Jon Leven

We are all economists--when we work, buy, save, invest, pay taxes, and vote. It repays us many times over to be good economists. Economic issues are active in our lives every day. However, when the subject of economics comes up in conversation or on the news, we can find ourselves longing for a more sophisticated understanding of the fundamentals of economics. This lecture series will help you think about and discuss these and other economic issues...

Ninety-six lectures, divided into ten sections, are designed to provide a non-technical description of modern astronomy, including the structure and evolution of planets, stars, galaxies, and the universe as a whole. Updated edition integrates discoveries reported in the 2003 course and includes recent findings (through mid-2006).

This series of lectures introduces the greatest of universal museums. Its aim is not comprehensive. The focus is narrowed to the Department of Paintings, which is responsible for European paintings from the Middle Ages until the mid-19th century. These works of art form an encyclopedic summary of the achievements of painters that can be called the single most important such collection in the world. The aim of these lectures is to both prepare new...

To witness how European civilization developed is to understand why and how the entire Western world became who and what it is. Such an understanding is essential if you are to have a nuanced grasp of the important events that dominate the daily news. In short, and in almost every way that matters, historical Europe was the laboratory in which the world you now live in was conceived and tested. And you'll be living with the consequences of those experiments...

Hollywood has gone to elaborate lengths to recreate the violence and mayhem of ancient warfare in movies, but what were ancient battles really like? What weapons, tactics, armor, training, and logistics were used? What were the crucial factors that could turn the tide of battle, giving one side victory and consigning the other to slaughter, capture, or, at best, escape to fight another day? These lectures examine some of the most notable battles...

Explore the modernism literary movement with Professor David Thorburn. See how modernist authors created new techniques to reflect an increasingly complex post-Victorian world. This tradition includes some of the greatest authors the world has know--Joyce, Faulkner, Conrad, Woolf, Kafka.

A tour of Lincoln's life, from his forebears' arrival in America through an evaluation of how his legacy lives on for us today.