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Albert Einstein: Physicist, Philosopher, Humanitarian, by Don Howard (Teaching Company Lecture Series) ★

I ordered this set from the Teaching Company, hoping to receive a non-biased, educated assessment of the life, thinking, and times of Albert Einstein. The series started as a modestly historical narrative of the early Einstein, and included discussion of his thinking in physics, but also in philosophy and politics. Einstein apparently felt modestly prejudiced against, owing to the fact that he was a Jew, surviving in a primarily non-Jewish culture. His success in physics came with shaky fits, having problems with the higher institutes of learning in Switzerland, but eventually ending in the pinnacle of his career while in Berlin, before moving to America in 1933 at the time of the rise of Hitler. Howard is willing to admit that the social life of Einstein left much to be desired, mistreating several wives, and essentially abandoning his children. Howard excuses Einstein, noting that he was a great socialist and humanitarian, thus making up for his otherwise despicable lifestyle. Though a number of the early lectures discusses the innovations of physics by Einstein, you are also left with the notion that Einstein burned out early, vacillating frequently when theories didn’t fit his personal philosophy. His greatest despair was his development of the science of quantum mechanics, only to later disown it as it didn’t fit his personal world view. He is like Napoleon-a brilliant youth followed by a not so brilliant middle and older age. By the 10th lecture, this series became quite worrisome, in that the lectures became a dummy pulpit for Howard to expound his own socialist belief system. Howard fails miserably to discuss the various ramifications of Einstein’s political and philosophic stances, arguing both the pro’s and con’s of the various social solutions Einstein offers. Thus, Howard betrays his own calling as an academician, forfeiting his claim as an intellectual, in order to push a social agenda that Einstein supposedly espoused. By the end of the lecture series, you are left wondering how accurate Howard remained to the true thinking of Einstein. You are left with multiple holes. I would have loved more discussion of Einstein at Princeton, yet you hear nothing save for his involvement with socialist issues, anti-war issues, and government interactions during the second world war. Oddly, Howard barely takes Einstein to task for his horrid inconsistency for advocating the development of the atom bomb, only since he presumed it would be used against the German state that mistreated him. Howard unnecessarily idolizes Einstein to the point of losing an objective focus for discussion of the man, making the entire series very wearisome to listen to. I simply could not recommend this series to anybody for a serious discussion of the thought and life of Albert E.

Rise and Fall of the British Empire, by Prof. Patrick Allitt, Teaching Company Series ★★★★

Patrick Allitt is a worthy lecturer of this series, having been born in Darby, England, and having grown up in England until college years brought him to the USA. He is able to offer personal vignettes from his family history regarding recent events in the last days of the Empire. The British Empire once held land in every part of the globe, from multiple holdings in Africa, all of India/Pakistan/Bangladesh, Egypt and the middle East, Ireland, Australia, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, multiple Caribbean Islands, and multiple islands elsewhere in the world. Indeed, when The Empire was the largest, it was also the most unstable and weakest, which was immediately following the 1st world war, both the 1st and 2nd world wars being pyrrhic victories to England. Allitt spares no punches at elaborating the multiple abuses of the empire that the Brits exercised, including deception and brutality with the Irish, the multiple exercises of brute force in India and unjust reign in that country, the absolutely embarrassing and horrid inconsistencies with their treatment of the Chinese in the Opium wars, and the wretched and unjust treatment of the Boers in South Africa, provoking war not for the sake of justice or virtue, but solely for wealth. We would not elaborate the horrid treatment of the Zulu kings of Africa, and plays of force in achieving domination of the peoples of those countries. We would also not mention Britain’s aggressiveness at assuring that no other country in the world would exercise the right of ability to also conquer lands and develop colonies, taking greedily colonies from the Dutch and Germans, and assuring weakness with the French and Spanish in their overseas holdings. Allitt spends much time discussing the racism that prevailed in a fairly extreme form, sometimes as extreme as Hitler, in developing the concept of the superior race of the Anglo-saxon, which prevented them from interacting justly with the Indian, the Negroes of Africa, or the  Aborigines of Australia/Maori of New Zealand. Though Great Britain is often thought of being virtuous in bringing Western law and Christianity to all parts of the world, they most often brutally oppressed missionary activity, and rarely lived by the laws which they purported to be holding in high esteem. In summary, the British have exercised an extreme form of arrogance, racism, and domination of “might makes right” that is an embarrassment for the West. Much of this is seen in the recently reviewed series of “The Jewel in the Crown”.

In terms of Allitt’s teaching style, he is very easy to listen to, sometimes lapses into irrelevancies (such as his 35th lecture on British literature), and does repeat considerable amounts of his lecture series on Victorian Britain. Even still, this series is thought provoking, especially in consideration of American attempts to repeat the worst of Great Britain’s mistakes. Ron Paul is right in his foreign policy as a corrective to British mistakes, though most Americans seem to arrogantly accept that we must maintain a police presence throughout the world. Someday (probably soon), we will be seeing a lecture series on the rise and fall of the United States of America, if we don’t wake up to our pompous policies in the world at large.