Dave

Pretty basic survey

Revisado: 11-03-22

While this course does cover a broad time period, it somehow manages to both be simplistic/lack detail as well as go at a slow pace, with frequent repetition. It's one of the more boring Great Courses, and the lecturer is at times pedantic.

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Revelatory

Revisado: 07-02-22

This book is simply incredible. It gives incredible detail to the few lines in your high school history book about Vichy France, and the full story of the Third Republic is eye opening. Anyone with a decent familiarity with modern Western history who hasn't read a history of the Third Republic will probably be blown away by not just how it fell but how it was established.

It's a frightening, cautionary tale for anyone who feels secure in their representative government. The narrator had a good voice but his French pronunciations will drive anyone familiar with the country and language a little crazy... not to mention his bungling of some pretty easy English words as well.

For non-history buffs the pacing and minute level of detail may be a dealbreaker, but this is one of the best history books I've ever read.

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What a gem

Revisado: 02-08-22

I'd heard of Rafael Sabatini, but never read anything by him. I was pleasantly surprised by this quixotic tale. Lovers of romantic adventure tales will enjoy this story, narrated by the always entertaining Simon Vance. Pretty incredible this story is 100 years old.

Be warned the story is a bit silly, and the main character will likely annoy fans of more "real" fiction.

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Amazing interviews

Revisado: 02-08-22

If there's a complaint to be had about these interviews, it's that they're too short and cover quickly what could use many more hours to fully appreciate the topics presented.

The audio quality as Rubinstein mentions is less than desired in one of the interviews, but even that interview is perfectly understandable. The subjects are exciting times in U.S. history, and the interviewees are entertaining, smart, and provide great anecdotes to humanize and personalize their historical subjects. Highly recommend!

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No Team of Rivals

Revisado: 02-08-22

There is a lot to like and a decent amount to dislike in this book, which I think is worth reading but does not begin to measure up to Goodwin's masterpiece, "Team of Rivals." With that book she visited a subject that I wouldn't think much new or interesting could be said about (Lincoln's presidency), and produced an incredible story from a fresh perspective. Likewise much has been written about LBJ, and in this case Goodwin couldn't come up with much new or original insight other than her personal relationship with him.

The book is interesting, but it seemed at times her personal relationship with Johnson clouded the story rather than helping it. In particular her psychoanalysis of Johnson, and the anecdote she tells of him as a boy calling his brother back to his bed from his father's bed is bizarre, and seemed like she either omitted details or wildly jumped to conclusions of complexes of power and control around his father (versus just seeing a cold kid who wanted to stay warm at night).

She also fails I think to strike a balance between praise of his domestic programs and criticism of his foreign policy, and glosses over many of Johnson's personal flaws and biographical details.

Despite these issues, Goodwin remains a good storyteller/writer, and this book certainly will be enjoyed by American history enthusiasts. Hopefully the jarring switches between narrators won't throw you off to much as you listen.

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Has some beautiful imagery

Revisado: 11-12-21

This is a story that tries to be very profound, thinks it's very witty, and doesn't quite manage either.

It has some beautiful imagery, but those moments don't make the story work. It tries to tackle big issues: environmental collapse, loneliness and the human condition, and probably much more if I'd been able to get past the early books. But the pun of in the title pretty much sums up the entire book, kinda witty, but too self-aware, and not nearly as witty as it thinks it is.

No doubt an angsty, annoying teenager threatening to kill herself as narrator, who tires to be worldly but is just as naive as most teenagers is an appealing narrator to some, but not to this reader. The other main characters, living on their isolated island in BC come across as an artificial vehicle for the author to share her contemplations on some of the major problems our world faces today. The characters come across as hollow, and mostly used to drop facts on us about nature and the environment and "deep thoughts" that in the context of the book don't feel very deep at all.

Also, Ruth Ozeki should have allowed professional narrators to read this book. Not sure how she convinced her publisher to let her do the audio for this book. I'd guess it's because there's some Japanese in the story, but her as narrator was not a good solution to that challenge.

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Very dense... for historians

Revisado: 09-15-21

I have a BA in history, and this book was too dense for me. The essay format combined with the focus on secondary sources to re-examine well studied periods of US history is appealing, but it doesn't work in this case. It's too dry, and narrator's voice is quite flat and dry too, and for word snobs out there he mispronounces names of places and words that really he should get right (my favorite was "Sierra Lee-oh-knee").

Even within individual essays it bounces around too much. Maybe this would be a better read, but as an audiobook it didn't work for me.

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Entertaining, suspenseful, and very fun voice acting.

Revisado: 06-27-20

While some of the stories are slightly more enthralling than others, they’re all superb, and the voice acting and production are top-notch. These are not James Bond-esque action/spy stories. They’re Cold War cloak and dagger, slowly and deliberately paced stories with small bits of action surrounded by build up, with small details shared here and there to build suspense and suspicion.

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NOT about Kenneth Starr's investigation

Revisado: 06-24-20

If you read the summary of this book before buying, you might be very disappointed that though it does cover Whitewater in depth, it mostly looks at the history of Whitewater and the period of the Clinton presidency that Robert Fiske was special prosecutor investigating the Whitewater scandal. The book ends with Ken Starr being appointed special prosecutor, and barely covers any of his investigation, including nothing of impeachment. Clearly the summary was written in 1995 or 1996, but considering it's 2020 and we all know what happened, it's not okay that it still claims, "Blood Sport is the definitive account of independent counsel Kenneth Starr's potentially historic investigation of a president and first lady."

Other than that big let down of my expectations, the book is fantastic and offers rich details of the Clintons' real estate and commodity investments in Arkansas before moving to DC.

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Fascinating subject -- not the easiest audio book

Revisado: 05-11-19

Alan Turing is fascinating, and his work is complex and interesting. Unfortunately this book doesn't do a great job of capturing all of the exciting elements of Turing's work. It does a better job covering his personal biography, but with his academic and codebreaking work, both the style of the book and the audiobook format make it difficult to follow along at many junctures. I think I'd prefer to read this one than listen to it.

Also, a complaint as an American reader: this book was clearly written by a British author for a British audience, and there are many acronyms, idioms, and cultural givens that don't make sense to somewhere who hasn't spent a lot of time in the UK. I normally enjoy looking up such things on my own when reading a hard copy, but it's not enjoyable when listening to an audio book.

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