Recommended: The Teaching Company

Many people like to listen to novels or other books on tape/CD: while walking, at the gym, in the car, and so on. I do too, but what I really like to do -- while driving to and from work -- is listen to lectures on CD from The Teaching Company. This company provides an immense library of top-notch material on a wide range of subjects. Quoting from their "About Us" page:

The Teaching Company brings engaging professors into your home or car through courses on DVD, audio CD, and other formats. Since 1990, great teachers from the Ivy League, Stanford, Georgetown, and other leading colleges and universities have crafted over 200 courses for lifelong learners. We provide the adventure of learning, without the homework or exams.

I've been pretty consistently impressed with the courses that I have listened to thus far. Each lecture is about 30 minutes in length, and the courses have all been 12-36 lectures each (some they offer are longer). Some of the professors are better speakers than others, in terms of clarity or how engaging they are. In general, they seem to do a good job of presenting objective information in an unbiased manner (to the extent that I can determine this -- there might be more subtle and hard to detect bias in the topics they choose to cover, or not cover, in their courses.) The few times I have heard a professor allow his opinions to enter into the presentation, they have been upfront about it.

If you browse their catalog, you might suffer from sticker shock -- their products seem quite expensive. However, what is vital to know is that every course they offer goes on a significant sale at least once a year. Usually this is around 70% off regular prices, so if you find one you might like to try, wait for it to go on sale if it isn't on sale now!

I thought I'd list the ones I have listened to so far (in no particular order):

• The Story of Human Language (18 hours), by John McWhorter (Manhattan Institute)
• History of the English Language (18 hours), by Seth Lerer (Stanford University)
• Churchill (6 hours), by J. Rufus Fears (Univ. of Oklahoma)
• Mr. Lincoln (6 hours), by Allen Guelzo (Gettysburg College)
• History of the Supreme Court (18 hours), by Peter Irons (UCSD)
• American Ideals: Founding a Republic of Virtue (6 hours), by Daniel N. Robinson (Oxford University)
• Doctors: The History of Scientific Medicine Revealed through Biography (6 hours), by Sherwin Nuland (Yale School of Medicine)
• The Philosophy of Mind (6 hours), by John Searle (UC Berkeley) -- no longer available
• From Yao to Mao: 5000 Years of Chinese History (18 hours), by Kenneth Hammond (New Mexico State University)

I am just now finishing up the Chinese history course. Favorites? Hard to choose. The McWhorter course on the History of Language is really good -- he speaks quickly but is nonetheless easy to understand (I have seen him on TV many times, and always find him to be insightful and articulate, no matter the subject he is commenting on). The Doctors course was very interesting, but I could really say that about all of them. Peter Irons admits at the outset that he is on the political left, but I didn't find that this biased his presentation on the Supreme Court very much. And the Philosophy of Mind course by Searle is outstanding (as I would have expected, given the lecturer), which is a shame because it doesn't seem to be available any longer.

In the future, I'll blog about these courses as I listen to them -- there are many others I hope to get to soon.

Check out their website!