A review of “Great Epochs of European Art: Art of the Ancient Greeks & Romans”

The difficulties of learning about Greek and Roman art from textbooks

For many years now, I’ve been interested in Ancient Greece and Rome. I read some textbooks about their respective histories, and even learned the Ancient Greek language from some other textbooks. (More about that here.) From these endeavors, I learned some basic things about their culture. But there was one thing that was hard to get from books, which was proper visuals. Textbooks have only so much ability to include pictures, particularly when they’re trying to stay affordable for their readers. Color pictures in particular can be very expensive to produce for textbooks, and so some textbooks include very few of them. This meant that it was difficult (even if technically possible) to learn much about Greek and Roman art from textbooks. Thus, I felt like I needed something else to compensate for this.

A review of “Plato” (audiobook)

“The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”

– Alfred North Whitehead, “Process and Reality” (1929)

This audiobook was my introduction to the Knowledge Products series of audiobooks. This particular audiobook is what got me hooked on the others. I love their way of introducing you to the thinkers covered. In particular, I love the way that they place these thinkers’ ideas into the context of their times, and give biographical information about the authors.

A review of “The Civil War” (audiobook)

“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect, and defend it.’”

– Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address (March 4, 1861)

What was the Civil War about? This question may be easy to ask, but it is one of the most complicated questions in American history. No matter how long we discuss it, we keep coming back to two popular theories, which are sometimes believed to contradict each other. These are slavery and “states’ rights.” Both of these issues were explicitly discussed in the United States Constitution, so both of them were constitutional issues as much as they were anything else. But we don’t have to choose between these two seemingly-contradictory explanations. This audiobook argues that these two issues were inseparably connected in the Southern mind. Put simply, this audiobook argues that slavery was the root cause of the Civil War, while “states’ rights” was the convenient pretext used by the South to justify their attempts to protect and prolong it. At times, even “states’ rights” would take a back seat to their despicable goal of prolonging African slavery, as this audiobook shows in a number of ways – including by citing the “secession ordinances” of the rebellious states (which are highly incriminating on this score).