Excellent! (...but the ending could be improved)

Would you consider the audio edition of The Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Rise of Nations to be better than the print version?

No idea. I didn't read the print version.

What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?

The narration is very good, the organization of the lectures is excellent. Key points are well emphasized so you end the course with a solid "big picture" perspective of several centuries. The ending was disappointing however. I'm not sure why, but I was caught up in the political and religious themes that dominate most of the course, and when science came towards the end it was a difficult transition. For me the best parts were Professor Fix's deep dive into the drama of the Reformation, as well as the reasons why different political traditions formed in each European nation during the Renaissance. You'll swear it's Bill Clinton speaking to you at times...uncanny how much he and Professor Fix sound alike! But then at the very end it just seems...to end. No summary of the course, wrap up of key points made over the 30 odd hours you spent listening. I wish there had been a final 30 minute session devoted just to summarizing the course. Hint hint...

What does Professor Andrew C. Fix bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Just a naturally good lecturing style. Emphasis at the right points. Not overly dramatic. Very easy to listen to. I'm struggling to get through "The English Novel" now simply because of the narration style...so it drives home the point of how important the narration is for these courses.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The entire discussion around the Reformation. Speaking as a non-practicing Protestant, it made me uncomfortable with all Protestant denominations not to mention the Catholic Church. Professor Fix makes it crystal clear why Luther and others like the Calvinists found a ripe audience for their movements against Catholicism. When you hear about the "Indulgences Crisis" you'll see just how much the Catholic Church deserved the Reformation! But every movement was corrupted and became to some degree intolerant and oppressive. The only characters that, for me, emerge from this entire narrative as "noble" are the political minds that formed the Dutch republic. I had never really considered how remarkable Holland was for its ability to form Europe's (the world's) first republic. I'd like an entire course now on the political history of the Netherlands!

Any additional comments?

Excellent experience, excellent value. Would really suggest a final session that summarizes the course...not just this course but all the Great Courses.

34 people found this helpful

One of the few misses in the Great Courses

Professor Fix makes errors in pronunciation I can understand but wish as a professor he would attempt to correct. What I cannot understand were so many errors of facts and in his narration I started to loss confidence in his lectures e.g. Piero the Gouty was Lorenzo the Magnificent’s father and who proceeded Lorenzo. Piero the Unfortunate was the son of Lorenzo. There were many other glaring errors that I had to stop listening. I came to the conclusion that Professor Fix was bored with the subject and wasn’t concerned about pronunciation or facts and just glossed over the subject. Quite dissatisfied and disappointed with this course. I have many of the Great Courses and appreciate the level of excellence. I don’t understand how this course was not checked.

13 people found this helpful

Great Stories & Insights - Easy to Absorb

I'm constantly amazed at what you can get for the cost of a monthly membership. I think I'll go back to this and listen again several times over.

I like to listen when I'm doing other stuff - gym, cooking, driving, falling asleep etc. I tend to judge an audio book on how well I can absorb it when my attention is divided. While I definitely found myself having to rewind over some key sections quite a few times, it passed my listenability test with flying colours. It became one of those 'can't put it down' titles.

I was almost totally ignorant of the Renaissance before I listened to this. I just had a rough idea of the dates, where it all kicked off and a few of the major players. I thought, I really should know at least a little about the Renaissance. After one listen I'm sure I now know more about it and the profound ways it influenced the Western world than anyone I know, and almost anyone I'm likely to meet.

Prof. Fix's delivery is not as polished as some of the other history lecturers contributing to this series. Quite a few ums and errs. He has a more casual and perhaps irreverent style. He's very engaging nevertheless, while giving a deep, scholarly set of lectures covering some complicated issues.

I really like the way he manages to keep it light and easy going for the most part. Never stuffy or boring.

One thing I've come to appreciate about audio history lectures is that the pace at which material is presented and how it's then referred back to is important. I've listened to a few where I've not been able to keep up. This is well paced and I don't recall struggling to recall people and events from earlier lectures he referred back to.

He tells great stories, gives really deep insights and does a marvellous job of piecing together many pieces of a complicated jigsaw puzzle.

A major theme of the lectures is the religious feuding that gripped post medieval Europe, the fragmentation of Christendom and the birth of the various Protestant branches.

If you're at all interested in the history of Christianity and how it influenced national boundaries and government you'll love it.

Even if you've studied the Renaissance I think you'll learn heaps from it. I certainly did.

Highly recommended.

13 people found this helpful

Fantastic while visiting Europe

If you could sum up The Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Rise of Nations in three words, what would they be?

Informative, engaging, and memorable

What did you like best about this story?

I listened to this download while traveling in France for six weeks. It is a fantastic series of lectures, and helps get both historical and modern Europe in focus. The professor is engaging, full of humanity, and I am far more confident now of both the linear history and the intertwining strands through the continent. I hope there is another series coming from Professor Fix.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Not possible

Any additional comments?

Recommended for people who may be touring Europe and looking at historical sites - they will get so much more out of the trip

10 people found this helpful

Many mistakes!

I'm not a professional historian, but even I can stop obvious mistakes.
Joan of Arc did not go to the dauphin to Orleans, he resided in a different city. There is no solid evidence that Lucrezia Borgia had children with her father (stated here as fact). And finally, Henry VIII's brother Arthur definately didn't die in a shipwreck!
Thats just the horribly obvious errors. I'm wary about trusting anything else this professor says.

34 people found this helpful

Bad History

The professor in this book obviously has not studied the Middle Ages and makes a series of sweepIng, incorrect statements oversimplifying complex issues. Very disappointing, love the rest of the books in the series.

6 people found this helpful

very good

Informative and easy to read, indeed. Little in-depth analysis, but with the sheer amount of data, no wonder. I felt it failed to tie a few knots, but overall a good read.

6 people found this helpful

Underwhelming Presentation

I just started this course, so this is only an initial reaction.

I'm a big fan of history and this period in European history is one I've tended to veer away from because it seemed to me to always come across so dull. More recently I've become quite interested in events like the 30 Years War, the Northern Wars, and the power struggles between the Italian city-states prior to unification of Italy. So, I was quite excited to start this course.

I love the Great Courses by the Teaching company, but I'm not very impressed with Prof. Andrew C. Fix. I'm admittedly only 4 lectures in, but it's very slow going and the lectures seem very poorly structured. The first lecture ends seemingly out of nowhere. He just stops and then the lecture ends and he starts again in the next. Worse, his delivery is poor. Prof. Fix has a very... homely... style of speaking. I found him inarticulate and vague in his description of the crises of the 14th century leading up to the Renaissance and his description of the Milanese and Venetian contests for power in Northern Italy, he twice used the phrase "went on the warpath" to describe the military expansionism of the two nations. He uses very ambiguous language at times like in describing a city state as having "not a huge army". His coverage of the 100 Years War was choppy and incomplete--granted it was only a brief overview to provide some backdrop to the content of the course, but even in that context I found it lacking. His attempt to explain the Black Death was really poor. He often seems to just avoid detail and use

I'm going to continue with the course, and hopefully I'll get enough out of it to make the time worth it. Maybe it gets better. I might update this review after I've finished the course to give a more complete opinion.

29 people found this helpful

Great narration, makes the details interesting

The narrator has a great voice and tone, almost that of a Southern storyteller, and it keeps you wanting to listen.

Content-wise, the great thing about these lectures is the level of detail they go into regarding the Renaissance. I've taken college courses on the topic, but never really understood how the Renaissance was borne out of a very specific political situation in Italy at the time. Part of this lecture series almost sounds like a history of Italy in the 1400s and 1500s, but the lecturer does an amazing job of relating why these details are so integral to cultural innovations we now know so well.

3 people found this helpful

A great counterweight to today's stupidity

History in it's proper context is always relative to current times and is the best antidote to the stupidity in which I routinely see happening around especially during the political season.

This lecture starts the Renaissance with Florence and even will tell you practically the day that the Renaissance started. In 1382, Florence was in the process of losing a war with one of their weaker neighbors and the General leading the assault against Florence died and thereby saved Florence from defeat.

The city fathers decided to look at what had gone wrong and one of the things is they realized that their scholasticism was only geared towards producing Lawyers, Doctors and Theologians and not critical thinkers able to generalize from the particular to the universal (science and philosophy previously was not inductive, but deductive, from the universal to the particular).

The city fathers made a concerted effort to teach the people how to think critically and to conceptualize beyond the old standards. By rejecting the old ways of scholasticism, they led to providing a modern perspective which will ultimately lead to the Enlightenment. The Florentine city fathers would have realized how nothing could be more stupid than to have a politician be cheered when he says that "a welder is worth more than a philosopher" (this is an actual example from this current political season, and highlights the stupidity currently going on). That statement is wrong for multiple reasons. A person's worth doesn't come from what he does for a living, welders make good philosophers, and teaching one how to think critically is always a good thing to do. In the case of Florence it's going to ultimately lead to the creation of an Isaac Newton.

I don't want to imply that the reformation and nation building parts of this lecture are not relevant to today's times for they are and were just as entertaining as the Renaissance parts were. I just wish people who cheered such stupid statements as the one cited above would read (or listen) to history and science books and lectures and start to think beyond what they see on their TVs and blogs and get themselves out of the scholastic mindset and start to learn to think critically.

The lecturer does devote two hours to the development of science up to Isaac Newton and explains the Aristotelian Ptolemaic system better than most books I've read on the development of science. He'll end the lecture at the early Enlightenment, and he covers all the steps that are necessary for the creation of an Isaac Newton and a Pierre Bayle (one of my all time favorite people and I'm glad this lecture gives him his proper place within the Enlightenment, if only briefly).

9 people found this helpful