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This course explores the role that war has played in shaping the United States of America. The lectuers begin with the American Revolution and an examination of how America was born with war. The discussion continues with the "forgotten" War of 1812 and then turns to the Mexican-American War and the Spanish-American War. Subsequent lectures then illustrate America's role in helping to end the "War to End All Wars" before the course concludes with...
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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. By the beginning of the 20th century, there were very few countries or people who had not been affected, one way or another, by the impact of the British. The Empire itself by then covered over a quarter of the world's...
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Renowned professor Thomas F. Madden turns his scholarly eye on the intrigue and politics swirling about the Medieval Church. Professor Madden explores the compelling events that shaped the culture and forever altered history, from the Monophysite Controversy to reform movements to the Inquisition, Black Death, and Great Schism. This is a history populated with larger-than-life characters and notorious personages such as Charlemagne, Pope Innocent...
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Professor Mark R. Polelle examines great military leaders in history, beginning with George Washington and moving on to Napoleon, U.S. Grant, Pershing, MacArthur, and Schwarzkopf, among others. The course also addresses the politics of military history and leadership and illustrates the circumstances that enable the rise of great leaders. Perhaps most importantly, Professor Polelle raises and answers that essential question: What is it that makes...
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Professor Thomas F. Madden-Saint Louis University For many, the Inquisition conjures Gothic images of cloaked figures and barbarous torture chambers. So enmeshed is this view of the Inquisition in popular culture that such scenes play out even in comedies such as Mel Brooks' History of the World and Monty Python's Flying Circus. But is this a fair portrayal? And how was the Inquisition perceived in its own time? Professor Thomas F. Madden of Saint...
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The Enlightenment stands at the threshold of the modern age. It elevated the natural sciences to the preeminent position they enjoy in modern culture. It inaugurated a skepticism toward tradition and authority that decisively shaped modern attitudes in religion, morality, and politics. And it gave birth to a vision of history that saw man, through the unfettered use of his own reason, at last escaping that state of ""immaturity"" to which superstition,...
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Professor Joseph Luzzi, the director of Italian studies at Bard College and an award-winning author, offers a comprehensive look at Italian cinema from its inception in 1895 through its major periods and influences. Having altered the landscape of Italian art and society, as well as inspiring filmmakers the world over, Italian cinema proves a fascinating study. Major focuses of the course include neorealism, the Spaghetti Western, the Italian giallo,...
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Beth A. Griech-Polelle examines the factors that led to the ascendance of Adolf Hitler during the rebuilding of post-World War I Germany. Moving from the birth of modern Germany through the First World, War, Polelle then focuses on Hitler's early years and the creation of the National Social German Workers' Party. Polelle illustrates how Hitler consolidated power-resulting in a society divided against itself and at war with a major portion of the...
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The director of Italian studies at Bard College, Professor Joseph Luzzi, leads a comprehensive overview of Italian culture.
Beginning in the fabled realm of Renaissance art and concluding with the sweeping transformations of present-day Italy, Professor Luzzi examines the Italian mystique and answers several intriguing questions:
• Is there a distinctly "Italian" way of looking at the world?
• To whom do Italian Renaissance treasures truly belong?
•...
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The courtroom trial has fascinated human beings from the beginning of recorded history. Trials are theater, trials are history, and the great trials of the twentieth century and beyond provide a unique window into American history and the sense of America's enduring commitment to law. It was Alexis de Tocqueville who, when he visited the new republic for the first time, said that America was a unique country when it comes to law. Every great issue...
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Renowned professor Thomas F. Madden focuses his expertise on what has been called the most beautiful city in the world-Venice. In these lectures, Professor Madden explains how the city on the lagoon was established by refugees escaping the onslaught of northern "barbarians" invading the crumbling Roman Empire. Through its history, Venice housed the world's leading merchants, thrived as a maritime powerhouse, and developed into an independent republic...
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In these illuminating lectures from Professor Ned Blackhawk (Western Shoshone), a history of Native America is provided from the time shortly before the expeditions of Christopher Columbus to the present. Focusing on the Columbian Exchange, Indians and the American Constitution, American Indian Removal, the Civil War, and the modern age, Professor Blackhawk concludes his revealing course by addressing the issues that continue to affect Native Americans...
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While most courses focus on the entire sweep of the conflict, this course presents an in-depth examination of the waning days of the great struggle. We'll examine the dramatic events leading up to April 1865 and ponder some of the unthinkable alternatives that, had they materialized, would have surely prevented the formation of the country we know today.
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An award-winning, widely recognized expert on pre-modern history, Professor Thomas F. Madden concludes this two-part series on the medieval world.
In this course, we will see the error of the commonly held assumption that the “Dark Ages” was a time of superstition, ignorance, and violence. Rather than a time of darkness, the Middle Ages saw extraordinary innovation, invention, and cultural vitality. It was the Middle Ages that gave us universities,...
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For most theatregoers today, Realism is the standard. We are accustomed to seeing characters on stage who walk, talk, and sound just like real people. Everyday speech is commonplace in theatrical scripts, as are stage sets that look and feel and smell like real places - complete with running water and electric lights that work exactly as if we were in a real apartment, or office, or kitchen. But it wasn't always this way. In fact, Realism was once...
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In these lectures, Professor Donald M.G. Sutherland explores the life and times of Napoleon, one of history's most brilliant strategic thinkers. But despite his inarguable brilliance, Napoleon has also been denounced as unscrupulously ambitious and as alone responsible for the wars that bear his name. With his scholarly eye, Professor Sutherland imparts a fuller understanding of this polarizing figure and deftly shows how Napoleon fit into the sweep...
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In the nearly two thousand years since its founding, the Catholic Church has provided a spiritual home for billions of followers. Renowned professor Thomas F. Madden leads listeners through the events that have helped create the modern church from the Renaissance period to the twenty-first century. Along the way, the audience will learn about the people who influenced and guided the church-priests and saints, laymen and popes-through some of its most...
18) God: A History
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In this sweeping history, Ilan Stavans, one of today's preeminent essayists, cultural critics, and translators, explores the way humans have evolved in their conception of the divine, from an animistic view defined by spirituality to Greek myths and the Aztec pantheon, onward to the development on monotheism as a powerful religion in the Middle East that was crystallized in the biblical narrative. He meditates on what type of divine presences coexist...
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The world will never see another peace conference like the one that took place in Paris in 1919. For six months, the world's major leaders - including Woodrow Wilson, president of the United States, David Lloyd George, prime minister of Great Britain, and Georges Clemenceau, prime minister of France - met to discuss the peace settlements to end World War I. They faced huge issues and, as the weeks went by, their agenda grew.
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Rome grew from a tiny community of small hill villages near the River Tiber in central Italy to one of the most powerful empires the world has seen. The Romans themselves believed that their great city was founded in the middle of the eighth century BCE. By the middle of the second century CE, Rome had a population of 1.5 million; Alexandria, in Egypt, 500,000; and Londinium, in Briton, 30,000. Not counting locally recruited forces, this vast empire...
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