A few days ago, Diana recommended Scott Powell’s First History for Adults. I want to second her recommendation. I cannot say enough good things about this course and about its teacher.

Scott’s course has many virtues, but the greatest, in my estimation, is that it not only teaches us history, but how to understand history.

To take just one example, a mistake many Objectivists make is to try to jump from the concrete events of history to broadest philosophic causes of those events. But that is like trying to jump directly from the observation that apples fall to Newton’s laws–you can’t do it, and if you try to, all you’ll be left with are random concretes and floating abstractions. Scott’s course shows us the proper historical hierarchy in a way that is clarifying and captivating .

And that is the most thrilling aspect of Scott’s class to me: to see the Objectivist epistemology applied to history in a way that illuminates both.

No matter how rich (or poor) your knowledge of history, you will benefit from this course.

Update from Diana: Scott Powell tells me that Session 4 of the course begins Wednesday. It will run Wednesday and Thursday nights at 7:00 PM Pacific for the duration of the summer.