Book Review: The Man Who Knew Infinity

I had heard about Ramanujan before, but not enough to know his name, just that his case was used in arguments to show that the education system is a failure and that genius can come from anywhere.  I agree that genius can come from anywhere, but this book puts paid to the fact that it is a failure of the education system.  At one point the question is asked, are there other Ramanujan's out there.  The book points out that Ramanujan's brilliance is a once in a life time, or century.  That with all of the success of the Western European educational system a genius like Ramanujan only rises occasionally.

There is a question in science, and I suppose other fields, that talks about the effect of the genius.  In this book there is a person who states the differences in genius.  There is the regular genius who is very good at doing the normal things.  When he shows you what he did you can understand it, you just realize that the genius is just very much better than you are.  Then there is the magician, when the magician shows you what he or she did you still can't understnad how they did it.  Magicians change they way the world sees itself.  Magicians are men like Kepler who sees that orbits are eliptical, or Einstien and brownian motion, and Newton and gravitational force.  Not anyone could see what they saw, but once they point the way the world is a better place.

According to this book that is Ramanujan who kept notebooks, three of them, during the years when only he believed in himself, but which are still being studied and proved many years after his death.

This book is also about the other type of genius G. H. Hardy who was a mathematician that Ramanuhan wrote to who recognized his genius and nutured it and brought Ramanujan to the attention of the world.  Some would say that anyone could have discovered Ramanujan but Hardy is the third mathmatician that Ramanujan wrote and the other two didn't discover him.  From the book it said that since Ramanujan didn't have a lot of formal training his notation was hard to understand.  Not wrong just different and it takes some time to see what he was actually saying.  The book said it was like instead of saying "Penny wise and dollar foolish." you say "Quater wise and two dollars and fifty cents foolish"  Same thing but doesn't ring right.

Fascinating book about two fascinating men.  Very good read.

Book Review: Amazing Grace

This is a book about a great man, and I'm glad that I read it.  It was recommended to me by a dear friend, and I'm glad she recommended it because reading the book has really has really given me some profound insights.

I think that the most important part of the book was the introduction.  In it it points out that William Wilberforce and the Claptham Sect really changed the world in a profound way.  Before them the world had always accepted slavery, after words slavery was no longer acceptable.  Before them the world just accepted that there were poor in the world, even Christians accepted that, and that the poor were responsible for their condition.  After the Claptham Sect became the social conscience for society it was no longer acceptable that society should do nothing to help the unfortunate amongst us.  This book shows how this great change came about and introduces the reader to the man who was a driving force behind the changes.

It's too  bad we don't know more about men like this today.  I would highly recommend everyone to learn more about William Wilberforce and this book is a good way to do it.

Great Courses Review: American Religious History

I was very pleased with this series as I began listening to it. Despite what Peirs Morgan says Americans love foreign accents and I really loved listening to Dr. Allit's accent. Religious history is something of a hobby of mine, and I've listened to a lot of the religion and history courses offered by The Great Courses. I was excited when Dr. Allit gave his history about how impressed he was with the religiosity of the US when he came here as a student, and especially when he said he was one of the few observant people in England.

As I said, I do a lot of reading about Christian History. One of my favorite authors on the subject is Rodney Stark. He claims that Christianity in America revitalized Christianity, and I have to agree with him. I was hoping that this might give me some more insight into that. For the first 7 lectures things sounded pretty good. Then he got to Onieda and Mormons.

Now I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints more commonly called Mormons. I don't expect Dr. Allit to know as much about Mormon history as I do because I read a lot about it, and he actually references one of my favorite Mormon authors Richard Bushman. And I know that it's OK to mock the Mormon religion, after all a big hit on Broadway was basically mocking our religion and no one really seemed to care. However, I expected more from a lecture series from The Great Courses.

The LDS Church has an official account of Joseph Smith's First Vision that is considered scripture.  I as a well read in the history of Mormonism know that there are other accounts as well. However, I wondered why Dr. Allit chose not to use the official version, or to at least point out that he was not using the official account. That was a small point but it seems to set the tone. He says that there were rumors of polygamy were being practiced in the Missouri period. Something I've never heard before, and don't think it's true. Then he said a sentence that can only be construed as misleading. He said 6 of the 11 witnesses of the Golden Plates left the Church, and immediately launched into the account of John C. Bennett. The way he said it "I" thought John C. Bennett was one of the witnesses of the Golden Plates. I had to go back an re-listen to the account to make sure I'd heard it right it was such an egregious implication. John C. Bennett is a problem for Mormon history but this presentation was ridiculous. So the main thing about the Mormons is polygamy, and just to make sure that everyone gets the point he reads from Mark Twain's account of the Mormons in "Roughing It". Now I have now problem with Mark Twain's account and it is funny, but I do have a problem when it is used in a lecture course for mocking purposes. I realized that that was how it was being used as I heard his audience laughing at the account. Nothing was said to put it in context. Dr. Allit's point was that some American Religions had strange sexual practices and Onieda and the Mormons were two of them.

OK fair enough I'm used to that. After all I'm a Mormon and I've been on a mission. I've been abused for my religion. I was going to ignore it.

Then he talked about Aimee Semple McPherson as part of the Fundamentalist movement. After he talked about her I thought she was simply a scam artist who was involved sex scandal. The way Dr. Allit talked about it I was sure she was hypocrite. However, since I never had heard of her, I decided to do some research my self. Dr. Allit said that she'd ran away with a technician and was in a love nest with him on the coast of California, while Aimee said she'd been kidnapped and held in Mexico. He didn't say it was alleged that that was what happened but that that was what had happened. I thought she was a scamming slut. However, it turns out that Dr. Allit apparently just likes to present the most salacious case possible religious figures. My research was not in depth, but I did learn that Aimee went to trial twice and was found not guilty over this event. I also found out that the technician she was supposedly with said that he was never with her, and that he turned down a great deal of money that he could have gotten from the tabloids of the time had he said it. He always spoke highly of her. Also, after this event Aimee continued to have a successful ministry. I don't know what Dr. Allit was trying to do with Aimee McPherson but his presentation of her in this lecture was abominable.

After I found that out I just had to let people know just how bad these two presentation were. I don't really have the time to research everything that Dr. Allit says but with these two statements my thoughts are that he is very prejudicial against religious beliefes he doesn't agree with like Mormons and Pentecostals.

Book Review: The Meaning of Jesus

This is a book that is co-written by Marcus Borg and Bishop N. T. Wright. I found it on scribd and was very excited to read it. Marcus Borg is probably my favorite liberal theologian. I disagree with just about everything that he says about Jesus and the Bible, but really like the way that he says we should live our lives as Christians. Bishop N. T. Wright is my favorite conservative Christian theologian. I've read a number of his books.

In the introduction of the book describes how Bishop Wright read a book by Marcus called "Conflict, Holiness, and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus". Bishop Wright sought out Marcus to congratulate him on as well as to explore some "matters arising" and to ask why the book ended as it did rather than in certain other possible ways. A friendship arose out of the fascinating study of Jesus within his historical context. The result of that friendship is this book. It is a book that discusses the different ways that they see Jesus. The book is not meant to be scholarly, and both writers refer readers to other books it the reader is interested.

I first learned about Bishop Wright a few years ago when I learned about NPP, or the New Perspective on Paul. Bishop Wright wrote a book about that called "Paul: In Fresh Perspective." I liked that book and then found that Bishop Wright was a part of the so called "Third Wave of Historical Jesus Studies." Strangely enough Bishop Wright defends the Bible and interprets the historical Jesus as if they Gospels are historically accurate. Reading his interpretation was like a breath of fresh air. Also, his thoughts were deep and his arguments well thought out, not like the general popular treatments, like the execrable books by Lee Strobel.  Although if you like his books I'm not saying that I think they're wrong, just that they're not very scholarly and they make what I feel are stupid arguments.

Basically Marcus takes the general scholarly interpretation of the Gospels and Jesus. In fact Marcus is part of the Jesus Seminar. As far as I can tell the Jesus Seminar thinks that Jesus was a historical figure, but that he didn't perform any miracles and all the miracle stories were made up about him by his followers. They try to go a little more in depth than that, but that's the gist of it, and this is the idea that Marcus defends. He talks about a pre-Easter Jesus and a post-Easter Jesus. He feels by careful study of the Gospel sources, which include the Synoptic Gospels but not John, the so called Q document and the Gospel of Thomas that he can tell what Jesus really did and said, which he calls history remembered, and what his followers made up about Jesus which he calls history metaphorized. However, while I totally disagree with what he says about Jesus and the way the Gospels were created, I really like the way that he teaches that we should live the Christian life.

So here's a great example about what I mean. Marcus doesn't think that there was an empty tomb on Easter morning. The resurrections accounts are history metophorized (made up). However, quoting "My position is that experiences of the risen Christ as a continuing presence generated the claim that 'Jesus lives and is Lord'". Marcus sees the resurrection as a metaphor for the fact that Christ's presence, or resurrection, ought to be a continuing presence in our lives. I agree that Christ's presence should be an ongoing experience in every Christians life, but I also think that it's important that there was an empty tomb.

Because I consider myself a conservative Christian I tend to agree more with Bishop Wright's portrayal of the historic Jesus than I do Marcus'. In fact I think that the ideas that Marcus shares is the reason that the mainline Christian denominations are losing members in droves. However, since Bishop Wright is an Anglican Bishop it's hard to account for him.  It seems to me, as an outsider of the Anglican confession, I think there is a fight for the soul of the Anglican Confession between conservatives and liberal Christians. At least that was the view that I got when the controversy over gay clergy erupted a few years ago. I guess if it's true then Bishop Wright must be in the camp of the conservatives camp.

That being said I enjoyed both of the wrap up chapters that talk about the way that the ideas that were shared should effect the Christian Church and Christian life. That has always been the thing that amazes me about Marcus, I disagree with everything he says except about the way he says that a Christian should live. I guess I could disagree with a few points that he has but overall I very much like what he has to say about living the Christian life.

Marcus agrees with the findings of the critical scholars for the last 200 years as he constantly refrains. He also claims to want to find a Jesus that is able to fit in with the modern world. The question I always wonder about this is does he realize that if he were alive 100 years ago, or 50 years ago the findings of the critical scholars were very much different/mistaken about a lot of things.  Does that mean Marcus would have different views about Jesus depending upon the most current ideas about Jesus Scholarship? That's just something that I can't countenance, a  changeable Jesus, and that is all that critical scholarship gives you is changes.

Here is the state of critical Jesus Scholarship as I understand it. The Gospel of Mark came first. It's the shortest and seems to make the least amounts of claims for Jesus' divinity. Matthew used Mark as a source and expanded it to beef up Jesus' credentials. Luke used Mark and Matthew to again beef up Jesus' credentials. So here's what they're asking people to swallow.

1) Jesus was just another great teacher, or healer or whatever.

2)After he died his followers got together and make up stories so that he would appear to be more fantastic and people would believe that he was the divine Son of God.

However, what these people never answer, and Bishop Wright asks this question, is why would the followers of Jesus ever make this decision? That's not how any other messianic movement, or any other movement, ever works. When the leader is killed after making fantastic claims he is dropped as a movement leader and the followers look for other leaders or disband. Sometimes a leader that accomplishes a lot during his or her lifetime he is honored after their death, but they have to accomplish something, and usually they have many years of leadership under their belt. One recent example of this might be Ronald Reagan who is now a conservative political icon (and probably looks much better in retrospect than he actually was), but he was in politics for over 30 years and rose to the pinnacle of his profession and did things like spearhead an economic resurgence, and rebuilt the military and restored their honor.  Buddha was a religious leader for 30 years and had created a following of monks called the sangha that followed and recorded his teachings.  Mohammad, if he existed, was a military, political leader, and prophets for over 30 years and built up the ummah to follow after him and they recorded his life and teachings. Jesus didn't do anything like that. According to the synoptic gospels he was active for about a year, and in John he was active for maybe 3 years, then he was killed by the Romans as a traitor, by crucifixion the worst thing that could happen to a Jew. Why in the world would anyone follow such a person, especially when, by their own admission, they all scattered after Jesus' death, which is the natural thing to do and to be expected? There is no reason: unless there was a real resurrection, and other miracles to testify of Christ's divinity. Of course since there is no answer, except the obvious that Jesus really was the Son of God and a miracle worker, no one tries to answer it, they just come up with things that could possibly have happened and say this is the best idea that we can come up with and leave it at that.

This is a good book and I would recommend it to anyone interested in two divergent views of Jesus.

Book Review: There Is A God

This is a book that I found out about while reading the book "Signature in the Cell". Of course I'd heard of the amazing conversion of Dr. Antony Flew, a world famous atheist to theism as he describes it. Not Christianity, but theism. However, he does say that if you have to choose a religion you can't go too far wrong with a religion that has such a charismatic figure as Jesus and a world class intellect such a Paul as your founders.

Much of this book went completely over my head. Even though this book was probably written for a general audience, only parts of it could I completely understand. The reason was because Dr. Flew is talking about very precise philosophy arguments, and the books that make them. However, the parts that I could understand well were well worth reading.

Roy Abraham Varghese, who is the co-author, also wrote the introduction, and the first appendix. He takes apart the so called new atheism which he says isn't new and doesn't even rise to the level of logical positivism, and ignores all the arguments being made for theism today. Basically they just rail against organized religion of any kind and are trumpeted by the media as something new, although they are not. The whole book was worth reading for the way that he took apart Richard Dawkin's, my favorite atheist to despise. After Dr. Flew, an eminent philosopher and proponent for atheism for many years, Richard Dawkin's apparently went ballistic, and went for the "ad hominem" attack. Dawkins first said that Bertrand Russel "was an exaggeratedly fair-minded atheist, over-eager to be disillusioned if logic seemed to require it," He added in a footnote "We might be seeing something similar today in the over-publicized tergiversation of the philosopher Antony Flew, who announced in his old age that he had been converted to belief in some sort of deity (triggering a frenzy of eager repetition all around the Internet). On the other hand, Russell was a great philosopher. Russell won the Nobel Prize."

Varghese writes

"The puerile petulance of the contrast with the "great philosopher" Russell and the contemptible reference to Flew's "old age" are par for the course in Dawkins's epistles to the enlightened. But what is interesting here is Dawkins's choice of words, one by which he unwittingly reveals the way his mind works.
"Tergiversation means "apostasy." So Flew's principle sin was that of apostatizing from the faith of the fathers."

That's funny writing as far as I'm concerned and it only gets better.

He related a statement made by Dr. John Barrows an English cosmologist, theoretical physicist,and mathematician who is a Research Professor of Mathematical Sciences at Cambridge University, said, regarding Dr. Dawkins disregarding the fine tuning of the Universe, "You have a problem with these ideas Richard, because your not really a scientist. You're a biologist." Julia Vitullo-Martin says that Dr. Barrow feels that biology is little more than a branch of natural history. Dr. Barrow has said; "Biologists have a limited intuitive understanding of complexity. They're stuck with an inherited conflict from the nineteenth century, and are only interested in outcomes, in what wins out over others. But outcomes tell you almost nothing about the laws that govern the universe."

Just reading those parts of the book were worth reading the entire book.

Dr. Flew wrote and presented a paper called "Theology and Falsification" and presented it at the Socratic Club, that was sponsored by C.S.Lewis at Oxford university, in 1950. This has been one of the most quoted articles about atheism of the last half of the 20th century. It's a short article and it can be found on the web if you would like to read it. This article supposedly changed the entire dynamic of the argument against God. I didn't really see how it changed the argument, but that may be because the argument that he presented is now so well known that I've heard it before in other forms.

One of the things that Dr. Flew points out is that when he became and atheist in the middle of the 20th Century much of the evidence that he now considers important as evidence of a deity was not known. One example is that the DNA molecule shape was not determined until 1953, and it was after that that it was possible to determine how it worked. Also, a lot of the discoveries of the fine tuning of the Universe were not known at that time. After taking all of these new discoveries into consideration Dr. Flew decided that the best explanation of the Universe is that it is designed, and if it is designed then there must be a designer.

He also addressed the comments by the idiot Dr. Dawkins by saying that some people had accused him of getting old and changing his views because he was worried about the afterlife. However, Dr. Flew said that he has not changed his ideas of humans having an immortal soul.  He doesn't think we do have a soul so he doesn't think anything will happen after he dies. He also said that he has always been willing to follow where the evidence leads and has changed his ideas in the past. He said that many people are supprised when they learn at one time he was a Marxist, and that he later became a supporter of capitolism.

Another interesting part of the book are the two appendices. One is by Roy Abraham Varghese who also wrote the forward.  Dr. Flew says that he has recommended the book "The Wonder of the World" and that anyone who argues against theism "would need to take into account [The Wonder of the World] which provides an extremely extensive argument of the inductive argument from the order of nature." He appendix is a paper called "The 'New Athiesm': A Critical Appraisal of Dawkins, Dennett, Wolpert, Harris and Stenger". He basically says that their arguments are not new and that they are very shallow, but that the popular press is giving them a lot of press and attention. One of the great things he says is that the atheists are trying to say that if you sit at a marble table, the argument is that if you sit there long enough the table will start talking to you. He points out that the atheists are making that somehow inanimate matter became animate and then progressed until we are the results.

The second appendix is by Bishop N. T. Wright. Bishop Wright is one of my favorite Christian writers. Dr. Flew writes 
"Appendix B concerns the claim that there is a self-revelation of God in human history in the person of Jesus Christ. The claim is defended by one of today's premier New Testament scholars, Bishop N. T. Wright. In my view, Wright's responses to my previous critiques of divine self-revelation, both in the present volume and in his books, comprise the most powerful case for Christianity that I have ever seen."

Dr. Flew apparently is not convinced by Bishop but thinks his arguments are good. I concure. Of course I always like it when someone really smart agrees with my opinion. Still I think that's high praise for Bishop Wright. I didn't realize how good his arguments were.  His appendix is excellent.  It caused me to go and see if Bishop Wright has written anything new that I might read since I enjoyed the appendix so much.

Great Courses Review: History of Science: Antiquity to 1700

I only got this course after listening to the others in the trilogy and then wondering if they had a course covering the time period not covered by the other courses.  I'm glad I found it.

I've read some of the other reviews and it seems to me that people are mistaking science for technology.  No one would mistake the Wright brothers for scientists.  They owned a bike shop.  However, they did build a flying machine when most "scientists" of the time were saying a heavier than air craft would never be built.  Once the technology was proven scientists could then help improve the technology.  It's possible that a course could be taught on the history of the science of aeronautics without ever mentioning airplanes or jets.  It would probably be boring and depending on how far back you went it might be hard to explain just why the scientists switched from believing heavier than air flight wasn't possible to it was possible.  In fact Dr. Principe alludes to this when he talked about the "Clock Work Age" and how those who built the mills were illiterate for the most part and not interested in natural philosophy (science) but made great strides in the  technology of the time.

It amazes me how much people don't understand how closely Christianity and science are linked.  Some reviewers have complained that Dr. Principe gives Christianity too much credit.  I personally enjoyed his insights and the linking of advances in natural philosophy to Christian philosophy.  In fact in my opinion it is exactly because Europeans were Christians that they developed "science" as we know it.  Certainly the inhabitants of the Asian Peninsula — incorrectly referred to as the "Continent of Europe" because of continental envy when Western geography books were written — were behind the great cultures of the East for most of history, with the possible exception of the Roman Empire.  Dr. Principe doesn't make a big deal of this but it's true only in the West did alchemy become chemistry, or astrology become astronomy.  Europeans were introduced to gunpowder by the Muslims from the Chinese, and they perfected it so that when the Europeans went on the voyages of "discovery" they totally dominated the historically great cultures because they had perfected putting gunpowder in tubes and shooting projectiles, among other things.  In fact Europeans took the ideas introduced to them and improved on them all.  They were introduced to algebra  and developed calculus. They were introduced to optics and developed telescopes, microscopes and glasses.  I can go on but the point is already made.

Another reviewer was upset because so much time was given to Newtons writings and studies on theology and alchemy.  Dr. Principe didn't make up the fact that Newton spent all his time studying and writing about those topics and ignoring the fact, like they did during the 18th century, doesn't make Newton a greater scientist — oops natural philosopher — it just makes him less interesting as a human.  Many biographers of Newton have said that he thought his writings on theology were his most important works.  That's just the way it is, most great scientists before the enlightenment were very devout Christians.  Many still are today.

I really enjoyed this course.  Dr. Principe covered a lot of ground and I thought he covered it as well as could be expected in 36 lectures.  Just be sure you know what he's going to talk about. 

Great Courses Review: Turning Points in Medieval History

Professor Dorsey Armstrong is an excellent lecturer. I very much appreciated the way that she presented the information. At first I was annoyed by the way she tied lectures together at the end and beginning of each lecture. It takes up a lot of the time. I grew used to it, and other commentators on this series have said that it is helpful.

I have a daughter and son-in-law that attends Purdue University so I actually paid closer attention than usual when the professors experience was given at the first of the lectures. I thought it would be interesting to hear from a professor who was involved in "women studies." Turns out she's a professor of English and Medieval Literature, and Purdue does actually offer a minor in women's studies. Well that's disappointing but I'm not an alumni so I can't really be that disappointed.

I like the way she taught the course where she pulls in the way that different events are connected. I like documentaries and books that do it as well, so that's just a personal opinion. She seems to jump around a lot some people may not like that.

This series of lectures was definitely taught from a liberal viewpoint. And I mean liberal in the modern PC liberal view point. When she first said that Europe became a "persecuting society" I almost laughed out loud, especially when she said they persecuted "infidels, pagans, homosexuals, leprorers, and Jews". She emphasized that there were still pagans at that time in Europe. this is the first time that I've ever heard that people specifically persecuted homosexuals in the medieval times. I suppose it's true, since homosexuals have never been treated very well and there might even have been some pagans at that time, but not many. However, I've never heard of it before, and every example of persecution she gave was against the Jews. Still as I said I almost laughed the first time she said it, but she said it often after that. Very often. In fact it's impossible not to notice since it was a constant refrain.

She also presented a very positive view of Islam. I kept wondering if she would like to go to a persecuting society today where they still actually do persecute homosexuals and Jews, and consider Christians infidels. In fact in Iran, an Islamic society they hang you for being a homosexual. While I'm sure that might have been done sometime in the past, somewhere in the Christian West, I can guarantee you it's not done today. This point leads me to something I found absolutely astounding in her choice for a turning point in Meadival History. She only picked two battles, one the Battle of Lechfeld, and the other the Battle of Hattin. I've never heard of the Battle of Lechfeld before, which doesn't mean that much except that I do like history and have listened to a lot of Great Courses history tapes. I'm pretty sure that that battle might or might not have really had a great impact on the development of the "persecuting society" of Europe, but I'm totally sure that the Battle of Tours is an actual turning point because it stopped the Islamic advance into Europe, then we would probably would have been much more like Iran, and would really be persecuting homosexuals. She does give some credit to this battle because she mentions the Song of Roland a couple of times, which she would practically have to mention as a Prof. of Medieval Literature, and that take place in the Battle of Tours.

The Battle of Hattin is a turning point, but Prof. Armstrong practically salivates over what a great guy Saladin was. I can't really blame her for that because that seems to be the PC version of the guy. Here's what I've written about Saladin on another Great Courses review that also thought he was a great guy. It's from my Great Courses review on Islam

"He then talks about how Saladin spared Jerusalem when he took it. He doesn't mention the account of Saladin taking Hattin. Saladin's secretary writes this account of how he treated the prisoners there: "[Saladin] ordered that they should be beheaded, choosing to have them dead rather than in prison. With him was a whole band of scholars and Sufis and a certain number of devout men and ascetics; each begged to be allowed to kill one of them, and drew his sword and rolled back his sleeve. Saladin, his face joyful, was sitting on his dais; the unbelievers showed black despair." He also doesn't mention that the Saladin planned to treat the prisoners at Jerusalem the same way. The reason he didn't it was because of an agreement he had reached with Christian commander of the city Balian of Ibelin who had threatened to kill all of the Muslims in the city of Jerusalem before Saladin could reach it if he didn't agree to spare the prisoners. He also only "spared" the prisoners that could be ransomed to freedom, the rest were sold as slaves. Nice guy Saladin. If you go to the Wikipedia account of the massacre of Ayyadieh it ends with this ironic sentence

"Aayadieh is perhaps the strongest refutation of Richard as a courteous and chivalrous warrior king. On this occasion his almost "theatrical" staging of the massacre showed that he was capable of using terror tactics in an attempt to terrify his opponents into submission. Ironically, Saladin's counter massacre did not hurt his reputation."

Many people point out how well Richard and Saladin got along even though they were adversaries. Saladin even sent his physician, who was probably much, much better than anything Richard had, to treat him when Richard was ill. They probably got along well because they were kindred spirits. Why does Dr. Espisito not tell this, if he "has" to tell about the villains of the plot why only the Christian villains? Muslims know Saladin, and not the happy charitable Saladin the west is told about by Dr. Esposito."

All that Prof. Tells us about Saladin and Hattin is he did behead was behead Raynald de Chatillon, who probably deserved it, and let King Guy go after giving him ice water. Well when supposedly knowledgeable people present facts like this no wonder everyone thinks Saladin was a paragon of virtue.

I liked some of the information she gave that came from her women studies background. I'd never heard of the women doctors before.

I'm always a little leery of taking professors to task here. After all they're professors and I'm a programmer. After reading some of the other reviews I see that I'm not the only one who finds her presentation one sided. However, I found her a most engaging lecturer. You can tell she loves the topic and she was very entertaining once you got used to her style. I'd recommend this this series to anyone, but I'd warn them of the biases, and after wards I'd want to see what they thought of it.