History of the Ancient World : a Global Perspective

Locations
Call Number: DVD 930 Al Oversize
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 1st Floor 4-week checkout	DVD 930 Al Oversize	4-week checkout	On Shelf

Course guidebook includes professor biography, course scope, lecture outlines, timeline, glossary, biographical notes, and bibliography.
Part 1: Disc 1. Lecture 1 Cities, civilizations, and sources ; Lecture 2 From out of the Mesopotamian mud ; Lecture 3 Cultures of the ancient near East ; Lecture 4 Ancient Egypt : the gift of the Nile ; Lecture 5 Pharaohs, tombs, and gods ; Lecture 6 The lost civilization of the Indus Valley -- Disc 2. Lecture 7 The Vedic age of ancient India ; Lecture 8 Mystery cultures of early Greece ; Lecture 9 Homer and Indian poetry ; Lecture 10 Athens and experiments in democracy ; Lecture 11 Hoplite warfare and Sparta ; Lecture 12 Civilization dawns in China : Shang and Zhou.
Part 2: Disc 3. Lecture 13 Confucius and the Greek philosophers ; Lecture 14 Mystics, Buddhists, and Zoroastrians; Lecture 15 Persians and Greeks ; Lecture 16 Greek art and architecture ; Lecture 17 Greek tragedy and the Sophists ; Lecture 18 The Peloponnesian War and the trial of Socrates -- Disc 4. Lecture 19 Philip of Macedon : architect of empire ; Lecture 20 Alexander the Great goes East ; Lecture 21 Unifiers of India : Chandragupta and Asoka ; Lecture 22 Shi Huangdi : first emperor of China ; Lecture 23 Earliest historians of Greece and China ; Lecture 24 The Hellenistic world.
Part 3: Disc 5. Lecture 25 The Great empire of the Han Dynasty ; Lecture 26 People of the Toga : Etruscans, early Rome ; Lecture 27 The crucible : Punic Wars, Roman imperialism ; Lecture 28 The death of the Roman republic ; Lecture 29 Augustus : creator of the Roman empire ; Lecture 30 Roman emperors : good, bad, and crazy -- Disc 6. Lecture 31 Han and Roman empires compared : geography ; Lecture 32 Han and Roman empires compared : government ; Lecture 33 Han and Roman empires compared : problems ; Lecture 34 Early Americas : resources and Olmecs ; Lecture 35 Pots and pyramids : Moche and Teotihuacán ; Lecture 36 Blood and corn : Mayan civilization.
Part 4: Disc 7. Lecture 37 Hunter-gatherers and Polynesians ; Lecture 38 The art and architecture of power ; Lecture 39 The comparative armies : Rome, China, Maya ; Lecture 40 Later Roman empire : crisis and Christianity ; Lecture 41 The decline and fall of the Roman empire? ; Lecture 42 The Byzantine empire and the legacy of Rome -- Disc 8. Lecture 43 China from chaos to order under the Tang ; Lecture 44 The golden age of Tang culture ; Lecture 45 The rise and flourishing of Islam ; Lecture 46 Holy men and women : monasticism and saints ; Lecture 47 Charlemagne : father of Europe ; Lecture 48 Endings, beginnings, what does it all mean?
Forty-eight lectures of thirty minutes each by Professor Gregory S. Aldrete, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
DVD format.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Great lectures submitted by seadocks on August 8, 2013, 10:48pm I really enjoyed these lectures. I thought they were well organized and contained a lot of great information. I sometimes find the dvds from the teaching company to have some pretty boring speakers but Gregory Aldrete was great. I was able to stay focused and watch all the lectures and learn a ton. I really liked it, I wish they had more stuff that he actually did, because some of the other lecture dvds have some very monotone and boring speakers.

A solid overview of the ancient world submitted by scheng76 on August 6, 2018, 11:23am This is another great lecture set from the Great Courses collection. This series covers the empires of the ancient world, as the title says, with a global perspective. Dr Gregory Aldrete the lecturer compares empires developing in parallel - the Roman and Chinese empires, for example, as well as the New and Old Worlds - in presenting a fascinating and compelling narrative of our distant past. I think it's fair to say that there is significant focus on several of the more well-known major civilizations at the expense of others. I view this as Dr Aldrete selecting ones for comparison with others, or ones with links to the present.
Dr Aldrete, incidentally, is an alumnus of the University of Michigan, having received his MA and PhD here.