Foundations of Western Civilization II: A History of the Modern Western World

By: Robert Bucholz, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Robert Bucholz

Length: 24 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

Beginning with the Renaissance, the culture of the West exploded. Over the next 600 years, rapid innovations in philosophy, technology, economics, military affairs, and politics allowed what had once been a cultural backwater left by the collapse of the Roman Empire to dominate the world.

This comprehensive series of 48 lectures by an award-winning teacher and captivating lecturer will show you how - and why - this extraordinary transformation took place.

As you listen to the series, you'll begin to grasp not only the history of Western civilization, but the meaning of civilization itself, as this grand narrative of the past five centuries creates a coherent context for the period's events and trends, and offers an analysis of what these five centuries have bequeathed to us. Lecture by lecture, you'll explores the ideas, events, and characters that modeled Western political, social, religious, intellectual, cultural, scientific, technological, and economic history between the 16th and 20th centuries. You'll learn how Western civilization was shaped by the low as well as the mighty, the practical as well as the artistic. You'll gain a larger understanding of the political, social, and cultural events that shaped Europe. And you'll explore the ramifications of these epoch-making events on the rest of the world, including the United States.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

©2006 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2006 The Great Courses

Beautiful survey course

This was really a beautiful survey course, delivered with passion and intelligence. while arguably weighted towards British history at times, the lecturer admits to the influences of his own historical speciality. Nevertheless, the course follows the events and trends that have shaped today and tries to extract truthes that inform our modern perspective. I really enjoyed the course, and expect I will be going back through the materia and finding areas I would like to delve deeper into. Very well done.

Well done until almost the very end.

This is a 5 star course, right up until the last couple of lectures. Please do not misunderstand, I highly recommend this course, and it was both entertaining and informative, even as a 4 decade student of history.

Where it falters, and Professor Bucholz is by no means unusual in this aspect, is when historians try to study recent events as "history". First the biases of 1st hand recollections go way up in their evaluations. Second, the predictions based on the current trends at time this was recorded (about a decade ago) have not aged well at all.

A great selection, just take the history from the 1970s on, and the predictions with a hefty grain of salt.

Excellent

A must to understand and appreciate all that has come before. Exceptionally presented. History laid out well.

Worthy to listen and think about

This great effort to resume almost 20 centuries of civilization issues needs to be relistened taking notes and choosing more books to read. It's a very good way to get a panoramic view and decide a period or topic to specialize.

Awesome

This is an incredible course I recommend it for anyone. Very well paced and informative .

"Civilization"--As We Know It

Another wonderful lecture series from the Great Courses.

For those of us living in the West, the story of Western Civilization is to a great extent our story. Even those individuals living or raised in the East have to some extent had to reckon with the tremendous reach of Western Culture. For better or worse, Western Civilization has had a profound impact upon the world in which we find ourselves.

Prof. Bucholz is an excellent choice to lead this lecture. His knowledge, clarity and above all enthusiasm helps paint a vivid picture of the rise of the West in the second half of the last millennium. Prof. Bucholz has an unapologetic love of Western Civilization, but that never blinds him to its many flaws or inherent contradictions. He is able to appreciate capitalism and its attendant benefits while still giving a voice to those individuals caught between its remorseless gears.

This is a wonderful exploration of the West, and like the best courses, it will leave you with as many questions as it answers.

Best course I have listened to.

I have listened to over 20 courses and books and this is the beat so far. Dr.Bucholz has a unique ability to make history come alive and presents the events based upon the world view at the time rather than today.

Excellent excellent excellent!!!

I don’t think this could have been done better. I enjoyed all 22 hours of it!

Thoughtful and careful overview.

This was a great overview of western civilization. The analysis was thoughtful and careful. He managed to draw clear conclusions while still making note of the areas that were controversial, conjectural, or outside his area of expertise.

I will definitely be looking for more great courses from him.

History treated with nuance but also biased

Hard to give anything but 5 stars to the massive amount of learning and effort that goes into a course like this, but the blatant communist sympathies in the pertinent chapters, as well as a borderline-favorable rationalization the methods/motives of genocidal Communist dictators ruined any chances of this getting a perfect five-star rating from me - or becoming a classic in it's unedited form without a serious re-examination of these events minus current political pressures. Nonetheless, this exceptional work is still highly recommended for personal study if taken with a grain of salt. Please do not ignore the other side's perspective due to this review if you are already against communism.