Not Engaging or Very Interesting

What disappointed you about The Foundations of Western Civilization?

I really wanted to like this course. I am a big history buff and this course covers so much history both in relation to time and place. But I just could not get into it. The professor’s general style was just not a hit with me and the following became increasingly annoying: his voice would fluctuate from high to low, his humor just wasn’t effective, he would talk fast, and I didn’t get the sense he was teaching as much as he was having a discussion.

It felt like the professor did not spend enough time “pulling it all together”. He only lightly touched on why certain civilizations like the ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, Persians, etc. are considered “western civilization”. A lot of times I was left wondering why certain peoples or topics were included in such a course or what defines the “western tradition”. While a huge expanse of history was covered there was almost no time spent on what the foundations were or how one would define "western civilization".

Lectures 25-26 finally felt like he was hitting his stride and connecting with me so I went back and re-listened to the previous 24 lectures thinking maybe I should give him another chance with an open mind. Alas I had the same reaction to his lectures and just didn't find much that was interesting in them. Here are the lectures I did find enjoyable:

18 (Roman expansion)
25-26 (Roman crisis and the Barbarian "problem")
30 (Byzantium)
31 (Barbarian kingdoms of Europe)
36-37 (political formations of European countries in medieval times)

However, your experience may be better. For those of you willing to give it a shot here are the basics: time period covered is generally between 3000 B.C. to A.D. 1600. Here are some of the general topics covered:

• Civilization begins at Sumer
• Ancient Egypt
• Ancient Hebrews
• Assyrians
• Neo-Babylonians & the Medes
• Persia
• Ancient Geeks
• Macedonia’s Hellenistic conquests
• Roman Republic and Empire
• Christianity and the church
• Islam
• Byzantine Empire
• Barbarian (Germanic, Celtic, Slavic) kingdoms of Europe
• The Franks under Carolingian rule
• England and France
• Germany and other European countries in the medieval period
• The Renaissance
• The Reformation

I am going to listen to Professor Harl's "Great Ancient Civilizations of Asia Minor" course hoping it engages me and succeeds where this course fails. I really wish The Great Courses would do a course on medieval Europe focusing on the formation of current states like France, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Poland, etc. I know there are some courses on 1600 Europe onward but I'd be interested in a course on political history of the major countries prior to that time period.

112 people found this helpful

Highly recommended

Where does The Foundations of Western Civilization rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

top 10
I loved the material but a history major may already know all this stuff.
I will proceed directly to Vol 2.

Who was your favorite character and why?

n/a

What about Professor Thomas F. X. Noble’s performance did you like?

This is the weakness. The Prof is a good lecturer but his dynamic range is large so the audio volume varies greatly making it at times a difficult listen in the car. I frequently needed to replay sections that had fallen to a near whisper.
A *dynamic range compressor* add-on to the audible app would be a great idea! This same problem appears in many other recordings.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

n/a

Any additional comments?

I thoroughly enjoyed this.

43 people found this helpful

Extremely annoying speaking style

I'm interested in the subject matter but can barely focus on what's being said because the speaker is so irritating. It's like he's trying to get a class of 8 year olds interested in history by being the cool professor, but all he is really succeeding in doing is dumbing material down and delivering information very poorly. I'm really struggling to make myself listen to this one.

34 people found this helpful

great

All of the Great Courses are fantastic. a problem occurs when the narrator constantly slides in the slanted left-wing viewpoint prevalent in academia. This is not the issue here however. Magnificently unbiased. Absolutely engrossing.

30 people found this helpful

Strong Recomendation With Caution

I give this lecture series five stars even though it has notable deficiencies. It is worth five stars because the author drives straight through a vast corpus of important matterial with single mindedness and with few deviations.

1) As noted in a number of reviews above the speaker is, shall we say, no Grover Gardener. He has a generally discordant manner of exposition not everyone can tolerate. I urge listeners to get used to it because the matterial is worth it.

2) He is either ignorant of the facts or intimidated by the powers that be [unlike Galileo] in stating there is no biological basis in defining race. Not only can DNA identify races it can tell from where an individual Icelander was born in any of nearly a dozen geographical areas in that small island. We have an entire industry that can tell you what percent of your genome was inherited from a Neanderthal. But this is a trivial observation.

3) I am entirely baffled he includes Islam as an inheritor of the Roman legacy. This seems entirely predicated on early Caliphate schollars who showed interest in ancient Helenistic literature and that because of this some of that litterature was passed along with commentary into later ages.It is not clear to me what percentage was actually passed along that otherwise would have been lost. I have tried to find out with but little success. The problem seems to be that these scholars obtained the texts from contemporary Byzantines who never lost them in the first place and lasted another five hundred years.

29 people found this helpful

Very annoying, somewhat informative

An interesting survey of thousands of years of history. Tracks some themes from ancient Mesopotamia through the early modern period. I would say that this series is good for giving an overview of the periods discussed, but in the course of the survey there are many serious over generalizations that will grate on anyone who already has an interest in history.

The professor has an extremely annoying and condescending way of speaking - - he will explain something very obvious, and make the reader feel like they're in a remedial class. Then in the same lecture, he will pretend like certain obscure facts are as obvious as could be, and frequently says things like "as you all know well, Clovis was not actually a carolingian leader," making the listener feel like a idiot who should know these things.

Overall, a good course with some serious flaws. Even as a huge history nerd, I learned some new things. But beware, the lecturer is certainly not for everyone.

17 people found this helpful

Excellent course!

This is my second, all time favorite history course thus far. I have only been a patron of the Great Courses for about 7 or 8 months when my favorite podcaster mentioned they were now on Audible. I highly recommend this particular course. The professor is very good at what he does, captivating, interesting, and knowledgeable.

15 people found this helpful

Dan Carlin-esque

If you could sum up The Foundations of Western Civilization in three words, what would they be?

This is a good summary course of a western development from early civilization up through late antiquity.

Any additional comments?

I'm not sure who influenced whom, or if it's simply a coincidental speaking style, but Professor Noble comes off like Dan Carlin in his start-stop, sometimes manically-rapid delivery and tone. It's not for everyone because it doesn't sound much like a lecture recorded in a lecture hall, nor is it going to delve deep enough into any one subject to enlighten true scholars, but fans of Carlin's "Hardcore History" will feel right at home with this course. I found it plenty entertaining and worth listening to.

12 people found this helpful

Highly biased and irrelevant

The author chooses to ignore the significance of the Enlightenment by almost completely excluding it. Instead he focuses on all the negative aspects of western heritage and uses hours to talk about the nuances of some ancient poets. Huge disappointment.

9 people found this helpful

CLIP studying

I purchased this to review for the clep exam on western civilization. Very good information and overview of the fundamental concepts that shaped western history. I highly recommend it to learn something new. Professor Noble does a fantastic job organizing and keeping listeners engaged.

9 people found this helpful