Humanities scholars these days make the news for only the following reasons:
- their efforts to suppress views with which they disagree
- their hatred of Donald Trump
- their passion on behalf of the gender-nonconforming
The Celtic World, a 24-lecture class from The Great Courses, will restore your faith in this corner of the U.S. education industry. The lecturer is Jennifer Paxton, a professor at Catholic University, and she wears her expertise lightly. She uses modern idioms and plain language when appropriate and then drags out her Latiin or Gaelic as necessary.
One learns a lot about the Romans in this class as they were the big power in the region and the authors of most of the primary sources.
Highlly recommended for listening in the car (available on Audible).
Available as an e-book from Montgomery County Public Libraries, so I’ll put a hold on it for later listening. Thanks!
It would be interesting to see how the Romans managed their affairs, but is it worth reading in depth about it?
Are there any practical benefits to learning about Roman history?
Heather Mac Donald’s new book has a chapter on the company behind the Great Courses. After a chapter in which she recounts how neo-Marxist critical studies professors have destroyed Western Civ classes, the following chapter is about how this private company has revived it, at least for survey level courses.
It’s almost the same as her City Journal article here:
https://www.city-journal.org/html/great-courses-great-profits-13393.html
Finding the right professors was difficult, especially in the beginning. One guy went off on a tangent about how Nancy Reagan gave blowjobs to everyone in Hollywood, necessitating a jump cut in the video at that point.
Heather McDonald is a smart woman.
If you are looking for your next Great Courses set of lectures, I suggest anything by J Rufus Fears