The Great Courses

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

How do the histories of China and Japan, or Russia, India, and the remote territories of Sub-Saharan Africa fit in with commonly known accounts of Western traditions?....

Was King Arthur a real person? What about Robin Hood? Is the Holy Grail a cup, or something else altogether? Did Europeans really burn millions of people at the stake for witchcraft? These are just a few of the questions you will explore with the help of medieval scholar Dorsey Armstrong....

It offers a rigorous and wide-ranging exploration of what various spiritual, religious, and philosophical traditions from both the East and West have contributed....

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

Everything we now know about the universe - from the behavior of quarks to the birth of galaxies - has come from people who've been willing to ponder the unanswerable....

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

Most of us have a limited understanding of the powerful role economics has played in shaping human civilization. This makes economic history a vital lens through which to think....

Eating is an indispensable human activity. As a result, whether we realize it or not, the drive to obtain food has been a major catalyst across all of history....

One of the most profound and satisfying of all poems, The Divine Comedy (or Commedia) of Dante Alighieri is a book for life....

Since the start of recorded history, and probably even before, people have been interested in answering questions about why we behave the way we do....

In recent years, the new and exciting field of complexity science has brought us concepts such as tipping points, the wisdom of crowds, six degrees of separation (or Kevin Bacon), and emergence....

These 24 lectures trace a journey from Scandinavia across central Europe to the farthest reaches of the Byzantine and Islamic empires, providing insight to this one-lost era....

Sleep researcher and clinical psychologist Dr. Jade Wu will uncover the truth about napping and its amazing benefits for both mind and body. Across six revealing lectures, you’ll examine what science tells us about the benefits—and, yes, the potential downsides—of napping.

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

This mind-bending tour of metaphysics applies philosophy to the forefront of today's knowledge....

Learn how a single tongue spoken 150,000 years ago evolved into the estimated 6,000 languages used around the world today....

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

With these 48 lectures, you’ll see the entire history of psychology unfold....

Immerse yourself in this epic story with 48 exhilarating half-hour lectures that cover the scope of Mesoamerican history and culture....