The Great Courses

In an exciting partnership with the Smithsonian, The Great Courses presents these 24 lectures that offer an unforgettable tour of Japanese life and culture....

Grammar! For many of us, the word triggers memories of finger-wagging schoolteachers, and of wrestling with the ambiguous and complicated rules of using formal language....

Learn how a single tongue spoken 150,000 years ago evolved into the estimated 6,000 languages used around the world today....

The power of an effective speech is undeniable. It has the capacity to engage, inform, motivate, and create change in an audience - and in the world....

What is our species' greatest invention? Medicine, computers, space travel? Not even close. The innovation that underlies each of our past achievements and those we still aspire to is language....

Think you know chemistry? Think again. In How Chemistry Surrounds You, award-winning University of Utah professor Janis Louie reveals the surprising science behind the everyday world—no lab coat required.

In the 12 fascinating lessons of Neurohack It: Using Neuroscience for Better Living, you’ll learn how to take the latest discoveries from neuroscience research and apply them to your own life.

The Declaration of Independence was a history-changing document, calling for a new form of government resting on a radical philosophical framework. It has inspired over 100 other declarations of independence over the last 250 years.

Barbara Millicent Roberts was born in 1959. Her image is instantly recognizable almost anywhere in the world. Who is this remarkable woman? Well, you might know her better by her nickname: Barbie.

Education can be enriching and transformative. It can also be downright excruciating—even demoralizing. When it comes to learning, why are some of us lovers and some of us haters? Welcome to the world of educational psychology....

In the six lectures of How to Bring Your Creative Ideas to Life, Dr. Sharon Kim will dig into how creativity emerges and evolves, how individuals generate and refine ideas, and what it takes to bring yours to life.

Whether you’re looking for proof of alien life or seeking the meaning of life here on Earth, you’ll find that the domain of philosophy and the realm of the weird converge in surprising ways via the six lectures of From Aliens to Bigfoot: A Philosopher’s Guide to the Strange.

One of the greatest scientific feats of our era is the astonishing progress made in understanding biology-a progress to which the period we are living in right now has contributed the most....

n the 24 lectures of Crossroads of Civilization: A History of Central Asia, taught by Professor Eren Tasar, you will embark on a wide-ranging journey into the majestic landscapes, steppe and desert cultures, resplendent cities, and epic conquests that characterized this mysterious part of the world.

This broad and panoramic series, ripe with the telling detail on which history can turn, will help you pull an enormous sweep of history together into one coherent framework....

Words. We use them all the time, every day, mostly without giving them much thought at all. We take for granted that they’re here at our disposal whenever we need them. But if you’ve ever wished you could communicate more effectively, words are the place to start....

The story of Italian art is one of the greatest in human history: a golden thread that begins in ancient Rome, weaves through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and continues to shape the way we understand beauty, faith, and the world today.

Yoga originated in the Indus Valley more than 5,000 years ago. It wasn’t until the 20th century, however, that it found its way to the West, gradually growing from a fringe interest among countercultural youth to a mainstream fitness phenomenon that’s still going strong.

In The Great Courses’ The Story of the Mediterranean World, you’ll relive the fabulous history of a critical crossroads of human civilization.

Noted Japan expert Professor Mark J. Ravina of the University of Texas at Austin covers the politics, economics, and culture of the island nation since World War II - a conflict that saw the end of Japan’s dream of regional conquest, which Professor Ravina calls Empire 1.0....