A review by ricefun
Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life by J. Rufus Fears

2.0

I was truly looking forward to this course but found myself disappointed overall with the content and presentation. It took several lectures to realize that Fears was pigeonholing each great "book" that he chose into imposed categories that reflected the point he wanted to make - mainly that all great books point to universal truths in direct contrast with our current moral and social relativism. While I'm deeply schooled in said current relativism, and while I'm sympathetic to his goals of offering a needed moral compass based on the themes of great books - throughout his lectures he simplified these massive and thought provoking texts into mere minutes of theme. He rarely took time to offer that there are a variety of interpretations found in any one great test. He devoted one whole lecture to highlighting disparate papers he has compiled from Lord Acton (not a great book, but simply highlighting some of his own scholarship), and he never once, in 36 lectures, found a book authored by a female to be great enough for inclusion. By the end of the lectures I was forcing myself to complete just so I could give the series a fair listen before giving in to my disappointment.