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Author
Series
Great Courses volume 48
Description
A discussion of the early 20th-century historian Henri Pirenne puts Charlemagne in a new perspective and underlines why it is so important to understand each of the civilizations you have studied not as a separate entity, but in the context of all the others.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 22
Description
Discover how African Americans fought racism and violence in the early 20th century. Study the system of white supremacy called Jim Crow, and its economic, social, and political oppression. Review significant civil rights activism and legal victories that laid the groundwork for the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 46
Description
Gain new insights into the key church fathers of Christianity's first centuries: whose actions, ideas, and writings irrevocably shaped the faith: as well as the influential religious movements that emerged at this time, including monasticism and the cult of sainthood.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 11
Description
Experience what it was like to be raised a Spartan man or woman, the changes in military tactics and equipment that made their armies so feared, and the tragic flaw that guaranteed that this Greek city-state's power, no matter how widespread or intimidating, could not endure.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 16
Description
The Celtic legend of Tristan and Isolde was assimilated as a key element of the Arthurian tradition. Study the narrative of the Tristan story as it emerged in two distinct literary traditions, and grasp how the story's appeal led to Sir Tristan being co-opted as a knight of the Round Table.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 44
Description
Polynesian tales center around spirits of the natural world, some of whom are compassionate helper-deities and some, like the nasty menehune, that delight in causing trouble. Meet the supreme figures Ku and Hina, who have myriad subordinate versions; Lono, who has power over seas, clouds, and storms; and Maui, an inveterate Trickster who brings many gifts to humanity.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 10
Description
The Moche tombs offer compelling evidence of the culture's social structure and cosmology. Investigate the sumptuous contents of the three principal tombs of Sipan: the enigmatic buried figures and dazzling costumes, jewelry, and surrounding objects. Contemplate who these buried people might have been, with relation to imagery in Moche art.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 20
Description
Consider the international issues while France was at war. How did the French army save the republic at the battle of Valmy? Could the French spread the Revolution abroad? Could they continue to face their growing list of enemies? You'll also learn about the French military and what it was like to be a soldier in the revolutionary army.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 21
Description
The Inca used a complex system of records encoded on knotted strings. Study what is known of the khipu, starting with Spanish accounts of their use and the 'khipucamayuq' who recorded and read them. Learn how numbers were encoded, and review evidence suggesting that the khipu may contain a form of writing.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 2
Description
Although many educated people think they know about the fall of the Roman Empire, Professor Liulevicius says the end actually happened 1,000 years later with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks. Delve deeper into this event and learn the trauma the loss created for Europeans.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 19
Description
Trace the origins of the conservation movement in the 19th century, and its early initiatives to establish federal protection of wilderness in the face of staunch opposition from commercial interests. Grasp the astonishing conservation record of President Theodore Roosevelt, whose efforts created a wide spectrum of national parks, wildlife preserves, and national forests.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 12
Description
Delve into the causes, conflicts, and consequences of the Opium Wars, in which China was psychologically devastated and subjugated by British imperialism.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 2
Description
Meet three iconic goddesses whose personalities and stories reflect how the ancient Greeks viewed women. They are: Athena, who emerged fully-formed from Zeus's head and is linked to legal courts; Aphrodite, best known for her wild love affair with Adonis; and Hera, Zeus's wife-sister, who presides over marriage and childbirth.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 15
Description
While the regional governments remained fragmented at the turn of the Common Era, the Brahmins worked to rebuild their cultural prominence. They formally developed what is today Hinduism, thanks to a series of written manuals, or shastras, which lay out the principles of an ideal life-including notions of dharma, kama, artha, and moksha.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 6
Description
Visit the most magnificent of the city's medieval palaces, the Palazzo Chiaramonte. Learn about the eras of German, French, and Spanish rule, and explore the Zisa Castle, richly decorated churches, and the Norman summer palace. Finally, ascend Monreale, overlooking Palermo, to enjoy the finest Norman ecclesiastical architecture in the world.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 15
Description
Although perhaps not as famous as Yeats and Synge, Lady Gregory was one of the era's finest playwrights. By analyzing her plays The Rising of the Moon, The Gaol Gate, and others, you'll encounter her wit and intelligence-and gain a sense of her unique role in Irish history.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 15
Description
Thomas Malory's massive retelling of the Arthurian saga became a benchmark for all writers who came after him. Learn how Malory's text introduced the Pentecostal Oath, a sacred code of ethics sworn to by the knights, which Malory tests throughout the narrative as a model for noble thought and action.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 34
Description
Review the relationship between France and the United States. Coming off the heels of the American Revolution, the two nations had a cozy relationship in 1789, but the friendship soured over the next decade. By 1798, they were nearly at war, thanks to U.S. proclamations of neutrality, the Jay Treaty with Great Britain, and the XYZ Affair.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 31
Description
The earliest superheroes were the cultural heroes of mythology. Although they are known for playing pivotal parts in the founding of societies, it is often impossible to know whether they actually ever existed. And fact-based or not, they inevitably capture something essential about the characters of the societies that tell them. Compare the Mongo story of Lonkundo, the Maasai story of Le-eyo, the Fon story of Sogbo, the Kikuyu story of Wanjiru, the...
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 19
Description
Visit the fields of Troy as phalanxes of Greeks advance upon the Trojans. There, according to the Iliad, Sarpedon was killed by Patroclus, a scene memorialized in Euphronios's red-figure vase painting. Learn how artists represented death and what techniques artists used to tell a coherent story on a round vase.
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