The Great Courses

While the lectures cover an enormous range of key thinkers and ideas, they always focus on the most important ideas....

Across six revealing lectures, Professor Jessica Hooten Wilson will introduce you to one of the 20th century’s most fascinating and divisive writers in Flannery O’Connor and the Scandal of Faith.

How the Earth Works takes you on an astonishing journey through time and space. In 48 lectures, you will look at what went into making our planet - from the big bang, to the formation of the solar system, to the subsequent evolution of Earth....

Across six lectures, historian and consultant Alexander Marriotti traces the history of gladiators, from their earliest origins in Greek and Etruscan culture to their rise as celebrity athletes to their eventual decline as Rome’s imperial power faded.

These 36 eye-opening lectures deliver a comprehensive political and historical overview of one of the most fascinating and complex countries in world history....

"It doesn't take an Einstein to understand modern physics," says Professor Wolfson at the outset of these twenty-four lectures....

Here, you will meet the fascinating, ancient polytheistic peoples of the Mediterranean and beyond, their many gods and goddesses, and their public and private worship practices, as you come to appreciate the foundational role religion played in their lives....

These 36 lectures bring you the answers that the latest scientific and archaeological research and theorizing suggest about human origins....

This engaging series of 30 lectures is rich in detail and near-cinematic portraits of the leaders and events of World War II....

In this 12-lecture course that corrects the record on a transformative period in world history, professor and prolific Viking Age scholar Jennifer Paxton unpack the scope and scale of Viking exploits in Europe.

Even after deciphering its hieroglyphs, and marveling at its scarabs, mummies, obelisks, and sphinxes, Egyptian civilization remains one of history's most mysterious....

This series of lectures offers detailed analyses of the strategic and tactical dimensions of the Civil War's most important campaigns....

During the 229-year period from 1485 to 1714, England transformed itself from a minor feudal state into what has been called "the first modern society"....

While American history spans not much more than two centuries, it is filled with a wealth of leaders, wars, movements, inventions, and ideas....

The past truly comes alive as you take a series of imaginative leaps into the world of history's anonymous citizens....

Distilled to its essence, the ancient Greco-Roman philosophy known as Stoicism is a philosophy of personal betterment. Professor Pigliucci has designed these 25 lessons as an enlightening introduction to the basics of Stoic philosophy....

This broad and panoramic series, ripe with the telling detail on which history can turn, will help you pull an enormous sweep of history together into one coherent framework....

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....

In fundamental ways, the world we know today emerged from the tempestuous and eventful history of colonial America. Deepen your appreciation for this formative era with these historically rich, captivating, and highly informative lectures....

For most of its 5,000-year existence, China has been the largest, most populous, wealthiest, and mightiest nation on Earth....