Great Courses Review: History of Spain: Land on a Crossroad

Taught by Professor Joyce Salisbury

This is a Great Courses lecture series on Spain. It consists of 24 thirty minute lectures starting in the stone age and ending with the modern era. I borrowed the DVDs from my local library and binge watched them in a week.

This is an excellent course and gives you not only a grounding in Spain’s history but a lot of interesting background information as well. The lecture on Christianity explained some of the councils that codified the teachings of the Catholic church as well as some of the beliefs deemed heretical. The lecture on Visigoths drew upon that knowledge as their king followed the teachings of one of the heretical leaders. The lecture on Islam went over it’s origins and how the religion spread before examining the Muslim conquest of Spain. I was hoping for a similar deep dive into Judaism, but the lecture on Sephardic Jews was specific to their actions in Spain with only a little bit about how the destruction of the Temple in Roman times contributed to their diaspora. The lecture on Gitanos was fascinating, as I knew very little about them and their history (and the professor discussed terminology and explained that this particular group prefers the term to being called Roma).

There were a few instances where I’d have liked more information. While Maimonides was briefly mentioned, there was no time to explain why he’s considered such an important Jewish philosopher or what his teachings were. Similarly the Inquisition only got a few brief mentions.

I had originally planned to skip some of the lectures but watched them all as the story was so fascinating I didn’t want to miss anything. The professor had a great voice that was easy to listen to and showed her own excitement for the subject matter.

I do wish there were a pronunciation guide for Spanish, as it took me a few lectures to figure out some of the words (for example, Galicia was pronounced Galithia, which made me wonder if the provinces changed names at some point). While many names were shown on the screen, there were times when this did not happen (as with Galicia). More maps as graphics would have been helpful too.  

On the whole if you want to learn the basics - and then some - of Spain’s history, this is an excellent resource.

As a tie in for fantasy worldbuilding, Spain has been conquered and reconquered so many times (Romans, Suevi/Vandals/Alani, Visigoths, Muslims, Christians) and its culture shows that. It’s fascinating seeing how each group ruled and what impact that had on the people, with their mixture of tolerance at some times and expulsions and persecutions at others. The history also shows how important geography is with regards to warfare. Some mountain peoples were never conquered, the Pyrenees was a natural barrier to the north (though it didn’t stop a few invading armies), while the close proximity to Africa allowed the Muslims to head north in their push for expansion. The country had a lot of trade - within the Mediterranean, and when the ‘new world’ was ‘discovered’ across the Atlantic as well. 

Review: The Great Courses: Dante’s Divine Comedy

Professors: William Cook and Ronald Herzman

The professors work in tandem to impart their extensive knowledge of the Divine Comedy.  The set consists of 24 lectures, with four lectures of set up (one going over editions, one on Dante the poet and two on his literary influences), seven on Inferno, five on Purgatory, and seven on Paradiso.

Given the complexity of the poem, the lectures focus more on the skills you need to puzzle out the meanings of the various cantos on your own.  In some cases they show you how to read the poem so that you get the most out of it.  For some of the most important and/or difficult cantos, they look in more depth, sometimes spending the entire lecture on one or two cantos.

There’s a lot more regional politics in the poem than I expected, and the poem itself is much more interconnected and complex than I understood.  This is a series to watch, and rewatch, numerous times - before, during and after you read them poem - so you can get the most out of the poem and better understand what Dante was saying.

I started reading Inferno before I watched the first lectures and was amazed at how much I missed, even with the fantastic end notes of the translation I used.  There’s just so much there. 

Review: The Terror of History: Mystics, Heretics, and Witches in the Western Tradition

Pros: knowledgable professor, interesting subject matter, lots of topics/periods covered

Cons: lectures are short making it hard to cover all the information

The Terror of History course description

This is a course offered by The Teaching Company and taught by Professor Teofilo F. Ruiz from the University of California at Los Angeles.  There are 24 lectures on DVD (or CD) in the series and a range of topics that span from the Middle Ages to the late 1600s.

Due to the nature of this course, some topics got greater coverage than other and some topics were more interesting than others.  The last seven lectures especially, the ones dealing with the witch craze, were fascinating.  Prof. Ruiz carefully set each lecture - or set of lectures - in its historical context, giving you the information you need to understand each issue from a historical, rather than modern, perspective.

My favourite lecture, number 21, The Witch Craze and Misogyny, was brilliant.  It contained an overview of Western thought and concisely explained how religions shifted from female centered fertility cults in ancient times and became male centered.  This shift created male centered societies and laid the groundwork for beliefs that are still with us today - like the fear of female sexuality and women as objects.  

While witches got a good deal of attention I was disappointed that so little time was spent on the explanation of magic, alchemy and astrology, all of which had a great deal of importance at various times in the past.  Similarly, the 30 minutes provided for each lecture was never enough time to deal with all of the information, and so some topics were just lightly touched on, so there would be time to examine examples in detail.  For example, lecture 12 deals with mysticism in the 12th century and focused specifically on the experiences of Hildegard of Bingen and Bernard of Clairvaux.  So, not only did this lecture talk about how mysticism changed between the 11th and 12th centuries and how those two people experienced it, it also exained how men and women experienced mysticism differently.  Any of these points would have made a great 30 minute lecture on their own. 

Having said that, the courses are accompanied by a course guidebook which summarizes the points from the lectures as well as give suggestions for additional reading.  Like any university course (and that's what these are), you're expected to study the topic matter on your own.  Indeed, I found this course a fantastic jumping off point for researching aspects touched upon that I wanted more information about.

This particular professor had an accent.  As most of my professors in university did as well, this didn't bother me.  But if English isn't your first language, you may have some trouble getting used to his accent.  Also, there are only a few images used in this course, so you're not missing anything by getting the CDs rather than the DVDs.  It was filmed in 2002, so the film quality isn't the best either.  Still, you're not getting the course for the great visuals, but for the interesting information.

I really enjoyed this course and will be starting my next one soon.

If you want a taste of the lectures, UCLA has posted The Terror of History: The Witch Hunt in Early Modern Europe that combines material included in several of the Great Courses lectures.  It's a 51 minute presentation.