great courses - history

[Julie of KY]

I already own a lot of Great Courses, but they are all math, science, engineering and some of Vandivier's lectures. What are some of the best history courses out there? Also do you have a preference between audio and video?

[regentrude]

Daileader's 3 course series on the Middle Ages is outstanding.

Bartlett's Italian renaissance is very good, too.

DH likes Turning Points in American History.

DS liked Napoleon and the French Revolution

 

We listen to them on audio in the car; we are bored watching a prof lecture at a lectern on video and don't have the time for it.

 

[Brad S]

As for format, for us it depends upon the course: some are slightly better in video, some it doesn't matter.  We don't have enough car time to go through all the lectures just in the car, and videos do foster discussion after the videos better for us.  YMMV.  Our thoughts:

 

CORE HISTORY (Topics pretty much every high schooler should cover either in Great Course, book, etc.)

 

Aldrete, History of Ancient World: A Global Perspective. Very good, recommended. Video adds a little, but audio ok. Good for 9th grade

Daileader's 3 course series on the (western European) Middle Ages is excellent.  Audio perfectly fine.  Good for 10th grade.

Lerer, History of the English Language. excellent. Audio perfectly fine.

 

SPECIAL TOPICS (If they interest you or for further study)

 

Vandiver, Herodotus. Very good if you want to go into more detail on this topic.  Appropriate for 9th grade, but less engaging than her other courses IMO for 9th grader.

Ehrman, Lost Christianities. Excellent, balanced. Only if you're interested in early Christian church history or that time period intensely. Adult or advanced HS. audio.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 26, 2016 by Brad S

[Chrysalis Academy]

We're using the Garland and the Aldrete courses mentioned above, as well as several of Vandiver's courses.  I've also watched Thomas Noble's Western Civ courses, Dalaider's and Armstrong's Middle Ages courses.  They're all great.

 

What I've come to realize is that we do much better with video courses than audio only courses, for "school." Personally, I focus much better when I'm watching someone's face, noting their expressions, etc.. I'm noticing that dd seems to be similar. I think I'll stick with video courses in the future.

 

 I tend to drift when I'm "just listening" unless I'm doing some other activity that keeps my hands busy - driving or cleaning or cooking or something. Which is fine for self-ed, but when I sit down with dd to do a course "for school" I have a hard time focusing when it's audio only.  YMMV.

[SilverMoon]

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Edited August 30, 2023 by SilverMoon

[Cosmos]

 I tend to drift when I'm "just listening" unless I'm doing some other activity that keeps my hands busy - driving or cleaning or cooking or something. Which is fine for self-ed, but when I sit down with dd to do a course "for school" I have a hard time focusing when it's audio only.  YMMV.

 

If it's fine for self-ed, why doesn't it work "for school"? I'm just curious, not trying to argue with what works for you.

 

I find the same as you -- that I focus well on the audio if I'm engaged in some other mindless activity -- so that's what I do. I like to load lectures on my ipod and listen while I do housework, cooking, exercise, or yard work. My ds does the same -- usually while he mows the lawn or works out at the gym. Listening to a lecture while we both eat lunch works well too if we want to listen together.

 

We listen in the car occasionally too, but our car trips are mostly 15 minutes or less so that's less desirable. But we usually take a course with us on a road trip (as well as other audiobooks) when we'll have long periods in the car.

 

[Cosmos]

I haven't seen Turning Points in Modern History mentioned. One of my favorite courses and professors, as well as several of the others already listed above.

[regentrude]

 I tend to drift when I'm "just listening" unless I'm doing some other activity that keeps my hands busy - driving or cleaning or cooking or something. Which is fine for self-ed, but when I sit down with dd to do a course "for school" I have a hard time focusing when it's audio only.  YMMV.

I can't ever sit and listen to a course. We listen to those in the car - perfect for using time for school that would otherwise be wasted.

[Chrysalis Academy]

If it's fine for self-ed, why doesn't it work "for school"? I'm just curious, not trying to argue with what works for you.

 

I find the same as you -- that I focus well on the audio if I'm engaged in some other mindless activity -- so that's what I do. I like to load lectures on my ipod and listen while I do housework, cooking, exercise, or yard work. My ds does the same -- usually while he mows the lawn or works out at the gym. Listening to a lecture while we both eat lunch works well too if we want to listen together.

 

We listen in the car occasionally too, but our car trips are mostly 15 minutes or less so that's less desirable. But we usually take a course with us on a road trip (as well as other audiobooks) when we'll have long periods in the car.

 

 

No, it's a good question, I'm trying to get my mind around what works for me vs. what works for dd and make sure I'm using our school time most effectively.  I love using audiobooks, Great Courses, Coursera lectures, etc. for self-ed while I'm doing things around the house, cooking, cleaning, etc. But usually I'm using them for a different purpose - either previewing them for later use with dd as part of a class, or trying to fill in my own knowledge so I can have more effective discussions with her, or think of good questions for discussion or writing assignments.  I'm not trying to really get all the details when I use them this way, so if I occasionally walk out of range, or if I find my mind wandering, it's not the end of the world - I can back it up, or I can miss a bit.

 

 And I'm in charge of my own engagement, so I know when I need to back something up or repeat it.  It's hard to monitor/decide that for another person, right?    My thought is that "for school" I'm using the lectures in a more intentional way: I want dd to be able to focus on the material, take notes and/or be prepared for a discussion and/or for a writing assignment.  I don't want it to be just in one ear out the other, or have her not really hear it at all because she's planning the next chapter of her book, or whatever.  I also want her to learn how to take in information from a talking head/sage on the stage, because for better or worse this is still how information is presented in a lot of lecture courses in college.  I've been through 20+ years of school, I don't have to prove anything to anyone anymore, KWIM? But I want dd to learn how to learn from lectures, and I want her to build good habits of engaging with a lecture during "school time."  I'm trying really hard to keep us focused on the purpose of everything we do: it's not just to check it off, say, "Yep, we watched that one. Next!"  It's to actually learn from the lectures.  I find that I have to stay focused on this intentionality in conscious way or it is easy to fall back on checking things off the to-do list and calling it good, especially when we are busy and fractured with other things going on.

 

Just trying to keep up my standards, KWIM?  So I'm really trying to focus on how and why we are using these lectures and make sure they are actually helping us reach our goals.

 

 

I can't ever sit and listen to a course. We listen to those in the car - perfect for using time for school that would otherwise be wasted.

 

Most of our activities are very close to home, we don't spend a significant amount of time together in the car.  I drive a lot for work, and I enjoy using the audio courses myself while I'm driving, but we don't have a lot of that kind of time to fill when we're together.

[regentrude]

Most of our activities are very close to home, we don't spend a significant amount of time together in the car.  I drive a lot for work, and I enjoy using the audio courses myself while I'm driving, but we don't have a lot of that kind of time to fill when we're together.

 

We used to spend a lot of time driving. A drive out to the Utah canyon country is 18 hours one way - that's a LOT of history one can learn in that time :)

We hike every weekend, and that involves typically a 1-2 hour drive one way. When DD was in 9th and 10th grade, she would usually come along , so a lot of history listening was done this way.

 

But I never had my kids take notes on the TC lectures.

[crazyforlatin]

Apparently SOTW gave DD a great foundation in history because all I hear from her is "I know that!" while we listen to Garland's The Other Side of History. We only listen in the car. Garland sounds like David Tennant so I keep picturing Tennant.

[swimmermom3]

Daileader's 3 course series on the Middle Ages is outstanding.

Bartlett's Italian renaissance is very good, too.

DH likes Turning Points in American History.

DS liked Napoleon and the French Revolution

 

We listen to them on audio in the car; we are bored watching a prof lecture at a lectern on video and don't have the time for it.

 

There are obviously different ways to approach history through using the Great Course.

 

For world history:

 

You can start with Greg Aldrete's History of the Ancient World: A Global Perspective.  This is a good series which is accessible for as early as middle school and early high school. Unfortunately, this is only going to take you up until about the Classical period for world history. This is the weak area for the Great Courses.  There are lots of choices for Western Civilization, but nothing that provides a world history overview past that which is covered in Aldrete's course.

 

The Foundations of Western Civilization, Parts I and II are both excellent and we appreciate professors Noble and Bucholz for different reasons.  You could use both parts for a one year study (be aware that there are 96 lectures total) or break it up into parts depending on how you are doing your studies. Part II coincides with the rough time frame for AP European history and that is where we used it.  This is an overview series and there are plenty of other more specialized lecture sets to choose from.

 

If you want a more detailed look at say, the Middle Ages, then as regentrude suggests, Daileader's series is excellent.  If you want to continue on with that level of detail, I would listen to Renaissance, Reformation, and Rise of Nations with Andrew Fix. It's my opinion that this series gets an unfair shake in the Great Courses' reviews.  There are some very harsh and I think, unwarranted, critiques of the professor's appearance and delivery.  Just listen then!  The content is good and Fix does a terrific job with keeping at least this listener engaged. He is thoughtful and poses some excellent questions.

 

For a broad overview of American history, you can't beat History of the United States, 2nd ed. My ds especially enjoyed the early lectures with Professor Guelzo. The series follows a typical American History survey course (or courses) and the topics follow the typical layout of most APUSH textbooks.  Like European history, you can go into greater detail with "micro" sets such as Before 1776: Life in the American Colonies. I might go this route if I had two years for American history, but the overview set has 84 lectures, which I supplemented with a few hand-picked lectures from other series. We had more than enough to do.

 

Video or audio is a personal choice. For some sets, I have both.  For US history this year, we watched a video during breakfast a couple mornings a week and then listened to a handful of lectures on long drives to another city to see plays from their Shakespearean company.

 

These are the basic sets.  If you have questions about other sets, please ask.  There are also several new sets that I am waiting to hear reviews on.

 

Edited April 26, 2016 by swimmermom3

[Julie of KY]

Thanks everyone. This gives me a lot to look over and think about. I'll have to pick through the information and courses and then I can come back and ask more questions.

[Brad S]

There are obviously different ways to approach history through using the Great Course.

 

For world history:

 

You can start with Greg Aldrete's History of the Ancient World: A Global Perspective.  This is a good series which is accessible for as early as middle school and early high school. Unfortunately, this is only going to take you up until about the Classical period for world history. This is the weak area for the Great Courses.  There are lots of choices for Western Civilization, but nothing that provides a world history overview past that which is covered in Aldrete's course.

 

The Foundations of Western Civilization, Parts I and II are both excellent and we appreciate professors Noble and Bucholz for different reasons.  You could use both parts for a one year study (be aware that there are 96 lectures total) or break it up into parts depending on how you are doing your studies. Part II coincides with the rough time frame for AP European history and that is where we used it.  This is an overview series and there are plenty of other more specialized lecture sets to choose from.

 

If you want a more detailed look at say, the Middle Ages, then as regentrude suggests, Daileader's series is excellent.  If you want to continue on with that level of detail, I would listen to Renaissance, Reformation, and Rise of Nations with Andrew Fix. It's my opinion that this series gets an unfair shake in the Great Courses' reviews.  There are some very harsh and I think, unwarranted, critiques of the professor's appearance and delivery.  Just listen then!  The content is good and Fix does a terrific job with keeping at least this listener engaged. He is thoughtful and poses some excellent questions.

 

Lisa, Thanks for the plug on Renaissance, Reformation, and Rise of Nations; I was wondering about that one.  We're planning on skipping Noble and using Daileader, which I don't view as that much depth (we're planning on less than a semester for middle ages history so YMMV).  After Aldrete's ancient world history, wouldn't Noble's Foundations in Western Civ I be more "if you wanted to go into more depth" and Daileader more of a base course, at least his first two courses?  (I'm just asking since I've previewed Daileader but haven't used it with DS yet.)  Lining up the chronology,

 

 

Time Period    Great Course author & title      lectures     Geography or note

Up to ~400       Aldrete, Ancient/Global                  48               global

 300-1000        Daileader, Early Middle Ages         24               Western Europe

1000-1300       Daileader, High Middle Ages          24               Western Europe

1300-1500       Daileader, Late Middle Ages          24               Western Europe

1350-2000       Bucholz, Foundations of W Civ II   48               Mostly since 1600

1600-2003       History of the U.S.                          84               Core at least if in US.

 

 

 

By the way, is video very helpful for the History of the U.S. videos?  For the other ones, only the Aldrete course seems to have any benefit to have video, and even there it's not critical. 

 

For more depth, some other ones could be added (of course, "core" and "more depth" is highly subjective); some that haven't been mentioned much but are good or look interesting for us:

• Lerer, History of the English Language (excellent)

• Barnhart, Lost Worlds of South America (excellent, even inspiring)

• Liulevicius, Turning Points in Modern History (looks good, has anyone used?)

• Ravina, Understanding Japan (excellent reviews, has anyone used?)

• European History & European Lives: 1715-1914 (looks good, has anyone used?)

• Kors, Birth of the Modern Mind: Intellectual History of the 17th-18^th Centuries (looks good, has anyone used?)

• O'Donnell, Turning Points in American History (good reviews, has anyone used?)

 

Has anyone used any of the last five bulleted courses? Thanks.

 

 

Edited April 27, 2016 by Brad S

[foxbridgeacademy]

My favorite so far is History of Food

[Cosmos]

 

• Liulevicius, Turning Points in Modern History (looks good, has anyone used?)

• Ravina, Understanding Japan (excellent reviews, has anyone used?)

• European History & European Lives: 1715-1914 (looks good, has anyone used?)

• Kors, Birth of the Modern Mind: Intellectual History of the 17th-18^th Centuries (looks good, has anyone used?)

• O'Donnell, Turning Points in American History (good reviews, has anyone used?)

 

Has anyone used any of the last five bulleted courses? Thanks.

 

From earlier in the thread--

 

DH likes Turning Points in American History.

 

I haven't seen Turning Points in Modern History mentioned. One of my favorite courses and professors, as well as several of the others already listed above.

 

I am not familiar with the European History and European Lives course, but for that subject area, you might enjoy the Open Yale Course European Civilization 1648-1945 with John Merriman. The professor is a hoot, and of course it's free. Here is a link to the video lectures, but I just listened to the audio (from itunes, I think).

 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3A8E6CE294860A2

[Brad S]

Thanks, Cosmos!  I definitely should have asked my question more carefully on Turning Points in Modern History and Turning Points in American History!  I interpreted regentrude's as applicable to an adult and wasn't sure if you were referring to you or your kids; specifically, I'm wondering about my high schooler.

 

The European History and European Lives course looked like it might be complementary since it focuses one lecture at a time on individuals, but with the free Merriman course, the Bucholz, Foundations of Western Civilization II available at our library, and our textbook, the European History and European Lives course is probably too redundant.  There's probably only time for either the Merriman or the Bucholz course for DS; do you have a recommendation on one vs. the other?  Thanks!

[Cosmos]

Oh, I see. I probably wouldn't recommend Merriman for a high-school student unless they are already pretty well versed in the historical context and rather interested. I enjoyed the course myself, though.

 

The Turning Points courses are both perfect for high school, though. Both professors give background on the subject and put each event in context. My ds has listened to both courses and gotten a lot out of them (and enjoyed them).

[Julie of KY]

Thanks everyone. Looking through all the courses makes me excited to start adding them to our studies.

Bonus - I picked up the 84 lecture History of United States dvd set for about $5 last year at out homeschool sale.

[Brad S]

For more depth, some other ones could be added (of course, "core" and "more depth" is highly subjective); some that haven't been mentioned much but are good or look interesting for us:

•  

• Barnhart, Lost Worlds of South America (excellent, even inspiring)

•  

• Ravina, Understanding Japan (excellent reviews, has anyone used?)

 

 

I just saw that GC is releasing A History Of India. It says from earliest societies through issues of present day. :)

 

Thanks for the addition of the "geographic region, history-related" lineup.  Besides the South America (until 1500s, and which is excellent), and Understanding Japan (which has terrific reviews), there is a China one, an Eastern Civilization one (which is mostly China and which has somewhat of a high school feel despite being a "college" course), there are several other regional courses, including Russia and another on Eastern Europe.  We're only really familiar with the pre-Columbian South America one, but both DS and I are really enjoying it.

[regentrude]

Thanks, Cosmos!  I definitely should have asked my question more carefully on Turning Points in Modern History and Turning Points in American History!  I interpreted regentrude's as applicable to an adult and wasn't sure if you were referring to you or your kids; specifically, I'm wondering about my high schooler.

 

DS listened to some of the Turning Point lectures over the past years and enjoyed them. He just has not done the entire course because we have put off US history for next year.