The Great Courses

Spain has played a unique and essential role in Western civilization....

Professor Vandiver gives you a full overview of Greek tragedy, in its original setting and as a lasting contribution to the artistic exploration of the human condition....

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

By the end of the series, you'll have a new understanding of what it meant to be a Viking and a richer appreciation of this remarkable race....

Behavioral economics is the study of decision making, and of the related themes of valuation, exchange, and interpersonal interactions....

Grammar! For many of us, the word triggers memories of finger-wagging schoolteachers, and of wrestling with the ambiguous and complicated rules of using formal language....

In these 12 lectures, Professor Esposito guides you through the facts and myths surrounding Islam and its more than 1.2 billion adherents....

Mesopotamia is the ancient name for the region that is now Iraq, a remarkably advanced civilization that flourished for two-thirds of the time that civilization has existed on Earth....

With this series of lectures, you can encompass 3,000 years of philosophical debate - by the end of next month....

Can literature change our real world society? At its foundation, utopian and dystopian fiction asks a few seemingly simple questions aimed at doing just that....

Take a journey across the ancient world, throught the traditional domains of politics and war, as well as religion, philosophy, architecture, science and the visual arts....

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

As you will see, age-old traditions, contemporary history and culture, and “big” human questions are key ingredients of Tolkien’s success. You will join Dr. Dimitra Fimi to delve into Tolkien’s complex and multilayered mythology, examining all these ingredients and more....

Acqiure a new appreciation of how our Western world came to be and detailed knowledge about the individuals from royalty to "barbarian" who played key roles in that process....

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....

These 24 lectures have finally made a beguiling literary masterpiece accessible for anyone willing to give it a chance....

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....

Thor, Odin, Loki, Freyja, the Valkyries, Valhalla, Ragnarok — many of the places we encounter these and other names, places, and events from Norse mythology in daily life and pop culture are connected to the medieval sources in name only....

In Great Piano Works Explained, you’ll study masterpieces from a wide selection of the great composers, deepening your skill in hearing and appreciating these timeless creations of the human spirit....

To a mathematician, every number has its own unique properties and personality - and when studied, played with, and manipulated, numbers can actually be tons of fun....