BJ

Not as smart as he is trying to sound

Revisado: 12-29-24

The primary thesis of this book is that human progress is infinite. We will never stop learning, progressing, and advancing. There is no limit to knowledge.

One small problem: Deutch presents this thesis using an inductive argument. But the second key idea here is his distinction between good explanations vs bad explanations, good questions vs bad questions, or good philosophy vs bad philosophy. In explaining these, he leans heavily on Karl Popper. So much so that the primary idea in Chapter 2 is all about how inductive reasoning is "bad explanations." So Deutch, unironically, is using a bad explanation to show why we need to focus on "good explanations."

This is just one of the many, many logical discontinuities in this book. If you squint your eyes really hard, Deutch sounds like a genius when writing this. But if you slow down in your reading, allow a little more time to process what he is saying, and read a book like this the way it was meant to be read, then it is clear that Deutch is trying very hard to sound smart, but his ideas are holier than swiss cheese. Then again, perhaps this is just me applying the precautionary principle which is, after all, "bad philosophy."

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The ultimate nostalgia listen.

Revisado: 01-08-23

This was by far my favorite book series as a kid. I loved listening to it for the first time since dad read them at bedtime.

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Bias + fancy in an "alternative" view of late Rome

Revisado: 06-10-22

Incredibly selective in his presentation of his facts, Harl attempts to redefine how the early church came to overcome paganism in the everyday life of the late Roman world. If you are interested in having a good laugh, this series is for you. If you want a serious take on real history, look elsewhere.

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Great Detail, Horrible Presentation

Revisado: 04-08-22

Alexis Castor has a special talent. Not only can she take an incredibly intriguing period of history and make it as boring as possible, but she does so with a uniquely annoying verbal cadence. She will take awkward pauses right in the middle of about every third sentence. To be fair, she presents an incredible amount of information. Even someone very familiar with the time period will learn a lot. But that is only true if they can stay awake and not rage quit when her annoying speech mannerisms get on their last nerve.

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Worth a listen.

Revisado: 04-05-22

The book has three parts. The first and third were great. The middle was only good. See my review on Goodreads for a full review.

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Parts were good

Revisado: 06-26-21

Parts of this book were really good. Those were probably the parts he plagiarized.

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Good book, Horrible Narration

Revisado: 01-08-21

This is by far the worst narration I have ever experienced. His pronunciation was terrible not only of Chinese names and places but also of Russian, German and others. Even worse, he was inconsistent in his mispronunciation. In a five minute setting you can hear 3 or 4 different pronunciations of the same name. Beyond this, the narrator sounded bored or arrogant. Perhaps he might have a niche career as an aristocrat villain in period pieces, but he has no business reading books.

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Excellent recording, Horrible formatting

Revisado: 09-22-19

The audio itself is great but the formatting for this is terrible. There are no book titles or true chapter demarkations. It is just broken into 23 "parts" and 1200 some odd "chapters". It is up to the listener to figure out where exactly in the Bible they might be at any given moment and they make this as difficult as possible. Too bad because the recording itself is excellent.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Racist rant from a bitter man.

Revisado: 03-18-19

A better title for this book would have been:
"Dear White Folk, why I hate you so much."

I really wanted to enjoy this book. I really wanted to learn from it. But it was little more than an angry diatribe and certainly not a "sermon" by any stretch of the imagination.

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