Dorsey Armstrong

Further continuing my mission this year of rereading old favorites I haven't read (or listened to) for a while, I went back to this Great Course about the Black Plague, particularly because choosing this topic would also allow me to fulfill some requirements for a reading challenge I am doing on GoodReads to read two books about the same topic (for my second book for this part of the challenge, I'll be revisiting Year of Wonders). I chose the Black Death as my topic because I am morbid that show more way. :) Also, this is just a good time of year to read spooky and chilling things (especially nonfiction!) of this nature.

This was one of the first of the Great Courses I listened to. I have listened to it several times, and each time I learn more and enjoy it more.

Dorsey is an engaging lecturer, and the organization and thoroughness of her 24 lectures on this topic are exemplary, particularly when you consider the absolute vastness of this topic and what it must have been like to sensibly condense it into 12 hours of listening. I didn't come away feeling like she had left anything out or hadn't explored an important aspect.

To have the full picture of the Black Death, we must traverse into the areas of religion, art, science, literature and poetry, economics, war, politics, medicine, epidemiology, philosophy, psychology, demographics, and even astronomy and astrology. (In Medieval times, astronomy and astrology were basically indivisible, treated equally seriously, and [among other avenues] were both explored to try to explain where the plague came from, why it happened, etc. This is very different from modern times where there is a clear line between the two, in that astronomy is a science that studies objects and phenomena in space and astrology is kind of like fortune-telling that uses the movement and position of celestial objects to divine information. This is just one of the fascinating insights into the past that you learn while listening to this!)

You learn how a "Black Swan" event (the word "black" is coincidental here; this is a metaphor to refer to impossible-to-predict happenings that occur outside the realm of normal expectation and has major effects) like the Black Death brought out both the darkest and the lightest sides of humanity, how it shaped the modern world we live in today, and that we are still learning about (and from) this horrifying time in history which ravaged communities most thoroughly from 1347 - 1352 and in subsequent years almost on the decade until the mid 1600s.

Though the subject matter is disturbing and dark, we cannot understand where we are now or where we are going if we don't understand where we came from. I think this is why I have always loved history (particularly Medieval History) from an early age so much and why I try not to shy away from uncomfortable (even horrifying) topics like this one. If your interests are the same, I highly recommend listening to this! show less

My most recent audio "book" was this Great Courses series of lectures on King Arthur. I'm reasonably knowledgeable about King Arthur, both because I've always been a fan and read a lot of Arthurian retellings and because I took an intense course on Arthur in college. So this series was a great combination of review and new material for me. I was especially interested in Armstrong's discussion of archaeological finds that are connected (or sometimes purported to be connected) to Arthur or show more other figures in the legends. Armstrong is really good at presenting this material (at first I thought she sounded a bit like she was talking (down) to seven year olds, but eventually I decided she was just trying to be personable in a situation that calls for that but is anything but (i.e. talking into a microphone)) and I was really into her little jokes and ways of talking in the end. My interest in Arthur waxes and wanes but pretty reliably sparks at least once a year (often in the summer, probably because I spent one memorable June in high school working through the mammoth Mists of Avalon), and listening to these lectures has really gotten my interest up again. I recommend them to anyone interested in the Arthur legends or the medieval period (most discussion is about medieval works, though we do get lectures on the 19th, 20th, and 21st century interpretations as well as discussions of Arthurian films and artwork (tapestries etc) other than texts). Fascinating, well presented, and easy to follow. show less

I bought this lecture set not because I am a fan of King Arthur but because I am curious about the origins of the legend and I know Professor Armstrong is an exceptional lecturer. The first few lectures provided that information of the origins handily and I could have happily stopped. I kept on listening because Armstrong is such an engaging lecturer that I looked forward to learning even more than I set out to. It is very likely I will listen to this set again.

Great update to a course that had me hooked, with the unfortunate consequence of making a lot of what made that course fascinating invalid. Also suffers from being released (clearly in a clever marketing motivated move) at the height of the corona years, which has already and will undoubtedly continue to date the material horribly.
A do-over or synthesis updating the old course would have been better.