TTC History: Ancient and Medieval Courses

The Teaching Company brings engaging professors into your home or car through course lectures on audio CD.



A Brief History of the World
Course No. 8080 (36 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Peter N. Stearns,
George Mason University
Ph.D., Harvard University
In A Brief History of the World, you'll survey the expanse of human development and civilization across the globe. Over the course of 36 riveting lectures, you'll apprehend "the big picture" of world history from the invention of agriculture in the Neolithic era to the urbanized, technologically sophisticated world of the 21st century.


Age of Henry VIII
Course No. 8467 (24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Dale Hoak
The College of William and Mary
Ph.D., University of Cambridge
This king, as one of his recent biographers has noted, "changed the heart, mind, and face of Britain more than anything between the coming of the Normans and the coming of the factory," not least by giving Protestantism its powerful purchase in the English-speaking world. And given Britain's later significance in world historyâ€â€�made possible in part by Henry himselfâ€â€�he must be accounted a towering figure of history.


Age of Pericles
Course No. 3317 (24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Jeremy McInerney
University of Pennsylvania
Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley
The Age of Pericles uses the career of the leading Athenian politician and general from c. 450–429 B.C. as a prism through which to view this brief but remarkable era, and to ask why that echo has persisted for so long.


Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Age
Course No. 327 (24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Jeremy McInerney
University of Pennsylvania
Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley
In all the annals of the ancient world, few stories are more gripping than that of the Hellenistic Age. Between the conquests of Alexander the Great and the rise of Rome, Greek culture became the heart of a world-historical civilization whose intellectual, spiritual, and artistic influence endures to this day.

Ancient Greek Civilization
Course No. 323 (24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Jeremy McInerney
University of Pennsylvania
Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley
Spanning roughly 1,000 years, from 1500–400 B.C.E., this course covers the Late Bronze Age to the time of Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great in the late 4th century B.C.E. Professor McInerney traces the complex web of links between our present and its Mediterranean origins. With him, you explore ancient Greek civilization in the light shed by the newest and best research and criticism. The course expands understanding of history, literature, art, philosophy, religion, and more.


Between the Rivers: The History of Ancient Mesopotamia
Course No. 3180 (36 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Alexis Q. Castor
Franklin & Marshall College
Ph.D., Bryn Mawr College
Between the Rivers: The History of Ancient Mesopotamia takes you on an insightful journey through the area bordered by the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, from Neolithic times to the age of Alexander the Great and into the lives of mighty emperors, struggling farmers, ambitious merchants, and palace servants. In 36 fascinating lectures, award-winning Professor Alexis Q. Castor reveals new insights into the real history of this region and demonstrates that all cultures lie in the shadow of Mesopotamia.

Conquest of the Americas
Course No. 888 (24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Marshall C. Eakin
Vanderbilt University
Ph.D., University of California at Los Angeles
Why was Christopher Columbus's voyage to the Americas in 1492 arguably the most important event in the history of the world?
Professor Marshall C. Eakin of Vanderbilt University argues that it gave birth to the distinct identity of the Americas today by creating a collision between three distinct peoples and cultures: European, African, and Native American.
As the inheritors of this legacy, some 500 years hence, we forget how radically the discovery of the Americas transformed the view of the world on both sides of the Atlantic.

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Discovery of Ancient Civilizations
Brian M. Fagan
University of California at Santa Barbara
Ph.D., Cambridge University
The biblical city of Nineveh. The Maya cities of Uxmal and Chichén Itzá. The site of Homeric Troy. King Tut's tomb. At the time of their discovery, these archaeological finds astonished the world.

Early Middle Ages
Course No. 8267 (24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Philip Daileader
The College of William and Mary
Ph.D., Harvard University
We often call them the "Dark Ages," the era which spanned the decline and fall of Rome’s western empire and lingered for centuries, a time when the Ancient World was ending and Europe had seemingly vanished into ignorance and shadow, its literacy and urban life declining, its isolation from the rest of the world increasing.


Emperors of Rome
Course No. 3410 (36 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Garrett G. Fagan
The Pennsylvania State University
Ph.D., McMaster University
They are said to be the most powerful rulers who ever livedâ€â€�a checkered mix of the wise, the brutal, and the unhinged. For more than five centuries they presided over a multi-ethnic empire that was nearly always at war, if not with neighbors then with rebellious factions within the empire itself. The full scope of their powers was not systematized in constitutional law, a fact that tempted many of them to overreach disastrously; and the lack of clear rules of succession meant that most of them died violently.

Era of the Crusades
Course No. 390 (36 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Kenneth W. Harl
Tulane University
Ph.D., Yale University
In The Era of the Crusades, Professor Kenneth W. Harl looks at the "big picture" of the Crusades as an ongoing period of conflict involving Western Christendom (we would now call it Western Europe), the Byzantine Empire, and the Muslim world. From this perspective, you will study the complex but absorbing causes of the Crusades, which include the many political, cultural, and economic changes in Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire.


Famous Greeks
Course No. 337 (24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by J. Rufus Fears
University of Oklahoma
Ph.D., Harvard University
In a companion course to Famous Romans, classics scholar and master storyteller J. Rufus Fears examines a gallery of fascinating characters who shaped the story of Greece from the Trojan War through the rise of Rome.

One of the most instructive and intriguing ways to learn history is through biography.

By pondering the lives of great individualsâ€â€�people who leave deep marks on both their own times and distant posterityâ€â€�you can chart broad currents of events while also studying virtue and vice, folly and wisdom, success and failure.

Famous Romans
Course No. 349 (24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by J. Rufus Fears
University of Oklahoma
Ph.D., Harvard University
In this companion course to Famous Greeks, Professor J. Rufus Fears retells the lives of the remarkable individualsâ€â€�the statesmen, thinkers, warriors, and writersâ€â€�who shaped the history of the Roman Empire and, by extension, our own history and culture.

Like the authors who serve as sources for this courseâ€â€�Livy, Polybius, Suetonius, Tacitus, and above all, Plutarchâ€â€�Professor Fears believes that individuals, not organizations or social movements, are the primary forces that make history.

Hannibal, he points out, caused the Second Punic War personally, much as Adolf Hitler caused World War II.

All of history would be different if Pompey had been as aggressive as Julius Caesar at the Battle of Pharsalus.

Augustusâ€â€�beginning at the age of just 19â€â€�resolved upon and brilliantly followed a doctrine of ruthless expediency in order to rescue Rome from a century of civil war.

Marcus Aurelius, that most noble and philosophic of rulers, may have hastened the Empire's decline by tolerating the wicked cruelty of his heir.


Foundations of Western Civilization I & II (Set)
Course No. 8701 (96 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Thomas F. X. Noble, Robert Bucholz
Foundations of Western Civilization II: A History of the Modern Western World is a course about the meaning of civilization itself. As such, it promises profound rewards for students of history at every level, a grand narrative of the past five centuries that not only offers a coherent context for the events and trends with which you may be familiar, but also makes clear the nature of the legacies those centuries have bequeathed to us.


Great Battles of the Ancient World
Course No. 3757 (24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Garrett G. Fagan
The Pennsylvania State University
Ph.D., McMaster University
A professor of classics and history at The Pennsylvania State University and the teacher of our immensely popular course, The History of Ancient Rome, Dr. Garrett G. Fagan has devoted extensive study to ancient warfare. In these 24 lectures he takes you into the thick of combat in some of the most notable battles fought in the Mediterranean region from prehistoric times to the 4th century A.D.

High Middle Ages
Course No. 869 (24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Philip Daileader
The College of William and Mary
Ph.D., Harvard University
As the last millennium dawned, Europe didn't amount to much.

Illiteracy, starvation, and disease were the norm.

In fact, Europe in the year 1000 was one of the world's more stagnant regionsâ€â€�an economically undeveloped, intellectually derivative, and geopolitically passive backwater.

Three short centuries later, all this had changed dramatically. A newly invigorated cluster of European societies revived city life, spawned new spiritual and intellectual movements and educational institutions, and began, for reasons both sacred and profane, to expand at the expense of neighbors who traditionally had expanded at Europe's expense.


Herodotus: The Father of History
Course No. 2353 (24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Elizabeth Vandiver
Whitman College
Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin


Given the number and the superb quality of the courses on classical literature that Professor Elizabeth Vandiver has contributed to The Great Courses, we knew that we had to bring her into our studio to lecture on Herodotus.

His monumental work, the Histories, was the subject of her doctoral dissertation and first book. And it remains one of her great loves among Greek and Roman writings.

History of Ancient Egypt
Course No. 350 (48 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Bob Brier
Long Island University
Ph.D., The University of North Carolina
In this course, you chronologically survey the full 3,000 years of recorded ancient Egyptian history. Because Egyptian history lasted so long, Egyptologists divide it into three periods called Kingdoms:

* The Old Kingdom saw the beginnings of nationhood for Egypt under one supreme ruler, the pharaoh. During this time, the pyramids were built and the rules of Egyptian art were established that would govern for 3,000 years.
* The Middle Kingdom, a period of stabilizing after the Old Kingdom collapsed, saw a nation fighting to regain its greatness.
* The New Kingdom, the glamour period of ancient Egypt, was when all the starsâ€â€�Hatshepsut, Tutankhamen, Ramses the Great, Cleopatra, and othersâ€â€�appeared.

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History of Ancient Rome
Course No. 340 (48 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Garrett G. Fagan
The Pennsylvania State University
Ph.D., McMaster University
The narrative of the rise and fall of Rome is itself compelling, and Professor Fagan's richly detailed and often humorous discussions of Roman life are uniquely memorable. You study women and the family, slaves, cities, religious customs, the ubiquitous and beloved institution of public bathing, the deep cultural impact of Hellenism, and such famous Roman amusements as chariot racing and gladiatorial games.

History of England from the Tudors to the Stuarts
Course No. 8470 (48 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Robert Bucholz
Loyola University of Chicago
D.Phil., Oxford University
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," and emerged as the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world.

Those years hold a huge story. The English people survived repeated epidemics and famines, one failed invasion and two successful ones, two civil wars, a series of violent religious reformations and counter-reformations, and confrontations with two of the most powerful monarchs on Earth, Louis XIV of France and Philip II of Spain.

But they did much more than survive. They produced a marvelous culture that gave the world the philosophy of John Locke, the plays of Shakespeare, the wit of Swift, the poetry of Milton, the buildings of Christopher Wren, the science of Isaac Newton, and the verse of the King James Bible.

And despite the cruelty, bloodshed, and religious suppression they visited on so many, they also left behind something else: the political principles and ideals for which weâ€â€�and so many of themâ€â€�would work and die, and on which we Americans would build our nation.


King Arthur in History and Legend

Life and Legacy of the Roman Empire

Modern Look at Ancient Greece Civilization

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Origins of Great Ancient Civilizations
Course No. 3174 (12 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Kenneth W. Harl
Tulane University
Ph.D., Yale University
The ancient civilizations of the Near East can seem remote. For many of us, places such as Mesopotamia or the Indus valley ... or the Hittite or Assyrian peoples ... or rulers such as Sargon, Hammurabi, and Darius ... are part of a long-dead antiquity, so shrouded with dust that we might be tempted to skip over them entirely, preferring to race forward along history's timeline in search of the riches we know will be found in our studies of Greece and Rome.

Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World
Course No. 6340 (48 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Glenn S. Holland
Allegheny College
Ph.D., University of Chicago
How did people of ancient times cope with the overwhelming mysteries of the universe? The cycles of nature kept predictable time with the sun, moon, and stars; yet, without warning, crops failed, diseases struck, storms wreaked havoc, and empires fell.

In the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, they responded with a rich variety of religious beliefs that have provided some of Western civilization's most powerful texts: the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, the Hebrew Bible, the Greek epics of Homer, Ovid's Metamorphoses, and the New Testament, among many others. Composed largely of stories of human interaction with the divine, these narratives gave ordinary people a window into the unfathomable realm of the sacred.


Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Rise of Nations
Course No. 3940 (48 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Andrew C. Fix
Lafayette College
Ph.D., Indiana University
In 1347, a merchant ship traveling from Crimea in central Asia docked at Messina in Sicily with a crew of desperately sick sailors. As they were taken ashore, rats also left the vessel, carrying with them fleas infected with the bacterium for bubonic plague. The Black Death had arrived in Europe.

The plague in its several forms would eventually kill up to half the population of Europe, initiating a catastrophic economic depression, peasant revolts, and fierce power struggles among the nobility.

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Rome and the Barbarians
Course No. 3460 (36 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Kenneth W. Harl
Tulane University
Ph.D., Yale University
The history of the Romans and the "barbarians" they encountered as their mighty legions advanced the frontiers of Classical civilization has in large part been written as a story of warfare and conquest.

But to tell the story on only that level leaves many questions unanswered, not only about the Romans but about the barbarians, as well.

* Who were the Celts, Goths, Huns, Persians, and so many others met by the Romans as they marched to the north and east? And what made them barbarians in the eyes of Rome?
* What were the political, military, and social institutions that made Rome so stable, allowing its power to be wielded against these different cultures for almost three centuries?
* What role did those institutions themselves play in assimilating barbarian peoples, first as provincials and often as players in a vast process of Romanization?


Vikings
Course No. 3910 (36 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Kenneth W. Harl
Tulane University
Ph.D., Yale University
In this course, you will study the Vikings not only as warriors, but also in other roles for which they were equally extraordinary: merchants, artists, kings, raiders, seafarers, shipbuilders, and creators of a remarkable literature of myths and sagas.

World of Byzantium
Course No. 367 (24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Kenneth W. Harl
Tulane University
Ph.D., Yale University
The civilization of East Rome, or Byzantium, is seldom studied on its own merits because this seemingly remote world is a curious, even unsettling, mix of the classical and medieval.
Byzantine arts and letters, deeply steeped in traditional orthodoxy, seldom appeal to the modern Westerner, a product of the Enlightenment and the changes wrought by modernization. And the same can be said for Muslims, as well, whose own civilization owes much to Byzantium.
These lectures by Professor Kenneth W. Harl are designed to fill that gap. You come away with a widened perspective on everything from the decline of imperial Rome to the rise of the Renaissance.

Moderations:
-indexed

History of Science: Antiquity to 1700
Course No. 1200 (36 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Lawrence M. Principe
Johns Hopkins University
Ph.D., Organic Chemistry, Indiana University at Bloomington; Ph.D., History of Science, Johns Hopkins University

In this course, an award-winning professor leads you on an exploration of these issues as he traces this complex evolution of thought and discovery from ancient times to the Scientific Revolution.

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