It has become so central to the way we communicate and live, however, that it often seems as if writing has always existed.But the question remains: Who invented writing, and why?In these 24 fascinating lectures, you'll trace the remarkable saga of the invention and evolution of "visible speech," from its earliest origins to its future in the digital age. Your guide is an accomplished professor and epigrapher who whisks you around the globe to explore how an array of sophisticated writing systems developed, then were adopted and adapted by surrounding cultures.Along the way, you'll visit the great early civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, Japan, and the Americas, and you'll see how deciphering ancient scripts is a little like cracking secret codes - only far more difficult.You'll be spellbound as you hear accounts of the breathtaking moments when the decipherment of ancient scripts broke centuries of silence. And you'll marvel at fascinating objects once shrouded in mystery, including the iconic Rosetta stone.Writing and Civilization offers the chance to not only discover the history of ancient writing systems, but also the rare opportunity to actually hear those scripts read aloud and to learn the meaning of their messages hidden in plain sight.Please note a guidebook is included with the audiobook.

    Greece and the Western World 2. Minoan Crete 3. Schliemann and Mycenae 4. The Long Twilight 5. The Age of Heroes 6. From Sicily to SyriaThe Growth of Trade and Colonization 7. Delphi and Olympia 8. The Spartans 9. Revolution 10. Tyranny 11. The Origins of Democracy 12. Beyond GreeceThe Persian Empire 13. The Persian Wars 14. The Athenian Empire 15. The Art of Democracy 16. Sacrifice and Greek Religion 17. Theater and the Competition of Art 18. Sex and Gender 19. The Peloponnesian War, Part I 20. The Peloponnesian War, Part II 21. Socrates on Trial 22. Slavery and Freedom 23. Athens in Decline? 24. Philip, Alexander, and Greece in Transition

    Volume 1 was published in 1776, going thru six printings; 2-3 in 1781; 4-6 in 1788-89. It was a major literary achievement of the 18th century, adopted as a model for the methodologies of historians.The books cover the Roman Empire after Marcus Aurelius, from 180 to 1590. They take as their material the behavior & decisions that led to the eventual fall of the Empire in East & West, offering explanations.Gibbon is called the 1st modern historian of ancient Rome. By virtue of its mostly objective approach & accurate use of reference material, his work was adopted as a model for the methodologies of 19-20th century historians. His pessimism & detached irony was common to the historical genre of his era. Although he published other books, Gibbon devoted much of his life (1772-89) to this one work. His Memoirs of My Life & Writings is devoted largely to his reflections on how the book virtually became his life. He compared the publication of each succeeding volume to a newborn.Gibbon offers an explanation for why the Roman Empire fell, a task difficult because of few comprehensive written sources, tho he wasn't the only historian to tackle the subject. Most of his ideas are taken from what few relevant records were available: those of Roman moralists of the 4-5th centuries. According to Gibbon, the Empire succumbed to barbarian invasions because of lost of civic virtue. They'd become weak, outsourcing defence to barbarian mercenaries, who became so numerous & ingrained that they took over. Romans had become effeminate, incapable of tough military lifestyles. In addition, Christianity created belief that a better life existed after death, fostering indifference to the present, sapping patriotism. Its comparative pacifism tended to hamper martial spirit. Lastly, like other Enlightenment thinkers, he held in contempt the Middle Ages as a priest-ridden, superstitious, dark age. It wasn't until his age of reason that history could progress.

    But have you ever wondered how a religion that doesn't even have a god could have accomplished this?Now you have the opportunity to have your questions answered, as this series of 24 lectures by an award-winning teacher traces the history, principles, and evolution of a theology that is both familiar and foreign.You'll learn the astonishing story of Siddhartha Gautama - who was to become the Buddha, or "enlightened one" - the Indian prince who abandoned wife, son, and a privileged life to seek the meaning of life and death, and whose "awakening" and subsequent teachings have since impacted the world as few others have.And you'll learn what happened after his death, as his followers began to share his teachings about the "Four Noble Truths" and the "Path" to Enlightenment. You'll see how Buddhist beliefs underwent significant and even radical change, with different varieties of Buddhism having to take shape as those beliefs spread across India, Central Asia, China, Japan, and virtually every corner of the Western world, such as becoming more respectful of one's duties to family and ancestors in China or becoming reconciled with local deities in Japan.

    36 lectures on 18 CDs (two 30 minute lectures per CD). In three parts, each in its own clamshell case. One course guidebook per part.

    From liberty to democracy to community, the terms and concepts originated by political philosophers are ingrained in our global consciousness. Yet many of us have an incomplete picture of how these ideas developed and, quite possibly, a skewed perception of their intentions and implications.This highly relevant course sheds light on the labyrinth of Western political and social theory, as well as its influence on modern history. Guided by an award-winning professor of philosophy and author, these eye-opening lectures reveal how political philosophers, in responding to the societal problems and changing conditions of their day in revolutionary ways, created virtual blueprints of action for leaders. You'll gain not only the tools to comprehend the omnipresent language of politics, but a thorough understanding of the wellspring of thought that has emerged over centuries of political philosophy and the intellectual origins of major historical movements and events.Throughout, questions of democracy, freedom, and distributive justice are addressed, and revolutionary figures who have left an indelible mark on history - from Niccolo Machiavelli to Ayn Rand - are encountered.By the conclusion of lecture 36, you will have the context necessary to appreciate the evolution of a myriad of political ideas, including hot-button topics of today such as libertarianism, neoconservatism, feminism, and environmentalism.

    415 is taught by Kathleen M. Higgins and Robert Solomon.Part 1 (6 CDs with 54 page booklet)andPart 2 (6 CDs with 48 page booklet)

    T. S. Eliot, bowled over by Joyce's brilliant manipulation of a continuous parallel between ancient myth and modern life, called it "the most important expression which the present age has found ... [one] to which we are all indebted, and from which none of us can escape."Ulysses depicts a world that is as fully conceived and vibrant as anything in Homer or Shakespeare. It has been delighting and puzzling readers since it was first published on Joyce's 40th birthday, February 2, 1922.It is, perhaps, a book whose pleasures you've always wanted to learn to savor but never quite worked yourself up to reading. And who can blame you? After all, Joyce himself famously boasted that "I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant!"This is where Professor Heffernan's lectures help. Whether or not you have read this book, you'll find that his lectures, the fruit of decades of distinguished teaching, make an excellent guide to the many-layered pleasures of this modern epic.Illuminating the dramatic and artistic integrity behind the novel's most notoriously challenging passages, he explains why this frank, pathbreaking novel was praised as a landmark and damned as obscene—even banned—as soon as it first appeared.

    Discover the secrets behind the words in our everyday lexicon with this delightful, informative survey of English, from its Germanic origins to the rise of globalization and cyber-communications. Professor Curzan approaches words like an archaeologist, digging below the surface to uncover the story of words, from the humble "she" to such SAT words as "conflagration" and "pedimanous." In these 36 fascinating lectures, you'll discover the history of the dictionary and how words make it into a reference book like the Oxford English Dictionary; survey the borrowed words that make up the English lexicon; find out how words are born and how they die; expand your vocabulary by studying Greek and Latin "word webs"; and revel in new terms, such as "musquirt," "adorkable," and "struggle bus." English is an omnivorous language and has borrowed heavily from the many languages it has come into contact with, from Celtic and Old Norse in the Middle Ages to the dozens of world languages in the truly global 20th and 21st centuries. You'll be surprised to learn that the impulse to conserve "pure English" is nothing new. In fact, if English purists during the Renaissance had their way, we would now be using Old English compounds such as "flesh-strings" for "muscles" and "bone-lock" for "joint." You may not come away using terms like "whatevs" or "multislacking" in casual conversation, but you'll love studying the linguistic system that gives us such irreverent - and fun - slang, from "boy toy" to "cankles."

    Cline delves into the history of ancient Greece, frequently considered to be the founding nation of democracy in Western civilization. The history of this remarkable civilization abounds with momentous events and cultural landmarks that resonate through the millennia. Professor Cline touches on the most compelling and informative aspects of Greek history and accomplishment, providing revealing insights along the way and lending a fresh perspective throughout this entertaining and evocative course.

    There are good reasons that language fascinates us so. It not only defines humans as a species, placing us head and shoulders above even the most proficient animal communicators, but it also beguiles us with its endless mysteries. For example: * How did different languages come to be? * Why isn’t there just a single language? * How does a language change, and when it does, is that change indicative of decay or growth? * How does a language become extinct? Dr. John McWhorter, one of America’s leading linguists and a frequent commentator on network television and National Public Radio, addresses these and other questions as he takes you on an in-depth, 36-lecture tour of the development of human language, showing how a single tongue spoken 150,000 years ago has evolved into the estimated 6,000 languages used around the world today.An accomplished scholar, Professor McWhorter is also a skilled popularizer, whose book The Power of Babel was called "startling, provocative, and remarkably entertaining," by the San Diego Union-Tribune.The London Times called him "a born teacher." And Steven Pinker, best known as the author of The Language Instinct, offered this praise for the book: "McWhorter’s arguments are sharply reasoned, refreshingly honest, and thoroughly original."Course Lecture Titles1. What Is Language? 2. When Language Began 3. How Language Changes—Sound Change 4. How Language Changes—Building New Material 5. How Language Changes—Meaning and Order 6. How Language Changes—Many Directions 7. How Language Changes—Modern English 8. Language Families—Indo-European 9. Language Families—Tracing Indo-European 10. Language Families—Diversity of Structures 11. Language Families—Clues to the Past 12. The Case Against the World’s First Language 13. The Case For the World’s First Language 14. Dialects—Subspecies of Species 15. Dialects—Where Do You Draw the Line? 16. Dialects—Two Tongues in One Mouth 17. Dialects—The Standard as Token of the Past 18. Dialects—Spoken Style, Written Style 19. Dialects—The Fallacy of Blackboard Grammar 20. Language Mixture—Words 21. Language Mixture—Grammar 22. Language Mixture—Language Areas 23. Language Develops Beyond the Call of Duty 24. Language Interrupted 25. A New Perspective on the Story of English 26. Does Culture Drive Language Change? 27. Language Starts Over—Pidgins 28. Language Starts Over—Creoles I 29. Language Starts Over—Creoles II 30. Language Starts Over—Signs of the New 31. Language Starts Over—The Creole Continuum 32. What Is Black English? 33. Language Death—The Problem 34. Language Death—Prognosis 35. Artificial Languages 36. Finale—Master Class

    Though he never wrote down his thoughts, he had a brilliant pupil in Plato, who immortalized his teacher's legacy in 35 timeless dialogues that laid the philosophical basis for Western civilization.Professor Michael Sugrue of Princeton University brings the Socratic quest for truth alive in these lectures, which discuss ideas that are as vital today as they were 25 centuries ago. Ideas about truth, justice, love, beauty, courage, and wisdom. Ideas that can change lives and reveal the world in new ways to the true student.Professor Sugrue reveals the inner structure, action, and meaning of 17 of Plato's greatest dialogues, making this course an indispensable companion for anyone interested in philosophy in general or Platonic thought in particular.

    

    One such change was the Agricultural Revolution, with the domestication of plants and animals and a shift in survival strategies from hunting and gathering to farming and animal husbandry. Simultaneous with that was the Urban Revolution, the founding of cities. We discuss the current thinking on these revolutions in human existence and their relationship. Much of that discussion takes place in the context of the earliest city, ?atalh?y?k, and a second Neolithic foundation, Jericho. Both of these also provide material to explore the role of religion in the very earliest communities, to ask its role in city formation, and to explore the place of religious structures in city identity. Burial practices at the two cities also illuminate early ideas of property ownership and the definition of the family home.In the Bronze Age, cities grew most rapidly in civilizations founded in the great river valleys, from the Nile in Egypt, to the Euphrates in Mesopotamia, to the Indus in modern Pakistan and India. In these cities made of mud, we can trace elements of domestic life and civic spaces. Three of the cities, Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley and Kahun and Deir el-Medina in Egypt, have no recognizable public buildings. Yet the reasons for that negative evidence for civic life differ wildly, as do the structures of these societies. At Deir el-Medina, we encounter some of the oldest conclusive evidence for private enterprise in an ancient city. We also begin to see how social organization is reflected in city formation. The Sumerian city of Uruk, the first megacity in world history, provides the model for the monumentalization of religious structures and their integration in the civic space and government of the city. Finally, in the last of the Bronze Age mud-brick cities we will discuss, Amarna in Egypt, we are able to analyze city design as a deliberate means of changing the social structure of Egyptian society. This revolutionary city takes the lessons of Uruk on religion in the service of the state and develops them to reinforce the rule of the pharaoh, Akhenaten. Here, we also introduce the concept of the house as both an economic unit and a domestic space, an important indicator of the role of the house in the ancient city that we examine in Akrotiri, Athens, and Olynthus.In the four Mediterranean Bronze Age cities of Knossos, Akrotiri, Mycenae, and Tiryns, regular stone architecture makes an appearance. These cities, although they arise from different cultures, share some characteristics in common; we will discuss the idea and mechanisms of the spread of culture across the eastern Mediterranean. The theme of the role of religion continues to be an important one, and the size and placement of religious structures and their consequent meanings are debated with material from Knossos, Akrotiri, and Mycenae and comparisons back to ?atalh?y?k. Mycenae and Tiryns are contrasted with Uruk in their dedication of the high ground in the community, not to the gods, but to the king in the placement of his palace complex. This represents a heretofore unprecedented shift in the focus of urban design.Throughout the Neolithic and Bronze ages, it is possible to point out changes in urban forms, but the notion of “progress” in urban design?that is, reactions to what had come immediately before?is only truly visible with the multiple Greek foundations. We will examine a series of Greek cities?beginning with Athens in the 5th century B.C.; followed by Miletus, Olynthus, and Alexandria; and culminating at Pergamon?to illustrate what can be seen as progress in urban design. Athens in the 5th century has interesting correspondences to Uruk and Amarna. But at Miletus, a dramatic change in Greek urban design, Hippodamian planning, was invented and came to dominate the layout of many Greek and Roman cities with its variation of orthogonal planning. Inevitably, a new model of city design emerged that was anti-Hippodamian; the reasons for that are explored in one of the best examples of it, Pergamon.The examination of a number of Roman cities introduces in detail the issues of the benefits and challenges of urban life, particularly in the city of Rome itself. We also see remarkable variations in urban life in the Roman Empire, from Ostia in Italy to Karanis in Egypt. Rather than the standardized experience one might expect, we see regional variation and cultural identities that differ dramatically even across Roman North Africa.Finally, the last great city foundation of antiquity, Constantinople, encourages us to look backwards and chart its influences from the past and to look forward to its role as the model for the Middle Ages.

    But the so-called Dark Ages also gave us the first universities, eyeglasses, and mechanical clocks, proving that the Middle Ages were home to a vibrant scientific culture.In The Light Ages, Cambridge science historian Seb Falk takes us on an immersive tour of medieval science through the story of one fourteenth-century monk, John of Westwyk. From multiplying Roman numerals to navigating by the stars, curing disease, and telling time with an ancient astrolabe, we learn emerging science alongside Westwyk, while following the gripping story of the struggles and successes of an ordinary man in a precarious world. An enlightening history that argues that these times weren’t so dark after all, The Light Ages shows how medieval ideas continue to color how we see the world today.