Resultados de "The Great Courses" en Todas las categorias

Many political and cultural events sent shock waves through the Irish world in the 19th and early 20th centuries as Ireland gradually shook off the shackles of British rule. Alongside a long and painful political process arose one of the greatest flourishings of literature in modern times - a spirited discourse among those who sought to shape their nation's future, finding the significance of their bloody present intimately entwined with their legendary past.

In this gallery of extraordinary minds, you’ll encounter the leading lights of a world-shaping era, including figures such as Maimonides, Hildegard of Bingen, Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter Abelard, and Francesco Petrarch. Professor Armstrong goes to great lengths to bring these historic figures to life, revealing both the great intellectual contributions and the personal strivings, challenges, and triumphs of some of history’s most remarkable human beings.

From the trenches of World War I to Nazi Germany to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the 20th century was a time of unprecedented violence. Yet while such monumental violence seems senseless, it is not inexplicable. If we can understand the origins of violence, we may prevent even greater horrors in the century to come. These 24 necessary lectures trace the violent history of the 20th century, beginning with its early roots in the American and, especially, the French revolutions.

As raiders and explorers, the Vikings played a decisive role in the formation of Latin Christendom, and particularly of western Europe. Now, in a series of 36 vivid lectures by an honored teacher and classical scholar, you have the opportunity to understand this remarkable race as never before, studying the Vikings not only as warriors, but in all of the other roles in which they were equally extraordinary - merchants, artists, kings, raiders, seafarers, shipbuilders, and creators of a remarkable literature of myths and sagas.

These 24 extraordinary lectures offer you the rare opportunity to relate your own spiritual questions to a variety of ancient quests for meaning and transcendence. Professor Muesse looks at the historical conditions in which the world religions arose and explores how they answered shared metaphysical and human dilemmas.

Grab a flashlight and go monster-hunting in the safe company of Adam Jortner, award-winning professor of religion at Auburn University. You’ll encounter chilling tales of living houses, sentient plants, psychotic toys, brain-eating zombies, and otherworldly beings whose mere name is enough to drive people insane. Along the way, you’ll learn how monster stories change how Americans think and what Americans do, how they shape the history of our country, and what secrets about human nature these inhuman monsters can share.

Jazz is a uniquely American art form, one of America's great contributions to not only musical culture, but world culture, with each generation of musicians applying new levels of creativity that take the music in unexpected directions that defy definition, category, and stagnation. Now you can learn the basics and history of this intoxicating genre in an eight-lecture series that is as free-flowing and original as the art form itself.

Military history often highlights successes and suggests a sense of inevitability about victory, but there is so much that can be gleaned from considering failures. Study these crucibles of history to gain a better understanding of why a civilization took - or didn't take - a particular path.

How have films like Ben-Hur, Spartacus, Gladiator, or even a satire like Monty Python’s Life of Brian created our popular perceptions of ancient Roman history? In what ways have they led us astray? And why, despite the occasional box-office flop, do movies set in ancient Rome still have the power to captivate us, and to turn each of us into theater-going history buffs? In these 12 lectures, an award-winning historian gives you a front-row look at the great movies that have shaped ancient Rome’s role in popular culture and memory.

Throughout history, women have played integral roles in family, society, religion, government, war - in short, in all aspects of human civilization. Powerful women have shaped laws, led rebellions, and played key roles in dynastic struggles. Some were caught up in forces beyond their control, while others manipulated and murdered their way to the top. However, unearthing their stories from the historical record has been a challenge, with the ordinary difficulties of preserving information across the generations increased by centuries of historical bias and gendered expectations.

Should leaders be feared or loved? Can dictators give rise to democracy? Should rulers have morals or wear them like a mask? Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince puts forth unsettling questions like these, whose answers redefined centuries of political wisdom. But what does it really mean to be Machiavellian? These 24 lectures are more than just a close reading of one of the great books of Western history.

Taught by award-winning Professor Patrick Grim of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, The Philosopher’s Toolkit: How to Be the Most Rational Person in Any Room arms you against the perils of bad thinking and supplies you with an arsenal of strategies to help you be more creative, logical, inventive, realistic, and rational in all aspects of your daily life.

America stands at a dramatic crossroads: Massive corporations wield disturbing power. The huge income gap between the one percent and the other 99 percent grows wider. Astounding new technologies are changing American lives.

Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë created some of the greatest works of 19th-century English literature. How did these three young women, born into a humble parsonage on the isolated moors of Northern England, write such striking work? What influenced them? How did they get their stories out into the world? Why do their novels continue to grip readers to this day? These and other questions are what you will explore in The Brontës: Romantic Passion and Social Justice.

The period between Bloody Sunday in 1972 and Good Friday in 1998 was one of the most troubled, turbulent, and triumphant periods for the Irish. The island went from financial depression to quietly becoming an economic powerhouse, while at the same time, bridging the violent divide between past and present, Catholic and Protestant, Unionist and Republicans, North and South. Join famed historian and master storyteller Edward Lengel to trace the roots and evolution of the Irish Troubles.

How did a young tradesman in early 18th-century Philadelphia with no money, no connections, and no formal education end up as a leading scientist, an inventor, a master diplomat - and even a Founding Father of the United States of America? He used the same resource we have inside ourselves: a capacity for self-improvement.

Professor Eliason’s legal expertise in the area of white-collar criminal law, combined with his background as an assistant United States attorney for the District of Columbia, transforms what would be, in lesser hands, dry legal lectures into eye-opening investigations into some of the greatest crimes in US history, involving infamous figures such as financial fraudster Bernie Madoff and former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling.

Beginning with the witch hunts of the early 15th century, Professor Jennifer McNabb takes you on an eye-opening exploration of witchcraft and superstition in Witchcraft in the Western Tradition. In these 10 lectures, you will better understand where many of our most indelible images of witchcraft come from and how the religious pursuit of witches across Europe and into the Americas in the early modern period spread fear and violence like a contagion, for generations.

Whether you’re a cat mom or dad or just want to know more about the way domesticated animals evolved, think, and behave, join Dr. Kristyn Vitale, a researcher in the Human-Animal Interaction Lab at Oregon State University, to get inside the mind of the curious, the cute, and sometimes seemingly crazy cat.

They might be our best friends, but we often have no idea what they are thinking. Peer inside the fascinating world of the mind of the dog with associate professor of psychology Ellen Furlong of Illinois Wesleyan University. Ever wonder how the same nose that always manages to find the worst-smelling place in the park to roll around can also be trained to sniff out cancer, bombs, and even endangered plants and animals? As you embark on a penetrating look at the canine brain, you’ll break down the unique ways dogs think and feel.