David Walker

Stress on the diplomatic manoeuvres

Revisado: 10-07-24

I had expected this book to stress military manoeuvres by mostly young people dressed in home-made but effective snow gear. Instead I got a book which spends much more time on diplomatic manoeuvres by older men dressed in suits. It's a reasonably interesting story, but the battles in the negotiating rooms are fundamentally less interesting than the battles that happened in the snow at the same time.

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Wonderful history wonderfully narrated

Revisado: 07-11-24

Ehrman is most famous to the broad public as an apostate – but crucially, an apostate willing and able to defend his current non-belief in Christianity. And this course does make clear how little religious faith is needed to explain Christianity's early rise.
For all that, I find it difficult to believe many Christians would not enjoy this course. That's in part because of the sheer quality of the lectures. Ehrman is first and foremost an impressive scholar, and he puts his atheism to one side to explain simply and clearly what we know of Christianity's 300-year rise after the death of Jesus. Ehrman talks not just about great historical trends but about how individual people and communities might have acted, and about how and to what extent we know that they did. It's a terrific distillation of decades of scholarship by him and others.
The result sounds not so much like lectures as like a great audiobook; indeed, it would make a great book. The narrative style is a big part of that: authoritative, unaffected, no-nonsense.
And Ehrman's voice work here precisely matches the material. His podcast style, with its often enjoyable side notes and trademark laugh, gives way here to a more sombre and relentless narration. I'd urge him to narrate all his own future audiobooks.

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Spells out the scale of an overrated icon's errors

Revisado: 12-02-23

O'Mahony has written a fascinating – and entertaining! – blend of narrative, theory and epistemology, all to explain the rise and fall of Freud's theories,
This volume aims not to merely set the lack of evidence for psychoanalysis's effectiveness, but to make it real to non-experts. The book generally supports Popper's critique of psychoanalysis as fake science – but note that, as Adolf Grünbaum pointed out, many psychoanalytic theories not only are falsifiable, but have in fact been falsified.
People are still mostly averse to stating it this bluntly, but recent research has made the statement at least non-heretical: most of what Freud "discovered" represents Freud (the guru) fooling himself, with follower Ernest Jones (the bagman) further spinning the stories as scientific truth. O'Mahony's story of psychoanalysis's spread shows how this came about. It also properly credits the figures who resisted it, from surgeon Wilfred Trotter (the sceptic) to the founder of evidence-based medicine, Archie Cochrane.
I particularly recommend the audiobook in this case, because O'Mahony as author is able to transmit the subtleties of each sentence – and he has not just a talent for narration, but also a wonderful Irish lilt.

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A well-told case study

Revisado: 12-10-21

This is Lewis's normal tasty and nutritious fare, served up beautifully by narrator Ojo. Her tone pairs perfectly with his writing.

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A landmark in journalism that still grips you

Revisado: 10-30-19

Everyone of a certain age knows the star-packed movie. Fewer have read Ryan's book. But it's the book that's the magnificent achievement.
Ryan built up his history by telling it from dozens of viewpoints. And how did he do that? By advertising across Europe and the US, with little ads asking "Were you there?". He followed up with a three-page questionnaire. Eventually more than a thousand were filled in. Nothing like it had really been done before.
As just one example, Ryan was able to describe in fine and revealing detail Rommel's office in France, courtesy of his adjutant - who if I remember correctly filled out the questionnaire in great detail.
He backed that up with endless books on WWII - on one count, more than 7000. It's unlikely his research will ever be equalled.
And the stories he eventually chose from his huge pile are gripping - not just Allied, but German and French. There's not a dull one in there, and they have not aged at all. I was sad when they ended.
The narration is, as many people have said, flat. It grated a little at first. Yet in the end I'm not that dissatisfied with it; the just-the-facts style suits the story Ryan's telling, and the way he tells it. This is a wonderful listen.

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