Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life

Overview

Course No. 4600
Explore 36 of history’s most influential works that have shaped civilizations and individual lives across millennia. This course examines:

• Timeless texts from Homer to Orwell spanning 3,000 years
• How great books address enduring human questions
• The philosophical and moral wisdom contained in each work
• Why these works remain relevant to modern readers

Professor Fears guides you through epic poems, sacred texts, philosophical treatises, and revolutionary novels that continue to speak across the ages.

Video Lessons

1. Bonhoeffer: Letters from Prison (31 min)
   Discover how this theologian’s prison writings exemplify a book’s power to shape personal ideals.
2. Homer’s Iliad (31 min)
   Examine this foundational epic as both religious text and meditation on life’s meaning.
3. Marcus Aurelius: Meditations (30 min)
   Explore Stoic wisdom from a Roman emperor’s personal reflections.
4. Bhagavad Gita (30 min)
   Study this Hindu scripture’s profound synthesis of polytheism and monotheism.
5. Book of Exodus (30 min)
   Analyze how this biblical text shaped Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
6. Gospel of Mark (31 min)
   Consider Mark’s concise portrait of Jesus as prophet and philosopher.
7. Koran (31 min)
   Understand Islam’s sacred text as divine revelation.
8. Epic of Gilgamesh (30 min)
   Explore humanity’s oldest literary work and its treatment of fate.
9. Beowulf (30 min)
   Compare this Anglo-Saxon epic’s heroic ideal with Gilgamesh.
10. Book of Job (31 min)
    Grapple with this profound meditation on divine justice and suffering.
11. Aeschylus: Oresteia (30 min)
    Study Greek tragedy’s exploration of fate and free will.
12. Euripides: Bacchae (31 min)
    Examine moral blindness through this tragic drama.
13. Plato: Phaedo (30 min)
    Discuss Socrates’ arguments for the soul’s immortality.
14. Dante: Divine Comedy (30 min)
    Journey through this medieval masterpiece of Christian theology.
15. Shakespeare: Othello (30 min)
    Analyze evil’s human dimensions in this Renaissance tragedy.
16. Aeschylus: Prometheus Bound (30 min)
    Consider rebellion and sacrifice in this Greek drama.
17. Solzhenitsyn: Gulag Archipelago (31 min)
    Confront this searing indictment of Soviet totalitarianism.
18. Shakespeare: Julius Caesar (31 min)
    Explore honor and political duty in this Roman tragedy.
19. Orwell: 1984 (30 min)
    Reflect on this dystopian warning about state power.
20. Virgil: Aeneid (31 min)
    Study this Roman epic’s vision of duty and just war.
21. Pericles & Lincoln: Funeral Orations (30 min)
    Compare these democratic speeches across 2,400 years.
22. Remarque: All Quiet (31 min)
    Experience this powerful anti-war novel’s impact.
23. Confucius: Analects (31 min)
    Discover Confucian wisdom that shaped Chinese civilization.
24. Machiavelli: The Prince (30 min)
    Examine this controversial handbook of realpolitik.
25. Plato: Republic (31 min)
    Engage with this foundational work on justice and governance.
26. Mill: On Liberty (30 min)
    Consider this classic defense of individual freedom.
27. Malory: Morte d’Arthur (30 min)
    Explore medieval chivalry through this Arthurian epic.
28. Goethe: Faust Part 1 (30 min)
    Begin this Romantic masterpiece about knowledge’s price.
29. Goethe: Faust Part 2 (31 min)
    Complete Faust’s journey of moral growth and redemption.
30. Thoreau: Walden (30 min)
    Reflect on this American meditation on nature and self.
31. Gibbon: Decline and Fall (30 min)
    Study this monumental history of Rome’s collapse.
32. Acton: History of Freedom (30 min)
    Examine this unfinished project about liberty’s evolution.
33. Cicero: On Moral Duties (31 min)
    Learn this Roman statesman’s ethical philosophy.
34. Gandhi: Autobiography (31 min)
    Follow Gandhi’s spiritual journey to truth and nonviolence.
35. Churchill: Selected Works (31 min)
    Analyze wisdom from Britain’s wartime leader.
36. Lessons from Great Books (31 min)
    Review what makes these works endure across centuries.