitt
Best Lectures:
1. Thomas Paine's Common Sense and Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, both by Peter Conn - This professor sounds like a television presenter, specifically that guy who hosted Unsolved Mysteries back in the ‘90s. Additionally Conn did an excellent job of making the case for why these works mattered! He discussed the writers, the social context in which they lived and wrote, and the larger impact of their works. I am excited to listen to his full course on American Bestsellers.
2. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language, by Seth Lerer - This lecture made me want to find a copy of Johnson’s dictionary and read it cover to cover. I now have all of Lerer’s courses on my wish list, and I’ve watched several of his One Day University lectures - they were very entertaining.
3. Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, by Patrick Allitt - I’ve listened to several of Allitt’s full-length courses and they were excellent! He’s a great speaker and first-rate historian, and all of his lectures easily kept my interest.
4. The King James Bible, by John Sutherland - Very knowledgeable and a good speaker; I’ve already downloaded his British Classics course.
5. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius - As with my other favourite lectures, here an excellent speaker combines a summary of the writer, his work and its historical context, the wider impact of the work, and its continuing relevance today.
6. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations by Luke Timothy Johnson - This lecture was good because Prof. Johnson kept bringing it back to why this work still matters today. I liked that he focused more on the practical side of philosophy, and in fact he even has course entitled Practical Philosophy: The Greco-Roman Moralists, which I now plan to listen to.
7. St. Augustine's Confessions by William R. Cook & Ronald B. Herzman - I hesitated a bit over adding this to my list of favourites, but I think it earns a spot because it achieves the same goal I mentioned above: These 2 professors keep bringing the lecture back to why this old text still matters today. Herzman and Cook co-teach a course on Dante’s Divine Comedy that has excellent reviews, and Prof. Cook also has full-length courses on Machiavelli’s The Prince and de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, all of which I’m now interested in.
Worst Lectures:
1. Everything from John Bowers - I had to return a course from this guy last year, and it was unpleasant to endure his 3 lectures here. He makes errors of fact and also presents his opinions and wild conjectures as facts. He’s the type of BS artist who gives literature profs a bad name. Then there’s the problem of his speaking skills: He says “uh” constantly, and he swallows loudly with lots of saliva that sounds incredibly gross.
2. Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time by Lawrence Cahoone - This is the type of professor who makes people think the study of philosophy is pointless and dull. He spends the whole lecture analyzing Heidegger’s made-up word “Dasein” and other obscure points, and makes no effort to explain why this person or his book is remotely relevant. As far as I can tell it’s not: Heidegger was an awful German Nazi who is now remembered mostly because his work had some influence on better-known French philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre.
*Special Notes*
There is only one lecture here from Dorsey Armstrong (Fibonacci's The Liber Abaci) and it is not great, but I encourage you to check out her medieval history courses! Armstrong has many series with The Great Courses, and the ones I’ve listened to were excellent.
Elizabeth Vandiver has two lectures here on Ovid and Herodotus that were okay, but her full-length course on Classical Mythology is superb!
TL;DR: The majority of these lectures are very high-quality, and it was difficult to narrow down a best of list. Give it a try if you want to sample more of The Great Courses professors and topics!
Here’s the full list:
1. The Epic of Gilgamesh by Grant L. Voth
2. Homer's The Odyssey by John M. Bowers
3. The Bhagavad Gita by Grant Hardy
4. Sun Tsu's The Art of War by Andrew R. Wilson
5. Confucius's The Analects by Mark W. Muesse
6. Herodotus' Histories by Elizabeth Vandiver
7. Plato's The Republic by Dennis Dalton
8. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics by Robert C. Bartlett
9. Ovid's Metamorphoses by Elizabeth Vandiver
10. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations by Luke Timothy Johnson
11. St. Augustine's Confessions by William R. Cook & Ronald B. Herzman
12. The Koran by Grant Hardy
13. Fibonacci's The Liber Abaci by Dorsey Armstrong
14. Dante's The Divine Comedy by John M. Bowers
15. Machiavelli's The Prince by William R. Cook
16. Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs by Lawrence M. Principe
17. Shakespeare's Hamlet by John M. Bowers
18. Cervantes' Don Quixote by Ronald B. Herzman
19. The King James Bible by John Sutherland
20. Francis Bacon's The New Organum by Alan Charles Kors
21. Denis Diderot's & Jean le Rond d'Alembert's The Encyclopedie by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
22. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language by Seth Lerer*
23. Thomas Paine's Common Sense by Peter Conn*
24. Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations by Jerry Z. Muller
25. Madison's, Hamilton's, & Jay's The Federalist Papers by Daniel N. Robinson
26. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Arnold Weinstein
27. Mary Wolstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by John Sutherland
28. Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America by William R. Cook
29. Marx & Engel's The Communist Manifesto by Jerry Z. Muller
30. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin by Arnold Weinstein
31. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
32. John Stuart Mill's On Liberty by Jay L. Garfield
33. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle by Peter Conn
34. Martin Heidegger's Being and Time by Lawrence Cahoone
35. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Irwin Weil
36. Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique by Patrick N. Allitt
Best Lectures:
1. Thomas Paine's Common Sense and Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, both by Peter Conn - This professor sounds like a television presenter, specifically that guy who hosted Unsolved Mysteries back in the ‘90s. Additionally Conn did an excellent job of making the case for why these works mattered! He discussed the writers, the social context in which they lived and wrote, and the larger impact of their works. I am excited to listen to his full course on American Bestsellers.
2. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language, by Seth Lerer - This lecture made me want to find a copy of Johnson’s dictionary and read it cover to cover. I now have all of Lerer’s courses on my wish list, and I’ve watched several of his One Day University lectures - they were very entertaining.
3. Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, by Patrick Allitt - I’ve listened to several of Allitt’s full-length courses and they were excellent! He’s a great speaker and first-rate historian, and all of his lectures easily kept my interest.
4. The King James Bible, by John Sutherland - Very knowledgeable and a good speaker; I’ve already downloaded his British Classics course.
5. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius - As with my other favourite lectures, here an excellent speaker combines a summary of the writer, his work and its historical context, the wider impact of the work, and its continuing relevance today.
6. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations by Luke Timothy Johnson - This lecture was good because Prof. Johnson kept bringing it back to why this work still matters today. I liked that he focused more on the practical side of philosophy, and in fact he even has course entitled Practical Philosophy: The Greco-Roman Moralists, which I now plan to listen to.
7. St. Augustine's Confessions by William R. Cook & Ronald B. Herzman - I hesitated a bit over adding this to my list of favourites, but I think it earns a spot because it achieves the same goal I mentioned above: These 2 professors keep bringing the lecture back to why this old text still matters today. Herzman and Cook co-teach a course on Dante’s Divine Comedy that has excellent reviews, and Prof. Cook also has full-length courses on Machiavelli’s The Prince and de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, all of which I’m now interested in.
Worst Lectures:
1. Everything from John Bowers - I had to return a course from this guy last year, and it was unpleasant to endure his 3 lectures here. He makes errors of fact and also presents his opinions and wild conjectures as facts. He’s the type of BS artist who gives literature profs a bad name. Then there’s the problem of his speaking skills: He says “uh” constantly, and he swallows loudly with lots of saliva that sounds incredibly gross.
2. Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time by Lawrence Cahoone - This is the type of professor who makes people think the study of philosophy is pointless and dull. He spends the whole lecture analyzing Heidegger’s made-up word “Dasein” and other obscure points, and makes no effort to explain why this person or his book is remotely relevant. As far as I can tell it’s not: Heidegger was an awful German Nazi who is now remembered mostly because his work had some influence on better-known French philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre.
*Special Notes*
There is only one lecture here from Dorsey Armstrong (Fibonacci's The Liber Abaci) and it is not great, but I encourage you to check out her medieval history courses! Armstrong has many series with The Great Courses, and the ones I’ve listened to were excellent.
Elizabeth Vandiver has two lectures here on Ovid and Herodotus that were okay, but her full-length course on Classical Mythology is superb!
TL;DR: The majority of these lectures are very high-quality, and it was difficult to narrow down a best of list. Give it a try if you want to sample more of The Great Courses professors and topics!
July 5, 2020
Great ideas may be executed poorly in many ways. For example, someone may wish to compile a list of what Tyler Cowen called "Quake books" (books that shake your foundation), but then decide only to search for lectures that already exist and simply aggregate them, so the result feels disjointed and often references other lectures that aren't part of the course.
This may also result in incomplete lectures. For example, Aristotle's section might cover just a very small portion of his Nicomachean Ethics, and the St. Augustine section may talk mainly about how St. Augustine influenced later thinkers, rather than his material per se.
Or the books might be compiled by someone who quite obviously is from the US, so the collection is very US-centric (or possibly just western-centric), and there might be just 5 non-western books (Gilgamesh, Art of War, Analects by Confucius, Baghavad Ghita and the Koran).
But many things can be done right as well, and it can introduce you to works you knew nothing about (and usually felt like you should). This happened for me with Tocqueville's Democracy in America and Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Or even to works you hadn't heard of before (Denis Diderot's & Jean le Rond d'Alembert's The Encyclopedie, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich)
This collection does all of the above. Overall it has more good points than bad, but I would have appreciated maybe one of the 4 Chinese classics, the Tale of Genji, or maybe Arabian Nights.
This may also result in incomplete lectures. For example, Aristotle's section might cover just a very small portion of his Nicomachean Ethics, and the St. Augustine section may talk mainly about how St. Augustine influenced later thinkers, rather than his material per se.
Or the books might be compiled by someone who quite obviously is from the US, so the collection is very US-centric (or possibly just western-centric), and there might be just 5 non-western books (Gilgamesh, Art of War, Analects by Confucius, Baghavad Ghita and the Koran).
But many things can be done right as well, and it can introduce you to works you knew nothing about (and usually felt like you should). This happened for me with Tocqueville's Democracy in America and Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Or even to works you hadn't heard of before (Denis Diderot's & Jean le Rond d'Alembert's The Encyclopedie, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich)
This collection does all of the above. Overall it has more good points than bad, but I would have appreciated maybe one of the 4 Chinese classics, the Tale of Genji, or maybe Arabian Nights.
February 13, 2020
I have mixed feelings about this audio compilation. It consists of 36 lectures from various university-level courses cobbled together. Most of the lectures are good, some very good indeed, but a few are just "meh" at best. The lectures are heavy on philosophy, sociology, and religion, and IMHO much too light on science and technology.
I bought this from Audible Audio. Unfortunately, they provide very spotty information and don't even give a list of the contents. For that you need to go to The Great Courses site where you can find a list of the lectures with short descriptions of each.
The introductions to some of the lectures are sketchy. For those I would really like some in depth discussion of how that particular work "changed the world".
There are some glaring omissions. For example, how could any such compilation not include Newton's The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy as it was one of the most important works in the history of the human race? (Admittedly the title isn't "The 36 Most Important Books that Changed the World" but still ...)
In spite of my caveats, the lectures were still worth my time (well, most of them anyway).
3.5 stars.
I bought this from Audible Audio. Unfortunately, they provide very spotty information and don't even give a list of the contents. For that you need to go to The Great Courses site where you can find a list of the lectures with short descriptions of each.
The introductions to some of the lectures are sketchy. For those I would really like some in depth discussion of how that particular work "changed the world".
There are some glaring omissions. For example, how could any such compilation not include Newton's The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy as it was one of the most important works in the history of the human race? (Admittedly the title isn't "The 36 Most Important Books that Changed the World" but still ...)
In spite of my caveats, the lectures were still worth my time (well, most of them anyway).
3.5 stars.
December 18, 2023
Interesting, but a bit to much of an American perspective for my liking.
In general I like the collection of the Great Courses... This one however had some issues. Books are not mainly a thing of western civilization. Written works have been from all over the world and though it can be debated whether some changed the world and which those would be. I did find it somewhat frustrating that the majority of books chosen was either largely from the western world, or specifically from the US. While tailoring a collection to its prospective audience is fine, but if your aim to represent the world, you should realize the world is bigger than a single country.
Having said that there were a number of lectures I enjoyed. The thing is this wasn't a college course, but instead a handful of lectures grabbed together of different courses, lecturers topics and academic disciplines. As such there wasn't any through-line between the lectures or even much cohesion in style or lecture method.
In all this isn't the best collection in the series. There was some good lectures, some duds and some weirdness in the mix of it all. 3 stars
In general I like the collection of the Great Courses... This one however had some issues. Books are not mainly a thing of western civilization. Written works have been from all over the world and though it can be debated whether some changed the world and which those would be. I did find it somewhat frustrating that the majority of books chosen was either largely from the western world, or specifically from the US. While tailoring a collection to its prospective audience is fine, but if your aim to represent the world, you should realize the world is bigger than a single country.
Having said that there were a number of lectures I enjoyed. The thing is this wasn't a college course, but instead a handful of lectures grabbed together of different courses, lecturers topics and academic disciplines. As such there wasn't any through-line between the lectures or even much cohesion in style or lecture method.
In all this isn't the best collection in the series. There was some good lectures, some duds and some weirdness in the mix of it all. 3 stars
July 12, 2019
As is typical with anthologies / compilations, it's a mixed bag. But some of the other reviews and criticisms are far too harsh. I found more than half of these lectures enjoyable or downright fantastic, and I consider this a nice sampler of various topics that I would probably not indulge in a full lecture series on by my own choice. The most noticeable issue in my mind is the variance in audio quality and speed, with lectures requiring 1.25x-2x speed to seem, well, reasonable. Otherwise, another smashing product from the Teaching Company.
December 10, 2020
Making your Canon
This is an american centered cannon. These lectures can be named: 36 books that changed the “american” world. Besides that, the lectures are good. They deal with important subjects and give the listener a broad perspective about our world, with emphasis in America’s world, and the efforts to copy with it. The lectures are selected from different courses, gave by different professors, so it lacks a systematic approach. Nevertheless, it is a good listening.
This is an american centered cannon. These lectures can be named: 36 books that changed the “american” world. Besides that, the lectures are good. They deal with important subjects and give the listener a broad perspective about our world, with emphasis in America’s world, and the efforts to copy with it. The lectures are selected from different courses, gave by different professors, so it lacks a systematic approach. Nevertheless, it is a good listening.
July 27, 2015
By far one of the most interesting Great Courses reads. A fairly well curated collection of the top 36 books that impacted both the world within which they were written and our modern world. The most interesting part is not the sparknotes of the book itself, but the socio-political context for each of the books. Fantastic!
April 15, 2024
I really enjoyed the chronological journey through wonderful books.
August 5, 2022
I'm giving this 4 Stars with the caveat that it's extremely hit-and-miss. Each chapter is narrated by a different professor and is taken from a different series of classes. Some are really educational and insightful. Some are dull, irrelevent, or even embarrassing. Here are the books that are discussed:
1. The Epic of Gilgamesh. This one was pretty good. I knew about The Epic already but the lecture added a lot of insight into how we know about the existence of this early book, and how it became a cross-cultural touchpoint that laid foundations for so many of the tropes we take for granted today. *****
2. The Odyssey. This lecture focused on what we can tell about the time and place of The Odyssey's creation, how the sea trade of the Athenian Empire filters into the storytelling. Great literary analysis, but a little slow to get going. ****
3. The Bhagavad Gita. This was a good introduction to the Gita, but it wasn't as compelling in its storytelling as the previous two. ***
4. The Art of War. This was narrated by a professor of strategy at a military school. It was interesting to get a strategist's view on a book of strategy, and he did a good job of setting the stage for when the book was written. But the narrator was sometimes hard to listen to. He had the aggressive, highly punctuated, condescending tone of a preacher. ****
5. The Analects. This one was just okay. It spent more time than it needed to on the history of the time period, without a lot of analysis of the text itself. Aside from this, I was surprised that the editor of this collection ignored the Tao Te Ching when a few questionably important Eurocentric works are included later. **
6. The Histories. This was a good analysis of how Herodotus' Histories set the stage for the very idea of history, and how it differed from what we consider history today. ****
7. The Republic. If you already know about Plato's Republic, then this doesn't add a lot of new insight. But if you don't know anything about The Republic, this is a good introduction. ***
8. The Nicomachean Ethics. This lecture was really boring and failed to impress on me how this book had any influence at all. 0 stars
9. The Metamorphoses. A fun history of The Metamorphoses and its author. The lecture could have done a better job of explaining how The Metamorphoses is influential outside of white art history & literature enthusiasts. ***
10. The Meditations. I was excited about this one, but the lecture actually made Marcus Aurelius sound a lot more boring and pompous than I'd imagined him to be, and failed to link his ethics to the wider arc of history. 0 stars
11. The Confessions. This one is co-taught by two theologians and, oh man, are they fan boys of Saint Augustine. They practically fall all over themselves and drool about how IMPORTANT Saint Augustine is to Christian theology and how FASCINATING DEEP and PROFOUND his relationship with the Christian God is. But they are sooo deep into the minutiae of Christian theology that it never occurs to them to address this to anyone who isn't a Christian theologian. If you're a Christian theologian, this is probably a great romp on the AMAZING Saint Augustine. If you're not a Christian theologian, it comes across as trite navel-gazing. 0 stars
12. The Qur'an. I tried to read the Qur'an once and couldn't get past the first book of it. This introduction did a good job of explaining why the Qur'an was written, and gave me some insight into why it didn't strike a chord with me. But the narrator failed to convince me that the text was as beautiful and deep as he kept insisting it was. ***
13. The Liber Abaci. Well here's a book I'd never heard of, but should have. This was a fascinating introduction to the book which introduced Arabic numerals to Europeans. I did wish the narrator had given more background to the history of Arabic numerals before Europeans stumbled across them. ****
14. The Divine Comedy. This lecture is a bit like the Confessions one in that the narrator is absolutely in love with Dante and thinks his catalog of white male writers is super-important and relevant. How important and relevant you think Dante's canon of writers is might depend on whether you're white or male or interested in historic European literature. However, the professor does a great job of placing the book in the wider context of Pope Innocent III and the Inquisition. **
15. The Prince. I'd read The Prince in college and didn't get much out of it. This lecture failed to inspire any more interest. 0 stars
16. On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs. The most interesting part of this lecture was the link established to formulating the Gregorian calendar. **
17. Hamlet. This lecture fails to show that Hamlet has worldwide significance, but it does tell an interesting story about Shakespeare's writing crossing the globe through colonialism. **
18. Don Quixote. This lecture failed to show that Don Quixote had worldwide influence. It also failed to make Don Quixote sound like a very interesting book. 0 stars
19. The King James Bible. This lecture is by one of those charmingly grand old Ivory Tower profs who probably actually does sit by a latticed window puffing a pipe in a tweed jacket and looking out over the autumn leaves in The Common. Although the King James Bible has undoubtedly had worldwide influence, you wouldn't know it from this lecture, because the world outside England doesn't exist to this professor. He trills on about the absolute beauty and poetry of the writing, which is fine if you're into the King James Bible. But if you're not into it already, this lecture will fail to interest you. And I've read the entire King James Bible front to back, so this isn't coming from someone who is just knee-jerk opposed to the Bible. 0 stars
20. The New Organon. Francis Bacon was important to the development of the Scientific Method, but this lecture fails to link this book to the wider development. 0 stars
21. The Encyclopédie. A good introduction to the first major encyclopedia, linking it to what came before and discussing its influence on future learning and wider culture. *****
22. A Dictionary of the English Language. Like the Bible lecture, this one is given by someone so deep into their love of the English language that any milestone in the development of English is significant to them. But the lecturer fails to make this early English dictionary relevant to culture & history outside the English-speaking world. 0 stars
23. Common Sense. A great introduction to Thomas Payne, his influence on the American Revolution, and the wider influence of his ideas in the revolutions that followed. *****
24. The Wealth of Nations. This lecture does a good job of introducing Adam Smith's economic theories, but it gets a bit bogged down in minutiae and it doesn't do a great job of linking those economic theories to worldwide economic development. ***
25. The Federalist Papers. A pretty good introduction to writings that were influential in the American Constitution, although there's not much link established to worldwide political development. **
26. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. It's a stretch to say this book "Changed the World", but I'll give it two stars as an entertaining introduction to Benjamin Franklin. **
27. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Why bother to include books by female authors if you're going to have them discussed by vaguely misogynistic male snobs? This professor is so condescending about Mary Wollstonecraft's life and work that you're left with the impression that her book barely had any influence on Europeans, let alone the whole world. I'll give it one star because the narrator can't help but make Wollstonecraft sound interesting, no matter how much he tries to write her off. *
28. Democracy in America. Although it might also be a stretch to say this book "Changed the World", the lecturer does do a good job of showing how Tocqueville's writing framed the idea of democracy in the particular setting of the early United States. ***
29. The Communist Manifesto. I almost had to laugh at this one. The lecture is taken from a series focusing on capitalism at a Catholic university. You know before you've heard a word of this lecture that it's going to tell you how communism was doomed from the get-go, and how Marx was a narrow, uninspired hack. And it does so, but it offers some entertaining insights along the way. ***
30. Uncle Tom's Cabin. This is a good introduction to this book, but be warned that it's mostly literary analysis of the novel's characters, not a discussion of the book's actual influence. ****
31. On the Origin of Species. A great introduction to Darwin, his book, and his influence. *****
32. On Liberty. I didn't know anything about this book before listening to this series, and the lecture did a great job of introducing the book, its concepts, and its influence. *****
33. The Jungle. Although the narrator has a condescending attitude toward Upton Sinclair, he can't fail to emphasize this book's tremendous impact. *****
34. Being & Time. If you want to convince someone that philosophy is self-important, navel-gazing, obtuse playing with words to no practical effect, then have them listen to this lecture. It takes concentration to follow the convuluted intellectual games presented in this book, only to arrive at a way of viewing the world that seems shaky at best. The narrator enthuses that an entire generation of French & German philosophy students were blown away by this book. One generation of French & German philosophy students do not make a book "That Changed the World". 0 stars
35. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Although the lecturer is more interested in analyzing the social culture of the Soviet gulags than he is in outlining how this book "Changed the World", he still explains how the book undermined the Soviet system. ****
36. The Feminine Mystique. Wow. I can only imagine that the professor who agreed to teach this course did so in bad faith. He's the equivalent of an internet troll. He really, really dislikes Betty Friedan, and he considers Second Wave Feminism to be a frivolous movement that only accomplished things through stagey media stunts. His voice drips with snide condescension, and he refers to Friedan as a "radical" in almost every other sentence. I noticed one sentence where he used the word "radical" in reference to her twice. If he'd had a broad American accent instead of an English one, and if he'd spoken about two decibels louder, you could have convinced me it was Rush Limbaugh doing the lecture. This was a really embarrassing and sour note for this series to end on, and it once again made me wonder why they included books by female authors only to bash those books as irrelevant and silly. 0 stars
1. The Epic of Gilgamesh. This one was pretty good. I knew about The Epic already but the lecture added a lot of insight into how we know about the existence of this early book, and how it became a cross-cultural touchpoint that laid foundations for so many of the tropes we take for granted today. *****
2. The Odyssey. This lecture focused on what we can tell about the time and place of The Odyssey's creation, how the sea trade of the Athenian Empire filters into the storytelling. Great literary analysis, but a little slow to get going. ****
3. The Bhagavad Gita. This was a good introduction to the Gita, but it wasn't as compelling in its storytelling as the previous two. ***
4. The Art of War. This was narrated by a professor of strategy at a military school. It was interesting to get a strategist's view on a book of strategy, and he did a good job of setting the stage for when the book was written. But the narrator was sometimes hard to listen to. He had the aggressive, highly punctuated, condescending tone of a preacher. ****
5. The Analects. This one was just okay. It spent more time than it needed to on the history of the time period, without a lot of analysis of the text itself. Aside from this, I was surprised that the editor of this collection ignored the Tao Te Ching when a few questionably important Eurocentric works are included later. **
6. The Histories. This was a good analysis of how Herodotus' Histories set the stage for the very idea of history, and how it differed from what we consider history today. ****
7. The Republic. If you already know about Plato's Republic, then this doesn't add a lot of new insight. But if you don't know anything about The Republic, this is a good introduction. ***
8. The Nicomachean Ethics. This lecture was really boring and failed to impress on me how this book had any influence at all. 0 stars
9. The Metamorphoses. A fun history of The Metamorphoses and its author. The lecture could have done a better job of explaining how The Metamorphoses is influential outside of white art history & literature enthusiasts. ***
10. The Meditations. I was excited about this one, but the lecture actually made Marcus Aurelius sound a lot more boring and pompous than I'd imagined him to be, and failed to link his ethics to the wider arc of history. 0 stars
11. The Confessions. This one is co-taught by two theologians and, oh man, are they fan boys of Saint Augustine. They practically fall all over themselves and drool about how IMPORTANT Saint Augustine is to Christian theology and how FASCINATING DEEP and PROFOUND his relationship with the Christian God is. But they are sooo deep into the minutiae of Christian theology that it never occurs to them to address this to anyone who isn't a Christian theologian. If you're a Christian theologian, this is probably a great romp on the AMAZING Saint Augustine. If you're not a Christian theologian, it comes across as trite navel-gazing. 0 stars
12. The Qur'an. I tried to read the Qur'an once and couldn't get past the first book of it. This introduction did a good job of explaining why the Qur'an was written, and gave me some insight into why it didn't strike a chord with me. But the narrator failed to convince me that the text was as beautiful and deep as he kept insisting it was. ***
13. The Liber Abaci. Well here's a book I'd never heard of, but should have. This was a fascinating introduction to the book which introduced Arabic numerals to Europeans. I did wish the narrator had given more background to the history of Arabic numerals before Europeans stumbled across them. ****
14. The Divine Comedy. This lecture is a bit like the Confessions one in that the narrator is absolutely in love with Dante and thinks his catalog of white male writers is super-important and relevant. How important and relevant you think Dante's canon of writers is might depend on whether you're white or male or interested in historic European literature. However, the professor does a great job of placing the book in the wider context of Pope Innocent III and the Inquisition. **
15. The Prince. I'd read The Prince in college and didn't get much out of it. This lecture failed to inspire any more interest. 0 stars
16. On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs. The most interesting part of this lecture was the link established to formulating the Gregorian calendar. **
17. Hamlet. This lecture fails to show that Hamlet has worldwide significance, but it does tell an interesting story about Shakespeare's writing crossing the globe through colonialism. **
18. Don Quixote. This lecture failed to show that Don Quixote had worldwide influence. It also failed to make Don Quixote sound like a very interesting book. 0 stars
19. The King James Bible. This lecture is by one of those charmingly grand old Ivory Tower profs who probably actually does sit by a latticed window puffing a pipe in a tweed jacket and looking out over the autumn leaves in The Common. Although the King James Bible has undoubtedly had worldwide influence, you wouldn't know it from this lecture, because the world outside England doesn't exist to this professor. He trills on about the absolute beauty and poetry of the writing, which is fine if you're into the King James Bible. But if you're not into it already, this lecture will fail to interest you. And I've read the entire King James Bible front to back, so this isn't coming from someone who is just knee-jerk opposed to the Bible. 0 stars
20. The New Organon. Francis Bacon was important to the development of the Scientific Method, but this lecture fails to link this book to the wider development. 0 stars
21. The Encyclopédie. A good introduction to the first major encyclopedia, linking it to what came before and discussing its influence on future learning and wider culture. *****
22. A Dictionary of the English Language. Like the Bible lecture, this one is given by someone so deep into their love of the English language that any milestone in the development of English is significant to them. But the lecturer fails to make this early English dictionary relevant to culture & history outside the English-speaking world. 0 stars
23. Common Sense. A great introduction to Thomas Payne, his influence on the American Revolution, and the wider influence of his ideas in the revolutions that followed. *****
24. The Wealth of Nations. This lecture does a good job of introducing Adam Smith's economic theories, but it gets a bit bogged down in minutiae and it doesn't do a great job of linking those economic theories to worldwide economic development. ***
25. The Federalist Papers. A pretty good introduction to writings that were influential in the American Constitution, although there's not much link established to worldwide political development. **
26. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. It's a stretch to say this book "Changed the World", but I'll give it two stars as an entertaining introduction to Benjamin Franklin. **
27. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Why bother to include books by female authors if you're going to have them discussed by vaguely misogynistic male snobs? This professor is so condescending about Mary Wollstonecraft's life and work that you're left with the impression that her book barely had any influence on Europeans, let alone the whole world. I'll give it one star because the narrator can't help but make Wollstonecraft sound interesting, no matter how much he tries to write her off. *
28. Democracy in America. Although it might also be a stretch to say this book "Changed the World", the lecturer does do a good job of showing how Tocqueville's writing framed the idea of democracy in the particular setting of the early United States. ***
29. The Communist Manifesto. I almost had to laugh at this one. The lecture is taken from a series focusing on capitalism at a Catholic university. You know before you've heard a word of this lecture that it's going to tell you how communism was doomed from the get-go, and how Marx was a narrow, uninspired hack. And it does so, but it offers some entertaining insights along the way. ***
30. Uncle Tom's Cabin. This is a good introduction to this book, but be warned that it's mostly literary analysis of the novel's characters, not a discussion of the book's actual influence. ****
31. On the Origin of Species. A great introduction to Darwin, his book, and his influence. *****
32. On Liberty. I didn't know anything about this book before listening to this series, and the lecture did a great job of introducing the book, its concepts, and its influence. *****
33. The Jungle. Although the narrator has a condescending attitude toward Upton Sinclair, he can't fail to emphasize this book's tremendous impact. *****
34. Being & Time. If you want to convince someone that philosophy is self-important, navel-gazing, obtuse playing with words to no practical effect, then have them listen to this lecture. It takes concentration to follow the convuluted intellectual games presented in this book, only to arrive at a way of viewing the world that seems shaky at best. The narrator enthuses that an entire generation of French & German philosophy students were blown away by this book. One generation of French & German philosophy students do not make a book "That Changed the World". 0 stars
35. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Although the lecturer is more interested in analyzing the social culture of the Soviet gulags than he is in outlining how this book "Changed the World", he still explains how the book undermined the Soviet system. ****
36. The Feminine Mystique. Wow. I can only imagine that the professor who agreed to teach this course did so in bad faith. He's the equivalent of an internet troll. He really, really dislikes Betty Friedan, and he considers Second Wave Feminism to be a frivolous movement that only accomplished things through stagey media stunts. His voice drips with snide condescension, and he refers to Friedan as a "radical" in almost every other sentence. I noticed one sentence where he used the word "radical" in reference to her twice. If he'd had a broad American accent instead of an English one, and if he'd spoken about two decibels louder, you could have convinced me it was Rush Limbaugh doing the lecture. This was a really embarrassing and sour note for this series to end on, and it once again made me wonder why they included books by female authors only to bash those books as irrelevant and silly. 0 stars
September 15, 2021
What are the important books in history that has changed the world? In these lectures produced The Teaching Company various experts of various literatures presents to us important literary works that literally changed the world. A total of 36 books are surveyed and these individual lectures comes from other lecture series produced by the The Teaching Company. For instance the lecture on Sun Tzu’s Art of War is from The Masters at War: History’s greatest Strategic Thinkers series delivered by a professor of Strategy and Policy at US Naval War college. The Republic by Plato is lectured by a political science professor for the series Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition. I admit listening to these lectures on 36 books that changed the world makes me want to listen to more amazing lecture series produced by The Teaching Company.
The varieties of books discussed is incredible. There is a good combination of East and West. There are ancient books, Medieval, and also modern works. There are also various genres/literary forms that are surveyed. For instance there are philosophical works like that of Aristotle and modern philosopher Martin Heidegger. There are mythical and religious works both from the East and West such as religious Scriptures. The Bible, the Koran and Bhagavad Gita are discussed. There are also other religious literature such as Augustine’s The Confessions and Dante’s Divine Comedy. There are poitcal masterpiece like The Prince by Machiavelli and Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. There are also fictional works like Don Quixote which is the world’s first noval and Shakesphere’s The Hamlet. There are also scientific books and even Encyclopedia and the dictionary that is mentioned!
I love how the lectures for the various works go over things like background, the political and economic setting of the author writing these literary masterpiece. Of course there is also the discussion about the works themselves. I felt listening this allow me to understand and appreciate some of these classics. I must say that not every classics are works that I think is something I agree with but listening to these lectures allow one to understand them and that’s important. Nevertheless bring one’s critical thinking skill and discernment while listening to these lectures.
Some of the things I learned are the following. In talking about the Federalist Paper the lecturer pointed out English conservative Edmund Burke stated that British book sellers sell more books to the Colonies than in England; that show the literary interests these colonists have including political theory and the Classics. Also I love the lecture on Augustine pointed out how Augustine’s Confession is unlike other old classics in that it was never lost but it was always in circulation. I also thought it was cool to learn that it is often imitated by other literary works. Augustine’s Confessions shows the importance of order of reflecting on life and not just living just to live. The discussion about Samuel Johnson work on creating the Dictionary. I thought it was interesting that Johnson saw his project to create a dictionary was seen in colonial/imperial terms of him being a Caesar of words. That’s quite relevant with the time I was listening it as there are at this contemporary time discussion about what words mean and the Left redefining things which shows how powerful it is to have the power to define things and how it shapes the way the world is view. If I can put it in my own words, if the pen is mightier than the sword then the dictionary is mightier than Delta Force. There are so many things I learn from this series and that’s all to say I recommend this highly.
The varieties of books discussed is incredible. There is a good combination of East and West. There are ancient books, Medieval, and also modern works. There are also various genres/literary forms that are surveyed. For instance there are philosophical works like that of Aristotle and modern philosopher Martin Heidegger. There are mythical and religious works both from the East and West such as religious Scriptures. The Bible, the Koran and Bhagavad Gita are discussed. There are also other religious literature such as Augustine’s The Confessions and Dante’s Divine Comedy. There are poitcal masterpiece like The Prince by Machiavelli and Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. There are also fictional works like Don Quixote which is the world’s first noval and Shakesphere’s The Hamlet. There are also scientific books and even Encyclopedia and the dictionary that is mentioned!
I love how the lectures for the various works go over things like background, the political and economic setting of the author writing these literary masterpiece. Of course there is also the discussion about the works themselves. I felt listening this allow me to understand and appreciate some of these classics. I must say that not every classics are works that I think is something I agree with but listening to these lectures allow one to understand them and that’s important. Nevertheless bring one’s critical thinking skill and discernment while listening to these lectures.
Some of the things I learned are the following. In talking about the Federalist Paper the lecturer pointed out English conservative Edmund Burke stated that British book sellers sell more books to the Colonies than in England; that show the literary interests these colonists have including political theory and the Classics. Also I love the lecture on Augustine pointed out how Augustine’s Confession is unlike other old classics in that it was never lost but it was always in circulation. I also thought it was cool to learn that it is often imitated by other literary works. Augustine’s Confessions shows the importance of order of reflecting on life and not just living just to live. The discussion about Samuel Johnson work on creating the Dictionary. I thought it was interesting that Johnson saw his project to create a dictionary was seen in colonial/imperial terms of him being a Caesar of words. That’s quite relevant with the time I was listening it as there are at this contemporary time discussion about what words mean and the Left redefining things which shows how powerful it is to have the power to define things and how it shapes the way the world is view. If I can put it in my own words, if the pen is mightier than the sword then the dictionary is mightier than Delta Force. There are so many things I learn from this series and that’s all to say I recommend this highly.
September 11, 2020
This was a collection of 36 30-minute lectures on books that had a major impact on history. I'm not sure how they decided to pick these books and leave others out, but here's the list:
1. The Epic of Gilgamesh by Grant L. Voth
2. Homer's The Odyssey by John M. Bowers
3. The Bhagavad Gita by Grant Hardy
4. Sun Tsu 's The Art of War by Andrew R. Wilson
5. Confucius's The Analects by Mark W. Muesse
6. Herodotus' Histories by Elizabeth Vandiver
7. Plato's The Republic by Dennis Dalton
8. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics by Robert C. Bartlett
9. Ovid's Metamorphoses by Elizabeth Vandiver
10. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations by Luke Timothy Johnson
11. St. Augustine's Confessions by William R. Cook & Ronald B. Herzman
12. The Koran by Grant Hardy
13. Fibonacci's The Liber Abaci by Dorsey Armstrong
14. Dante's The Divine Comedy by John M. Bowers
15. Machiavelli's The Prince by William R. Cook
16. Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs by Lawrence M. Principe
17. Shakespeare's Hamlet by John M. Bowers
18. Cervantes' Don Quixote by Ronald B. Herzman
19. The King James Bible by John Sutherland
20. Francis Bacon's The New Organum by Alan Charles Kors
21. Denis Diderot's & Jean le Rond d'Alembert's The Encyclopedie by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
22. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language by Seth Lerer
23. Thomas Paine's Common Sense by Peter Conn
24. Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations by Jerry Z. Muller
25. Madison's, Hamilton's, & Jay's The Federalist Papers by Daniel N. Robinson
26. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Arnold Weinstein
27. Mary Wolstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by John Sutherland
28. Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America by William R. Cook
29. Marx's & Engel's The Communist Manifesto by Jerry Z. Muller
30. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin by Arnold Weinstein
31. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
32. John Stuart Mill's On Liberty by Jay L. Garfield
33. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle by Peter Conn
34. Martin Heidegger's Being and Time by Lawrence Cahoone
35. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Irwin Weil
36. Betty Friedan The Feminine Mystique by Patrick N. Allitt
Overall, I liked the course, although each lecture was presented by a different person which seemed to not make it flow as well as some other courses.
1. The Epic of Gilgamesh by Grant L. Voth
2. Homer's The Odyssey by John M. Bowers
3. The Bhagavad Gita by Grant Hardy
4. Sun Tsu 's The Art of War by Andrew R. Wilson
5. Confucius's The Analects by Mark W. Muesse
6. Herodotus' Histories by Elizabeth Vandiver
7. Plato's The Republic by Dennis Dalton
8. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics by Robert C. Bartlett
9. Ovid's Metamorphoses by Elizabeth Vandiver
10. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations by Luke Timothy Johnson
11. St. Augustine's Confessions by William R. Cook & Ronald B. Herzman
12. The Koran by Grant Hardy
13. Fibonacci's The Liber Abaci by Dorsey Armstrong
14. Dante's The Divine Comedy by John M. Bowers
15. Machiavelli's The Prince by William R. Cook
16. Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs by Lawrence M. Principe
17. Shakespeare's Hamlet by John M. Bowers
18. Cervantes' Don Quixote by Ronald B. Herzman
19. The King James Bible by John Sutherland
20. Francis Bacon's The New Organum by Alan Charles Kors
21. Denis Diderot's & Jean le Rond d'Alembert's The Encyclopedie by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
22. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language by Seth Lerer
23. Thomas Paine's Common Sense by Peter Conn
24. Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations by Jerry Z. Muller
25. Madison's, Hamilton's, & Jay's The Federalist Papers by Daniel N. Robinson
26. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Arnold Weinstein
27. Mary Wolstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by John Sutherland
28. Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America by William R. Cook
29. Marx's & Engel's The Communist Manifesto by Jerry Z. Muller
30. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin by Arnold Weinstein
31. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
32. John Stuart Mill's On Liberty by Jay L. Garfield
33. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle by Peter Conn
34. Martin Heidegger's Being and Time by Lawrence Cahoone
35. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Irwin Weil
36. Betty Friedan The Feminine Mystique by Patrick N. Allitt
Overall, I liked the course, although each lecture was presented by a different person which seemed to not make it flow as well as some other courses.
April 8, 2022
Considering of 36 lecturers pulled from other Great Courses, this series can feel a bit disjoint. While many of the earlier chapters do discuss the impact the books had, many of the later ones do not.
My suggestion is listen to the chapters pertaining to books you are curious about and skip the rest. The first 30 seconds of each section give you a fair overview of that lecture, enough to decide if it piques your interest.
Since the chapters are not titled in Audible I will list them here:
1) The Epic of Gilgamesh
2) The Odyssey
3) The Bhagavad Gita
4) The Art of War
5) The Analects
6) The Histories
7) The Republic
8) The Nicomachean Ethics
9) The Metamorphoses (by Ovid)
10) The Meditations
11) The Confessions (St. Augustine)
12) The Quran
13) The Liber Abaci
14) The Divine Comedy
15) The Prince
16) On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs (Copernicus)
17) Hamlet
18) Don Quixote
19) The King James Bible
20) The New Organon
21) The Encyclopédie
22) A Dictionary of the English Language (Samuel Johnson)
23) Common Sense
24) The Wealth of Nations
25) The Federalist Papers
26) The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
27) A Vindication of the Rights of Women
28) Democracy in America
29) The Communist Manifesto
30) Uncle Tom’s Cabin
31) On the Origin of Species
32) On Liberty
33) The Jungle
34) Being and Time
35) One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
36) The Feminine Mystique
My suggestion is listen to the chapters pertaining to books you are curious about and skip the rest. The first 30 seconds of each section give you a fair overview of that lecture, enough to decide if it piques your interest.
Since the chapters are not titled in Audible I will list them here:
1) The Epic of Gilgamesh
2) The Odyssey
3) The Bhagavad Gita
4) The Art of War
5) The Analects
6) The Histories
7) The Republic
8) The Nicomachean Ethics
9) The Metamorphoses (by Ovid)
10) The Meditations
11) The Confessions (St. Augustine)
12) The Quran
13) The Liber Abaci
14) The Divine Comedy
15) The Prince
16) On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs (Copernicus)
17) Hamlet
18) Don Quixote
19) The King James Bible
20) The New Organon
21) The Encyclopédie
22) A Dictionary of the English Language (Samuel Johnson)
23) Common Sense
24) The Wealth of Nations
25) The Federalist Papers
26) The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
27) A Vindication of the Rights of Women
28) Democracy in America
29) The Communist Manifesto
30) Uncle Tom’s Cabin
31) On the Origin of Species
32) On Liberty
33) The Jungle
34) Being and Time
35) One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
36) The Feminine Mystique
October 19, 2022
The Teaching Company did something a little tricky with this course and I commend them for it. They culled over preexisting materials, pulled out 36 classes from various courses that cover crucial texts from history, pulled them together, and created a new course out of them. For the most part, it works beautifully. That being said, I would say that some of these books haven’t stood the test of time, regardless of what influence they might have had in their own settings.
With each lesson being taught by a different professor, it’s easy to figure out that all of The Great Courses teachers are deeply engaging and excellent educators. I thoroughly enjoy the format and approach taken with this course, jumping through history to tackle various works as they impacted history. My only complain is that some of these texts seem negligible compared to other books that could have been chosen. Maybe these books had a great impact, but their are dozens of other works more classic than Heidegger or The Feminine Mystique that I would have rather heard about in the context of their impact and influence.
With each lesson being taught by a different professor, it’s easy to figure out that all of The Great Courses teachers are deeply engaging and excellent educators. I thoroughly enjoy the format and approach taken with this course, jumping through history to tackle various works as they impacted history. My only complain is that some of these texts seem negligible compared to other books that could have been chosen. Maybe these books had a great impact, but their are dozens of other works more classic than Heidegger or The Feminine Mystique that I would have rather heard about in the context of their impact and influence.
May 5, 2022
Cliff's notes 30 minute summaries of 36 books that had a large impact on the world. Books vary from the Koran, the King James Bible to the Origin of Species to the Feminine Mystique. Some of the books were a bit dry, i think I will never, ever read Heidegger's "On Being and Time" and Aristotle's "Nichomichean Ethics". But others were absolutely fascinating: "The Epic of Gilgamesh", Sun Tzu's "The Art of War", and Thomas Paine's "Common Sense".
Given I work with numbers every day, my favorite book was Leonardo of Pisa's "Liber Abaci" or the book of calculation. The author posthumously known as Fibonacci popularized the use of the Arabic numeral calculation system while Medieval Europe was still using Roman Numerals. Imagine trying to do accounting or high level math using Roman Numerals? Fibonacci not only dealt with the theory but he published dozens of every day merchant transactions that could be improved by converting to Arabic numerals. This book single handedly transformed how commerce was transacted and how Europeans viewed mathematics in less than a generation!
Given I work with numbers every day, my favorite book was Leonardo of Pisa's "Liber Abaci" or the book of calculation. The author posthumously known as Fibonacci popularized the use of the Arabic numeral calculation system while Medieval Europe was still using Roman Numerals. Imagine trying to do accounting or high level math using Roman Numerals? Fibonacci not only dealt with the theory but he published dozens of every day merchant transactions that could be improved by converting to Arabic numerals. This book single handedly transformed how commerce was transacted and how Europeans viewed mathematics in less than a generation!
September 8, 2020
The Great Courses publishers have compiled 36 lectures from throughout their many series on books that have made a major impact on the world. Some of these books live up to the billing. It’s difficult to argue that the Koran, or Wealth of Nations, or The Communist Manifesto didn’t have a major impact on the development of the world. Other books clearly do not meet that standard. For example, Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations is a fascinating insight into a Roman Emperor written by his own hand, but as the professor admitted in the lecture, it was not published during Aurelius’ life and was barely known for more than a thousand years after his death—hardly a book with tremendous world-shaking impact. At the bare minimum, this collection is an opportunity to learn about 36 major works of literature. Odds are high that you don’t already know about all of them.
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