The World Was Never the Same: Events That Changed History

Part of The Great Courses series, this entry essentially amounts to a “greatest hits” survey of world history in which J. Rufus Fears, professor of classics at the University of Oklahoma, devotes each of his 36 half-hour lectures to an event that carried enormous consequences, starting with the Babylonian law code of Hammurabi (c. 1750 B.C.) and ending with the terrorist attacks of 9/11. One can quibble about exclusions—the early European Middle Ages, for example, are not represented at all, as Fears jumps from Constantine's conversion in A.D. 312 to the founding of the University of Bologna in 1088. And he devotes a single lecture to two influential books—Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and Karl Marx's Das Kapital. But the course admits its selectivity upfront, and eventually each subject is tied to wider historical currents. Certainly Fears touches all the major bases, treating topics political, military, religious, philosophical, artistic, and scientific in roughly equal measure. Although some may find Fears' unabashedly opinionated analyses overly simplistic, he's a solid avuncular teacher with an easygoing manner, backed here by maps, illustrations, and film footage. Featuring separately available course books (with lecture outlines, transcripts, maps, a timeline, glossary, and bibliography), this world history primer is a strong optional purchase. Aud: H, C, P. (F. Swietek)