Reviews

Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition by Grant Hardy

professor_x's review against another edition

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5.0

An absolute gem.

Professor Grant Hardy masterfully covers philosophy and religion from ancient India to the shores of Japan and everything in between. The course navigates through thousands of years of thought that weary travelers spread through the Silk Roads.

I have listened to other audiobooks that mention Eastern philosophy but this course was on another level. Each lecture is about 45 minutes long and Professor Hardy explains the intricacies of Buddhism, Daosim, and Legalism; he covers Hinduism and the ancient texts the Vedas and the Upanishads; we're introduced to Confucius and Laozi and we meet Sima Qian and Ban Zhao -- great Chinese thinkers and historians, respectively -- and Hardy walks us through all of this material marvelously.

I began to read The Analects by Confucius and plan on picking up other works mentioned in this course because of how much I enjoyed it. I also plan on reading more deeply about Buddhism and look forward to reading the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore. I will continue to read on Eastern intellect before heading into Western thought. I like it here.

shoelessmama's review against another edition

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4.0

This lecturer was fantastic and while all of the "thinkers" names probably won't stick I have definitely gained some insight from this series.

lancegliser's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective slow-paced

5.0

One of the most comprehensive sweeps of intellectual knowledge I've encountered. It's a gigantic tone covering an insane amount of history and counter history. Sadly they are mostly effective as rough outlines of the philosophers or scientists and question. It gives a good way to have an index of concepts, but you will be required to do your own investigations after.

lancegliser's review

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3.0

I struggled greatly with this course. It's natural that new thought and names would be hard, but the lectures themselves just seem less than ideally designed.

The speaker is ok, but it's not an orator. Smattered through are 'um' and 'like' that drive be to distraction. Pacing of his speech also makes it a little difficult to segment one idea from another.

I don't envy him there job of trying to organize the massive volume of material, and he does a fair job calling back to previous lectures. Ok the whole though, it's just difficult to keep them straight. Not sure how that could have been addressed. Be prepared to review.

toddgrotenhuis's review

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challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

comicsandbookdragon's review

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5.0

I really recommend this. Especially if you are interested in who and what creates cultural norms.

Or a nosy bitch like myself.

mato_szabo's review against another edition

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5.0

I listened to this the second time now. Still barely scratched the surface. You can get so much out of this. Will probably listen to it again with accompanying PDF.

bethb3's review

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3.0

It was very long and it took me a long time to get though it, but the information was interesting.