Named one of the Best 300 Professors by the Princeton Review, Timothy B. Shutt has been repeatedly honored for his exceptional skills as a lecturer. In Greek Legacy, Professor Shutt explores the qualities that set the ancient Greeks apart from other ancient civilizations. The Greeks, more than any other culture, contributed to the formation of our own cultural system. These lectures show how that society developed, what it consisted of, and how it continues to impact the modern world.

The coauthor, editor, or coeditor of seven books on American politics, Ken Masugi of Johns Hopkins University has been a speechwriter for two cabinet members. Examining the founding of the American political system through the classic works of Democracy in America author Alexis de Tocqueville, this course explores the big ideas of the American experiment.

This course explores the court as a living, breathing institution - one subject to the press of public opinion yet removed from its direct impact - one whose members have as often as not been vilified or praised. Listeners will come to know the court through a thorough study of its most significant decisions. The individual lectures explore both the personalities and legal reasoning behind, as well as the political impact of, these landmark cases.

This all-encompassing investigation of a highly influential time period includes the major events of the era and informative discussion of empire, papacy, the Crusades, and the fall of Constantinople. During the course of these lectures, Professor Madden also addresses the rise of Islam, reform movements, and schisms in the church. In so doing, Professor Madden underscores the significance and grand scale of an age that continues to hold an undeniable fascination for people today.

Located in the heart of Israel, Jerusalem is the center for the spiritual world's three largest religions. Throughout its millennia-old history, Jerusalem has been known by many names: Salem, Zion, Hierosolymae, Al-Quds and others, and no city has ever been in more dispute. Through an in-depth study of the various holy sites in Jerusalem, you'll begin to see which are considered sacred and to whom.

Common perceptions of Ancient Rome are plentiful, whether they take the form of crazy emperors hosting lavish feasts, scenes of chariot races and gladiatorial combat, or processions of conquering armies. But that is only half the story.

Professor Jeffrey Burds of Northeastern University delves into the history of espionage in this eye-opening lecture series. The course opens with espionage activity in the ancient world and the Roman Empire and continues with the American Revolution, Age of Napoleon, and American Civil War. Throughout this compelling discussion it becomes evident that spying is not only a never-ending source of fascination but also a major contributor to world history and the development of nations.

In this series of lectures, Professor Katherine Elkins details the lives and works of the premier French writers of the last two centuries. With keen insight into her subject material, Professor Elkins discusses the attributes that made classics of such works as Balzac's Human Comedy, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Proust's In Search of Lost Time, and Camus' The Stranger.

In this fascinating course of lectures, Professor Fred Baumann, leads us on an engaging exploration of this penetrating work. Taking in each of the eight books, we examine the complex juxtaposition of events Thucydides demonstrates without much comment of his own. We see how democrats and oligarchs, Athenians and Spartans, understand the world and misunderstand each other. We explore how Thucydides contrasts Sparta - so deliberately narrow, provincial, overtly moral, and covertly cynical - with Athens....

Shakespeare's seven great tragedies contain unmistakable elements that set them apart from any other plays ever written. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare embodied in the character of Juliet the world's most impressive representation ever of a woman in love. With Julius Caesar, the great playwright produced a drama of astonishing and perpetual relevance.

The devastating US atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki not only brought World War II to an end, but effectively gave birth to the Cold War. The postwar world would thereafter be marked by the fragile relationship of two superpowers with opposing ideologies: the United States and the Soviet Union.

From the time of Homer himself in about 750 BCE - the epic has been the most highly regarded of literary genres. It is rivaled only by tragedy, which arose a bit more than two centuries later, as the most respected, the most influential, and, from a slightly different vantage point, the most prestigious mode of addressing the human condition in literary terms. The major epics are the big boys, the works that, from the very outset, everyone had heard of and everyone knew, at least by reputation.

The main aim of this course is to cultivate basic literacy in the principal religions of Asia: Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism. This course explores the origins of these religious traditions in Asia and their transplantation to the United States. The course focuses on three related issues: why religion matters, what the term "religion" means, and how Asian religions - especially Buddhism and Confucianism - wonderfully complicate that term.

This course will examine the development of the British Empire from the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, via its greatest territorial extent in 1919 to its eventual decline and end in the years after World War II, and its final transformation into the Commonwealth of independent nations.

This course will examine the growth and development of the largest empire in world history - the British Empire - beginning with the late 15th century Tudor dynasty in England and ending with the death of the Queen-Empress Victoria in 1901.