Great Courses - The American Mind

This was a pretty good course.  It was taught by Professor Allen C. Guelzo.  Dr. Guelzo's presentation manner was excellent and the information was well presented.

Professor Guelzo said that there would be six recurring themes that would run through the lectures.  I forgot what they all were but two of them were that the Puritan beginnings of America and the Enlightenment were the two minds of America and they would continue to interact throughout the series.  I thought that was an excellent point and was well developed throughout.

There was one thought that was presented that I thought made the entire lecture series worth while.  He said that when Englishmen read Locke they had to imagine society rising from a state of nature and entering into contracts to keep their property safe.  However, the American's didn't have to use their imagination they could see it taking place around them.  I've never thought of it that way.  It was awesome.

I really enjoyed the first half of the series up until Lincoln and the Civil War.  Then I started noticing that Dr. Guelzo was concentrating on the liberal and progressive thought process of the American mind.  I kept waiting for him to mention the Christian Fundamental movement of the 20th Century.  Practically the only mention of it was when he said the Reinhold Nieburh was too old and tired to respond to something negative that Billy Graham said about him.  That's the only mention Billy Graham which was the only mention of the Fundamental movement, and Billy Graham wasn't that great a mention of the movement anyway.  Reinhold Nieburh is the only Christian mentioned in the 20th Century, and while he's a good representative I wouldn't say that he represented most American Christians.

However, in the 36th Lecture he redeems or explains himself.  He said that there were many strands of thoughts that he could have covered and that he covered those that he knew the best.  I'm sure that's true.  He also, talked about the conservative movement, and how he thought that President Regan was the first conservative president elected.  I thought that was pretty good.  He also said that he thought that the left was caught be surprise when Regan was elected because they had totally bought into Marxist idea that mankind was homo economist, or man driven by economics.  With Regan they voted culturally.  this delivered 5 of the next 7 presidencies to the Republicans.  I wish it was that the current Republicans would learn that lesson: people don't just vote their pocket books but sometimes vote their consciences if they have a choice.  Of course this caught the the left by surprise for much the same reason that Dr. Guelzo didn't cover the Christian Fundamental movement.  The Left ignores the majority of Christians, and just relates with the intellectual Christians like Reinhold Nieburh, the kind who wouldn't vote for Regan on a dare.

Overall an excellent lecture series.