Understanding Russia was an excellent course from the folks over at The Great Courses. I have completed a couple dozen of their offerings, and they caUnderstanding Russia was an excellent course from the folks over at The Great Courses. I have completed a couple dozen of their offerings, and they can be pretty hit-or-miss, IMO. In some courses, the low-energy prof stands behind a podium; droning on monotonously for the entire duration, employing esoteric jargon, and thoroughly boring the viewer/listener to tears.
Fortunately, this was not the case here. I really enjoyed this course.
Course presenter Dr. Lynne Ann Hartnett is an Associate Professor of History at Villanova University, where she teaches courses on all facets of Russian history as well as on the social, political, and intellectual history of modern Europe.
Hartnett opens the lecture series with a great intro lecture; setting the pace for the rest of the course to follow. She has a great lecture style that I found to be interesting and engaging. She delivers a high-energy presentation for the duration, which made absorption of the course material much more effective. Good stuff!
As the title implies, there is quite a lot of ground to cover here. Harnett does this in a competent manner. And with the subject matter of the entire history of a country like Russia, this can be a daunting task. I felt that she did a great job toward that end. She covers the major events, never dwelling too much on the minutia, and ensures that the listener walks away a broad-based understanding of what was covered. Super-effective communication.
The formatting of this course is fairly typical of offerings from The Great Courses. There are 24 lectures in total; with each lecture roughly 30mins long. The lectures are:
1 A Russian Past, the Putin Future 2 Ivan the Terrible's 500-Year Reign 3 The Russian Orthodox Church 4 Peter the Great and a European Empire 5 Russia's Northern Window on Europe 6 Nobility, the Tsar, and the Peasant 7 The Authentic Russia: Popular Culture 8 Catherine the Great and the Enlightenment 9 Alexander Pushkin's Russia 10 Alexander II, Nihilists, and Assassins 11 The Age of Realism in Russian Art 12 Russian Fin de Siecle and the Silver Age 13 Empire across Two Continents 14 The Rise and Fall of the Romanovs 15 Russian Radicals, War, and Revolution 16 The October 1917 Revolution 17 Lenin and the Soviet Cultural Invasion 18 The Roaring Twenties, Soviet Style 19 The Tyrant Is a Movie Buff: Stalinism 20 The Soviets' Great Patriotic War 21 With Khrushchev, the Cultural Thaw 22 Soviet Byt: Shared Kitchen, Stove, and Bath 23 Intelligentsia, Dissidents, and Samizdat 24 Soviet Chaos and Russian Revenge
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Understanding Russia: A Cultural History is definitely one of the better offerings from The Great Courses. The material, presentation, and delivery were excellent. The prof really did a great job with this one. I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking to expand their understanding of Russia and its complex culture. 5 stars, and a spot on my "favorites" shelf....more
"If you cannot voice—or even consider—criticism, then you will never see what is wrong. You cannot solve a problem unless you identify its source. And"If you cannot voice—or even consider—criticism, then you will never see what is wrong. You cannot solve a problem unless you identify its source. And if you cannot look at the root of what is wrong with Islam today, then in a very real sense Islam has already defeated the West. The Enlightenment honors life. It is not about honor after death or honor in the hereafter, as Islam is, but honor in individual life, now. It is about development of the individual will, not the submission of the will. Islam, by contrast, is incompatible with the principles of liberty that are at the heart of the Enlightenment’s legacy... ...Free speech is the bedrock of liberty and a free society. And yes, it includes the right to blaspheme and offend..."
Nomad: From Islam to America is an important book, that should help to wake up some of the sleeping and apathetic Western apologists to the reality of Islam. There are many excellent quotes in the book, including the one above.
Author Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Somali-born Dutch-American activist, former Muslim, feminist, author, scholar and former politician. She received international attention as a critic of Islam and advocate for the rights and self-determination of Muslim women, actively opposing forced marriage, honor killing, child marriage and female genital mutilation. She has founded an organization for the defense of women's rights, the AHA Foundation. Ayaan Hirsi Ali works for the Hoover Institution and the American Enterprise Institute.
The book is partially a biography of the author, and partially a commentary on the current state of Islam, the broader Islamic world, as well as Islamic doctrines. The title of the book is a double entendre of sorts; it references the nomadic ethos of her home country, Somalia, as well as the transient nature of her living situations, as well as her personal ideological journey.
Hirsi Ali tells the reader her story here; including her Islamic roots. She was born in Somalia, and her family was exiled to Saudi Arabia. and then moved to Ethiopia, before settling in Nairobi, Kenya by 1980. After that, she immigrated to Holland, where she began working with Theo van Gogh, the Dutch director and film and television producer, actor, and author. This work came to a brutal and violent end, with the horrific bloody murder of van Gogh by Islamic jihadist Mohammed Bouyerit on 2 November 2004. At his trial, Bouyeri expressed no remorse for the murder he admitted to having committed, telling the victim's mother, "I do not feel your pain. I do not have any sympathy for you. I cannot feel for you because I think you are a non-believer." Bouyeri also expressed that he would have done it again if he had the chance. Bouyeri also argued that "in the fight of the believers against the infidels, violence is approved by the prophet Muhammad." A note was stabbed into van Gogh's nearly-decapitated body, indicating that Hirsi Ali would be next. Fearing for her life, she left Holland, bound for America.
The incredible true story of Hirsi Ali's life is sure to shock and alarm those who are not familiar with her. The book tells the reader about her incredible journey and ideological transformation; from a devout, pious Muslim, to a champion of Western Liberty and Enlightenment values. And although I found the writing in the first part of the book to be a bit dry, it thankfully picked up pace as it went, and the latter part of the book was exceptionally well-written. The audiobook version I have is also read by the author, which is always a nice touch.
Hirsi Ali talks about the "clash of civilizations" between the Islamic and Western worlds with great clarity here. Diametrically opposed ideologies; Islam and Western secular liberalism have many inherent incompatibles. Hirsi Ali tells the naive reader about some of these incompatibilities here, educating them about some of the concepts central to Islamic scripture and culture, including: • Vastly differing sexual morals, • The treatment of women under Islam; including female genital mutilation, and the general second-class status they receive in Islamic countries, • Islamic concepts of finance that do not permit interest to be charged or paid, • Culturally and scripturally enshrined violence and corporal punishment, • Routine beatings of children and wives, • Horrific "honour" killings, • The antisemitism endemic to Islam.
She talks about Islamic "reformers" here, saying that most of these people have been widely attacked and rejected by those in the mainstream sphere of Sunni Islam. Many have been either killed or exiled, and now have to live their lives with constant protection, or live in hiding. She says there is some very heavy lifting ahead, towards efforts to modernize the antiquated cultural and religious practices of the religion, writing:
"...What is striking about this tortuous struggle to reinterpret Muslim scripture is that none of these intelligent and well-meaning men and women reformers can live with the idea of rejecting altogether the troublesome parts of scripture. Thus, in their hands, Allah becomes a God of ambiguity rather than of clarity. From an articulate transmitter of Allah’s Word, Muhammad is turned into someone who left behind an incoherent muddle of rules. Ironically, this was the position of the Christian and Jewish critics who first heard Muhammad. They found that he stole whole passages from the Old and New Testaments and Jewish scriptures and reshaped them into a contradictory muddle that he claimed to be original. This vision of Muhammad is not at all what the reformers seek. According to them, Muhammad was good; he sought to liberate women, for example, but his words were turned and twisted and now must further be twisted and turned in order to create a semblance of tolerance and equity. Fundamentalists do not take kindly to these attempts to reshape the Holy Quran into a modern document; to them, this is a clear degradation of God and Muhammad. And here, I believe, the fundamentalists win, because they are not suffering from what psychologists call cognitive dissonance. The fundamentalists’ God is all-powerful; he dictated the Quran, and we must live as the Prophet did. This is a stance that is clear. It’s the Westernized theologians who are trapped in confusion, because they want to maintain that the Prophet Muhammad was a perfect human being whose example should be followed, that the Quran is perfect scripture, and that all of its key injunctions —kill the infidels, ambush them, take their property, convert them by force; kill homosexuals and adulterers; condemn Jews; treat women as chattel—are mysterious errors of translation..."
She takes many shots at cultural relativists and other well-intentioned "progressives," who are paradoxically doing more harm than good:
"...To be blunt, their efforts to assist Muslims and other minorities are futile because, by postponing or at best prolonging the process of their transition to modernity—by creating the illusion that one can hold on to tribal norms and at the same time become a successful citizen—the proponents of multiculturalism lock subsequent generations born in the West into a no-man’s-land of moral values. What comes packaged in a compassionate language of acceptance is really a cruel form of racism. And it is all the more cruel because it is expressed in sugary words of virtue..." "...Here is something I have learned the hard way, but which a lot of well-meaning people in the West have a hard time accepting: All human beings are equal, but all cultures and religions are not. A culture that celebrates femininity and considers women to be the masters of their own lives is better than a culture that mutilates girls’ genitals and confines them behind walls and veils or flogs or stones them for falling in love. A culture that protects women’s rights by law is better than a culture in which a man can lawfully have four wives at once and women are denied alimony and half their inheritance. A culture that appoints women to its supreme court is better than a culture that declares that the testimony of a woman is worth half that of a man. It is part of Muslim culture to oppress women and part of all tribal cultures to institutionalize patronage, nepotism, and corruption. The culture of the Western Enlightenment is better. In the real world, equal respect for all cultures doesn’t translate into a rich mosaic of colorful and proud peoples interacting peacefully while maintaining a delightful diversity of food and craftwork. It translates into closed pockets of oppression, ignorance, and abuse..."
And the antisemitism endemic to Islam here:
"Europe’s long tradition of Christian and pseudo-scientific anti-Semitism was taken to its logical conclusion by Hitler and the Nazis, with the willing help of many other Europeans who participated in his program of Jewish annihilation. The evil of this “Final Solution” was exposed after the defeat of the Third Reich and combatted thereafter by the reeducation of ordinary Germans, the memorialization of the Holocaust, and the stigmatization or prohibition of neo-Nazi groups. As a result, by the end of the twentieth century most civilized people in the West believed that European anti-Semitism was a thing of the past. But it is not. It has mutated into something new: Arab Islamic anti-Semitism has replaced European anti-Semitism. The new anti-Semites have borrowed a few tricks from the Nazis. They employ propaganda tools, such as the counterfeit Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that were developed by the Nazis. However, they also have something that the Nazis did not have: a world religion that is growing faster than any other religion, a warrior faith that is espoused by over one and a half billion people. Hitler had Mein Kampf and the might of the German Wehrmacht; today’s anti-Semites, like the Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and Osama bin Laden, have a holy book, a far greater demographic power, and a good chance of getting their hands on a nuclear weapon..."
As touched on at the start of this review, this is a great book for the Western "progressive" apologist, as it should help these readers understand Islam, Islamic doctrine, and its related culture(s). Hirsi Ali has become a champion of Enlightenment values, writing:
"So this, in a nutshell, was my Enlightenment: free inquiry, universal education, individual freedom, the outlawing of private violence, and the protection of individual property rights. It did not take me long to see that the very novelty of these concepts made me treat them with much more respect than many of the people living around me in the Netherlands, who took them entirely for granted..."
Hirsi Ali issues many warnings to our apathetic Western societies, that don't place a premium on integrating immigrants to the host county's core values. She writes:
"It is not a trivial thing to know that, even in the West, if you criticize or even analyze a particular religion you may require protection for the rest of your life, that if you speak out about Islam you may start a riot or a massive international campaign, and that perhaps you yourself will become a target, stalked, ostracized, even murdered. It is an unpleasant option. Most people, consciously or not, seek to avoid it. Fear has an effect. Thus slowly, and sometimes not so slowly, people begin to get used to not saying certain things, or they say them but certainly won’t write them. The thin fingers of self-censorship begin to tighten around individual minds, then groups of people, then around ideas themselves and their expression. When free speech crumbles in this way, when Westerners refrain from criticizing or questioning certain practices, certain aspects of Islam, they abandon those Muslims who seek to question them too. They also abandon their own values. Once they have done that, their society is lost..."
She closes the book with a touching letter to her unborn daughter, paying homage to the Italian author and outspoken critic of Islam, Oriana Fallaci, whom she met and befriended before her untimely death of Cancer, aged 77.
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Nomad: From Islam to America was an excellent look into this amazing woman's life story. It should also serve to illuminate the ill-informed "progressive" mindset to the sometimes harsh and brutal nature of the religion of Islam. I would definitely recommend this one to anyone interested. 5 stars....more
"Some people have said that power must not be privatized, and wealth must not be collectivized, or else disaster awaits mankind..."
How the Specter of "Some people have said that power must not be privatized, and wealth must not be collectivized, or else disaster awaits mankind..."
How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World was a mixed bag for me...
On the positive side; the book provides a succinct summary of the long march of this ideology - from its humble beginnings, to eventually spreading its tentacles to the upper echelons of many key Western institutions. On the negative side; much of the writing here is a bit tone-deaf and/or antiquated in its style and analysis. Quite a lot of the prose is overly religious in nature, and it has the effect of making the book sound as though it were written in the 1950s...
The culture war and its related battles of ideology are interesting subjects, so I put this one on my list when I came across it by chance through the Epoch Times website. The book is available for free on the site, and a breakdown of its chapters, along with accompanying headers can be found in the link above.
How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World is a mainly chronological look at the genesis, and then proliferation of the ideology of communism. [NOTE: For simplicity purposes, I will use the terms "socialism" and "communism" interchangeably in this review.]
The book begins with the French Revolution: Jacobins, Robespierre, and The Terror are covered. The writing continues with socialism's spread through Europe; including the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the founding of Communist China by Mao Zedong in 1949. Continuing on, the writing follows the spread of the ideology to institutions in the West; right up to the current day.
How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World does not get off to a good start, IMO, as there is a baffling amount of religious rhetoric here. There are countless references to God, the Devil, and Evil in the Preface and Introduction alone. It is clear that the writers of this book are heavily religious people, and the writing here reflects that:
“The Communist Manifesto” begins: “A specter is haunting Europe— the specter of communism.” The use of the term “specter” was not a whim of Karl Marx. The preface of this book argues that communism should not be understood as being an ideological movement, a political doctrine, or a failed attempt at a new way of ordering human affairs. Instead, it should be understood as being a devil—an evil specter forged by hate, degeneracy, and other elemental forces in the universe..."
The writing in the rest of the book employs religious language liberally throughout; painting the entire subject as a Manichean dichotomy. While religious people might appreciate the inclusion of so much religious jargon here, I did not. Indeed, most of the writing in this book is contrasting communism's incompatibility with established religion (namely Christianity). This is my biggest criticism of the writing here. The book makes many ridiculous attacks on Darwinian Evolutionary Theory. Just a few examples:
The Blasphemy of Evolution "Taken by itself, Darwin’s theory of evolution is a flawed hypothesis that has been long discredited." ~ Uhh, no it hasn't...
"That the theory of evolution is full of loopholes and flaws is well-documented, but a discussion of that subject lies beyond the scope of this book..." ~ How convenient... LMAO
The book describes communism as the work of the "devil" and "evil". Religious narrative(s) aside, this is a misreading of the intentions of the ideology. Communism is a utopian ideology. And, like all other utopian ideologies; massive atrocities are tolerated, allowed, and sometimes encouraged, because the pursuit of utopia infinitely weighs down the "benefits" side of the cost/benefit scale. Anything becomes justifiable in the pursuit of utopia. "You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs" is a quote used by many prominent socialists that speaks to the above point. Unfortunately, people are not eggs, and communism has never produced an "omelet."
The writers talk about the problems inherent to a planned economy:
"The planned economy has natural and obvious defects. Firstly, it requires the collection of huge data in order to make reasonable arrangements for production. For a country, especially a modern country with a large population, the amount of relevant information is unimaginably large. For instance, the former Soviet Union’s commodity pricing bureau had to set prices for 24 million different kinds of goods. Such calculations are impossible..."
The historical account the writing examines here was (fortunately) interesting and informative. Although much of what is covered here was not new to me, many naive readers will no doubt find much of what is presented here to be very elucidative. Of particular note is how this set of ideas managed to claw its way through Western educational institutions. Herbert Marcuse and The Frankfurt School are covered here, as is academic tenure. The ideological orthodoxy of leftist thought in the humanities and social sciences departments is also covered very well by the authors here.
There is a ridiculous bit of writing in chapter 11 that talks about the "dangers" of rock music, which makes the book sound like it was written by evangelical Christians; circa 1949. Aside from apparently causing degeneracy, drug use, and suicide, the authors write:
"The characteristics of rock-and-roll include inharmonious sounds, unstructured melody, strong rhythmic beats, and emotional conflicts and contradictions—quite similar to the communist idea of struggle..."
How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World covers a timely topic, but I feel that the overwhelming inclusion of so much religious rhetoric here undermines and delegitimizes thoughtful and rational criticism of this starkly antihuman ideology. A decent case can be (and should have been) made for opposing communism without the ridiculous inclusion of so much religious rhetoric and quotes from the Bible. "100 million dead in 100 years" is a rough metric that can be used to examine the results of this ~century-long social experiment; the greatest catastrophe in human history. The book also makes many dubious and hyperbolic assertions; effectively reducing the credibility of the entire presentation. Too bad, as I generally enjoy content from The Epoch Times...
So although I have a great personal disdain for the ideology of communism, this book left a lot to be desired. 2.5 stars....more
The Devil and Karl Marx was a mixed bag for me... Although I have a great personal disdain for the ideology and implementation of socialism/communism,The Devil and Karl Marx was a mixed bag for me... Although I have a great personal disdain for the ideology and implementation of socialism/communism, I found the writing here to be lacking. The book has some serious flaws that take away from what is otherwise an interesting subject matter.
The book is full of writing about the incompatible nature and conflict between communism and organized religion. It is the central theme of the book. There is a very liberal usage of religious rhetoric throughout here. A huge chunk of the book is devoted to an almost blow-by-blow historical account of the specific conflicts between religion and socialism, including direct quotes of many back-and-forths that are in the public record. Author Paul Kengor spends much more time than is worth here citing many long quotes and speeches from various different ecclesiastics; priests, popes, et al. There are also many references to, and quotes from the Bible here. It was a bit much for my tastes, to be honest...
The end of the audiobook has a notation from publisher TAN Books, where they disclose that they are a publisher of books meant to spread the gospel, and evangelize the Christian faith. I wish I knew this before starting the book... A more honest title for this book would have been something along the lines of: Karl Marx and Communism's Conflict with Religion.
Kengor also spends quite a bit of time talking about Marx's poetry. He uses poems by Marx to make character attacks against him. Who cares about Marx's poetry?? Not me, anyhow. Kengor also has the better part of a chapter devoted to the boils on the body of Karl Marx. Yes, seriously.
I would think that the wholesale human suffering brought on by the societal experiment called socialism would be a decent enough argument against Marx's ideology. Mentioning his poems, and talking about his poor personal hygiene seem to be ridiculous "arguments" to me...
And although the book does have a decently-written epilogue that talks about the spread of cultural Marxism in Western society, too much of the writing here is very dry, verbose, and long-winded. This book could have done well with a much more rigorous editing. At least 100 pages could have been cut for the sake of brevity. I guess the inclusion of the word "Devil" in the book's title should have been a harbinger of what was to come within its pages...
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So, while I had high hopes for this one, I did not enjoy it, and would not recommend it. 2 stars....more
This was a very well put-together course. Professor Dr. Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius is Lindsay Young Professor of History and Director of the Center forThis was a very well put-together course. Professor Dr. Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius is Lindsay Young Professor of History and Director of the Center for the Study of War and Society at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. At the university, he teaches courses on modern German history, Western civilization, European diplomatic history, Nazi Germany, World War I, war and culture, 20th-century Europe, nationalism, and utopian thought, according to his Professor bio on the Great Courses page.
Professor Liulevicius is one of the better lecturers over at The Great Courses, in my opinion. This is my second course from him, after his 2006 offering World War I: The "Great War", which I also enjoyed. Liulevicius delivers these 24 lectures, each ~30mins, in an engaging and interesting manner, which makes them easy to absorb. He has a great teaching style as well; he speaks clearly and concisely and presents the content in a very watchable format. A welcome change from some of his contemporaries at "The Great Courses", who often ramble on in monotonous diatribes that quickly find the student lost in the weeds...
The topics covered in this course:
1) 1433-The Great Voyages of Admiral Zheng He 2) 1453-The Fall of Constantinople 3) 1455-Gutenberg's Print Revolution 4) 1492-The Columbian Exchange 5) 1600-The British East India Company 6) 1648-The Treaty of Westphalia 7) 1676-Van Leeuwenhoek's Microscope 8) 1751-Diderot's Enlightenment Encyclopedia 9) 1787-The American Experiment 10) 1789-The French Revolution 11) 1838-The British Slavery Abolition Act 12) 1839-The Opium War in China 13) 1859-Darwin and the Origin of Species 14) 1869-Binding Continents 15) 1893-First Women Voters in New Zealand 16) 1896-The Invention of Motion Pictures 17) 1903-Kitty Hawk and Powered Flight 18) 1904-The Russo-Japanese War 19) 1928-The Discovery of Penicillin 20) 1942-The Dawn of the Atom 21) 1969-Walking on the Moon 22) 1972-China Enters the World Balance 23) 1989-The Fall of the Berlin Wall 24) 2004-The Rise of Social Media
Turning Points in Modern History is one of the better offerings from "The Great Courses". Their lectures have really come a long way from their humble beginnings. They have improved quite a lot recently; now featuring many pictures as well as different camera angles, and no longer have the professor stuck behind a podium reading from his notes. Good stuff! This was a really well researched, written, and delivered course. I would recommend it to fans of "The Great Courses", or anyone else interested. 5 stars....more
I enjoyed this book. It is the second I've read by author Nicholas Wade, after "A Troublesome Inheritance". Wade puts forth his thesis that religion isI enjoyed this book. It is the second I've read by author Nicholas Wade, after "A Troublesome Inheritance". Wade puts forth his thesis that religion is a mechanism or module inherent to humanity, and that it has acted as a group-level adaptive mechanism that has allowed societies to thrive. While we don't know for certain, as the science regarding genetics is still young; Wade theorizes that religious belief could have biological underpinnings. I have heard others argue this, including social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, whom Wade cites in the book. It is my opinion that this argument is more likely to be true than the position put forward by many "New Atheists", including Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins - that religion is not an adaptive evolutionary mechanism, but rather; a maladaptive mechanism that could be more accurately described as a parasitic mind virus (Dawkins quote). This was a well-written book that makes for a very interesting read. Wade also talks at great length about the evolutionary role of music and dancing as well. His quote on the formation of music, language, dancing and religion: "So a tentative sequence of events would be: 1) Dance 2) Music 3) Proto-religion, based on ritual 4) Language 5) Religion based on shared beliefs about the supernatural." He explores this in long-form throughout the book. He also explores in detail the role of religion in warfare and the nation state, as well as giving the reader a cursory summary of the history of the three Abrahamic religions. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in history, religion, psychology, and social psychology....more
I enjoyed this one. "Don't Sleep There are Snakes" is the story of Christian linguist and evangelical Daniel Everett, who takes his family to the remoI enjoyed this one. "Don't Sleep There are Snakes" is the story of Christian linguist and evangelical Daniel Everett, who takes his family to the remote regions of Brazil, to live with the Pirahã people, in their riverside-villages. The book contains many interesting stories of the Pirahãs and their culture, which was my favorite part of the book. Everett and his family, Date unknown:
[image]
Everett was funded by Christian organizations to go down there, learn their language, translate the Bible for them, and then ultimately - convert them. Since Everett is a linguist, the book contains much talk of the Pirahãs language; grammatical structure, syntax, etc. I was not really interested in this, TBH, although I'm sure there will be some people who will appreciate the level of detail he devotes to it. I would have preferred he spend more time talking about the Pirahãs themselves; I found it particularly interesting to hear about their take on our Western culture, diet, traditions, and worldview. This was still an excellent read. I was contemplating discussing the end of the book, and what happened with Everett and his family, but ultimately decided that it would be too much of a "spoiler", so I left it out. Anyone interested can do a simple Google search, and/or read his Wikipedia page. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested. It was a great read. 4.5 stars....more
"21 Lessons for the 21st Century" is both my third book from author Yuval Noah Harari, and the third book in the series, after "Sapiens", and ""Homo D"21 Lessons for the 21st Century" is both my third book from author Yuval Noah Harari, and the third book in the series, after "Sapiens", and ""Homo Deus". It is also my least favorite of the three. While I found his two previous books to be extremely interesting and engaging, I found "21 Lessons" to be poorly put together, among other criticisms. It wasn't all bad, however, so I'll go over the good first, then the bad: The Good: *Harari is undoubtedly a very intelligent scholar, and the book contains many interesting concepts and speculations about the future. *The book covers a very broad range of topics; From Nationalism, to war, to religion, to morality, to AI (among others). People unfamiliar with many of the facts and concepts here will no doubt find this information very enriching, and thought-provoking.
The Bad: *Although the book covers a wide range of topics, it doesn't really pay any of them proper homage. In this sense, the book also seemed unfocused, and lacking cohesion. *He brings up Samuel Huntington's "Clash Of Civilizations" only to discount that there are actually many different civilizations. He asserts that there is now only one global civilization, because data and information flows so freely. I don't know where to begin in rejecting this curious reasoning... *Despite speaking with some clarity on the topics of tribalism and identity, he paradoxically rejects the notion that nationalism has underpinnings based on those fundamental psychological factors. Nationalism *is* tribalism, scaled up. That's why it is a thing. This seems like it should be painfully obvious... *He makes many digs and jabs at pro-Brexit Brits. Accusing them of setting back the "progress" of Europe, and even more ridiculously; Potentially causing nuclear war. LMAO. OK, then... *Continuing with the last point, he seems to think that treaties are the main reason there hasn't been any nuclear war since Nagasaki, and not MAD. Again, how an otherwise intelligent person could be this obtuse, I'm not sure... *He mentions that any differences between groups of people; ie, races - are "negligible". Again, Sure thing, LOL... *He considers terrorism and it's impact to our Western nations "negligible". Don't tell that to the families of the victims. He also completely discounts the damage to the cultural fabric and national cohesion to a nation that experiences epidemics of terror. *There's a somewhat unrelated tangent at the end about his personal meditation practices. This felt like padding, to get the book up to the desired ~300 page mark.
Harari also spends quite a large portion of the book attacking the big 3 religions. This could either be "good", or "bad", I suppose, depending on your views of religion. I fault him for the reasoning he presents in this book, however, because he seems to discount the contribution of organized religion to social cohesion, social capital, and group compatibility. Religion, like it or not, is one of the central factors that allowed large-scale levels of group cooperation to be possible, advancing humanity.
Overall, I was mostly disappointed with this book, as I expected better from Harari. This book does not meet the high water marks established by both "Sapiens", and "Homo Deus". So if you were expecting a grand sequel and conclusion to both of those, I have some bad news for you... 2.5 stars....more