The Modern Scholar: Journeys of the Great Explorers: Columbus to Cook

The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World

• ORIGINAL (24 hrs and 28 mins)
• By The Great Courses, Robert Garland
• Narrated By Professor Robert Garland

Look beyond the abstract dates and figures, kings and queens, and battles and wars that make up so many historical accounts. Over the course of 48 richly detailed lectures, Professor Garland covers the breadth and depth of human history from the perspective of the so-called ordinary people, from its earliest beginnings through the Middle Ages.

Great Utopian and Dystopian Works of Literature

• ORIGINAL (12 hrs and 26 mins)
• By The Great Courses
• Narrated By Professor Pamela Bedore

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. Who are we as a society? Who do we want to be? Who are we afraid we might become? When these questions are framed in the speculative versions of Heaven and Hell on earth, you won't find easy answers, but you will find tremendously insightful and often entertaining perspectives.

The American Civil War

• ORIGINAL (24 hrs and 36 mins)
• By The Great Courses, Gary W. Gallagher
• Narrated By Professor Gary W. Gallagher

Between 1861 and 1865, the clash of the greatest armies the Western hemisphere had ever seen turned small towns, little-known streams, and obscure meadows in the American countryside into names we will always remember. In those great battles, those streams ran red with blood-and the United States was truly born.

1066: The Year That Changed Everything

• ORIGINAL (3 hrs)
• By The Great Courses
• Narrated By Professor Jennifer Paxton

With this exciting and historically rich six-lecture course, experience for yourself the drama of this dynamic year in medieval history, centered on the landmark Norman Conquest. Taking you from the shores of Scandinavia and France to the battlefields of the English countryside, these lectures will plunge you into a world of fierce Viking warriors, powerful noble families, politically charged marriages, tense succession crises, epic military invasions, and much more.

Words on the Move: Why English Won't - and Can't - Sit Still (Like, Literally)

• UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 1 min)
• By John McWhorter
• Narrated By John McWhorter
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Words on the Move opens our eyes to the surprising backstories to the words and expressions we use every day. Did you know that silly once meant "blessed"? Or that ought was the original past tense of owe? Or that the suffix -ly in adverbs is actually a remnant of the word like? And have you ever wondered why some people from New Orleans sound as if they come from Brooklyn?

The Modern Scholar: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

• UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 22 mins)
• By Thomas F. Madden
• Narrated By Thomas F. Madden

In this informative and lively series of lectures, renowned history professor Thomas F. Madden serves as the ultimate guide through the fall of ancient Rome. Professor Madden correlates the principles of Roman conduct that would forever change the world. Rome was an empire unlike the world had ever seen, and one that will likely never be duplicated. Peopled with personages of great distinction and even greater ambition, the Roman Empire contributed many of history's proudest advancements.

The Foundations of Western Civilization

• ORIGINAL (24 hrs and 54 mins)
• By The Great Courses
• Narrated By Professor Thomas F. X. Noble

What is Western Civilization? According to Professor Noble, it is "much more than human and political geography," encompassing myriad forms of political and institutional structures - from monarchies to participatory republics - and its own traditions of political discourse. It involves choices about who gets to participate in any given society and the ways in which societies have resolved the tension between individual self-interest and the common good.

Elements of Jazz: From Cakewalks to Fusion

• ORIGINAL (5 hrs and 59 mins)
• By The Great Courses
• Narrated By Professor Bill Messenger

Jazz is a uniquely American art form, one of America's great contributions to not only musical culture, but world culture, with each generation of musicians applying new levels of creativity that take the music in unexpected directions that defy definition, category, and stagnation. Now you can learn the basics and history of this intoxicating genre in an eight-lecture series that is as free-flowing and original as the art form itself.

The Great Age of Discovery, Volume 1: Columbus, Magellan, and the Early Explorations

• UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 16 mins)
• By Paul Herrmann
• Narrated By Charlton Griffin

In the space of 400 years, Western man methodically set out to explore and map the entire earth. During some of the most dangerous expeditions ever mounted, an extraordinary group of determined men forced passages through vast oceans, dark jungles, and withering deserts. Never has their like been seen since. What drove these soldiers, sailors, and civilians to leave the comforts of civilized life and face the horrors of shipwreck, starvation, cannibals, and disease?

The Untold History of the Potato

• UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 52 mins)
• By John Reader
• Narrated By Martin Hyder
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

The potato - humble, lumpy, bland, familiar - is a decidedly unglamorous staple of the dinner table. Or is it? John Reader's narrative on the role of the potato in world history suggests we may be underestimating this remarkable tuber. From domestication in Peru 8,000 years ago to its status today as the world's fourth largest food crop, the potato has played a starring - or at least supporting - role in many chapters of human history.

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America

• UNABRIDGED (15 hrs and 5 mins)
• By Nancy Isenberg
• Narrated By Kirsten Potter
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

In White Trash, Nancy Isenberg upends assumptions about America's supposedly class-free society. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early 19th century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted poor white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics. These poor were at the heart of New Deal reforms and LBJ's Great Society; they haunt us in reality TV shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty.

The Modern Scholar: Archaeology and the Iliad: The Trojan War in Homer and History

• UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 31 mins)
• By Eric H. Cline
• Narrated By Eric H. Cline

The Trojan War, captured forever in Homer's epic poem the Iliad, resonates to the present day in the popular imagination. But did Troy actually exist? And if so, where is it located? Was the Trojan War actually fought? And why? In this course, professor Eric H. Cline examines the history of Troy and delves into the archaeological discoveries that help to answer the questions above. Through an incisive analysis of known data, Professor Cline provides a fuller, richer understanding of this historic clash.