Nelson Alexander

A Curious Production

Revisado: 02-02-24

As you can see, the titles in this series are quite short. A sizable portion of this minimal content is filled up with facts about the publisher and the longest legal disclaimer I have ever encountered, seemingly the work of a paranoid pharmaceuticals company legal department. While the publisher has "done its best to assure accuracy," for example, "one should "seek advice from a professional philosopher." The publisher repeatedly, I repeat, repeatedly, disclaims any responsibility for anything in this title, which is "purely for educational purposes." As opposed to...? Perhaps one of their prior titles on Descartes or Kant caused permanent disfigurement resulting in a ruinous law suit. I hasten to add that I am not responsible for anything I say in this review nor for any damages to the feelings, reputation, or income of this publisher.

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Um, where's the PDF? No? So, where's the refund?

Revisado: 01-21-23

As one rightly suspects, an audio book on a highly visual topic like geometry is very unlikely to work. However, one can always listen to the audiobook and refer as needed to the illustrations provided in the PDF. Except... the publisher has not bothered to provide a PDF! Perhaps this was an oversight, perhaps it is to save money. In any case, I am continuing to listen and will buy a paperback. Since this means I will effectively be paying twice and rewarding the publisher for bad practice, I can at least retaliate by writing this review and, hopefully, depriving them of any further audio sales. Until they provide a PDF. Given my generosity towards the negligent publisher I do hope they will at least notify me when a PDF is available.

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Helter Skelter

Revisado: 08-30-22

So far, I'm finding this book hard to follow. The prose and reading are fine. But the author has a rather digressive style to begin with, then interrupts frequently with author notes about as long as the text. It just doesn't settle down to a straight narration, which is frustrating in audio form.

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Must Read (Sorry for Cliche) for Anyone Under 30

Revisado: 07-29-22

This book exceeded my expectations. Don't say that often. Unlike the many forensic takes on 2008, Blakeley's analysis is informed by Marx, yes Marx. That means it takes into consideration all of the deeper political-economic and historical insights occluded by even the most left-liberal "economists" following a price-centered, distributive analysis. The internal contradictions and tragedies of our current system of "automatic, inhuman accumulation" are so rarely addressed in popular publications that it thrilled me to see that this was written by a young person (yeah, I'm an old hippy). And unlike so many writers influenced by the Marxist legacy, she is willing to jettison Frankfurt School pessimism and academic woefulism and actually dare to offer a workable political agenda. It's easy to take sophisticated cheap shots at a book like this, from left or right, I just want Blakelely to keep writing, not backslide, attract young people, build a structure, reintroduce the best of Marxist thinking, and make it exciting! To repeat, if you are under 30 and don't get this argument, please reset!

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Appears to be broken

Revisado: 11-03-18

The file cuts off after chapter 7, was very good until then. Trying to fix or return now, hope it can be repaired.

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Broken File

Revisado: 04-02-17

Files appears to be broken, does not work on my iPod, hope company can fix it.

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Why Incomplete?

Revisado: 08-27-16

I don't quite understand. This seems to be missing half of "The Meno" dialogue, yet specifically says "Unabridged."

The entire latter half with Meno and Anytus isn't there! Is this an error in the program? Otherwise the audiobook is excellent, but this unexplained omission makes me distrust the publisher.

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Written by a Smartbot?

Revisado: 06-24-16

This is my first encounter with the Macat titles. "Macaw" might be a better name them, given the brainless repetition of words and phrases.

Though these titles apparently cover a superb, interesting selection of scholarly texts, the format is oddly robotic, to say the least. The audio is divided in Sections and Modules. Each Module repeats what was in the previous ones, with some sentences and details added. I am about halfway through and though we have yet to get to the work itself, I have heard that the author was "influenced by Carl Schmitt's Political Theology" eight or nine times. It is repeated anew again and again in each module, along with most of the other information. Then a bit of addition information is added.

It appears that the idea is to somehow impress the material, phrase by phrase, on your neural system without engaging your consciousness. Perhaps the format is intended for students who want to input test material while sleeping. Alternately, it could be used to train a scholarly-sounding Macaw: "Kantorowicz influenced by Schmitt! Ach! Ach! Cracker! Cracker!"

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Thespian at Work

Revisado: 04-20-16

Though I am only an hour into this, I must write with some annoyance that the reader makes comprehension extremely difficult, at least for me. He might be a good reader for fiction, but here, instead of narrating ideas ordered into paragraphs, he strives to bring out the imagined theatricality of each sentence with British fillips of overemphasis. Not terrible, but give it a listen before deciding. Some publishers seem to think that the more scholarly the material, the more drama it requires, like restauranteurs who try to enhance their cuisine by adding loud dance music.

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A Tour of Incalculable Verbosity

Revisado: 05-14-14

I am about ten minutes into this, skipping ahead, and giving up for now, quite exasperated. I had hoped for a good overview and cultural description of calculus. This work is so wittily overwritten, so full of long, fanciful descriptions and soaring metaphor it is nearly impossible to remember what on earth we are talking about. The writing is actually good, but seems to have leapt the fence out its genre, striving to be Nabokov with little regard for the listener who just wants a bit of lucid mathematical explanation. I may try again later, but post this warning: you'll have to shovel aside heaps of colorful "prose" to get to anything about calculus.

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