Humor: All you need to know about world history

Just a lecture a day for a month, and you'll get the drift.
Crosscut archive image.
Just a lecture a day for a month, and you'll get the drift.

For a limited time only, ClipLearning is offering its award-winning lectures series The History of the World for only $49.95. By listening every day to one of these 28 one-hour lectures you can master the history of the world in less than one month.

The Han dynasty in China existed alongside the Roman Empire but developed a more enduring legacy than that of the emperors of the Eternal City. How does that imperial saga relate to the more familiar story of Roman domination? In the Dark Ages after the fall of the Roman Empire, we know that Europe experienced great political and social turmoil. But at that time the Muslims of the Middle East and North Africa were experiencing remarkable cultural flourishing, producing innovations in art, medicine, philosophy, and technology — a true golden age for the civilization.

If you have wondered about these other histories — of China and Japan, of Russia, India, and the remote territories of Sub-Saharan Africa and South America — you can now discover how these stories fit in with commonly known accounts of Western traditions.

In The History of the World, you will survey the expanse of human development and civilization across the globe. Over the course of 28 riveting lectures, available on CD or DVD, you'll apprehend "the big picture" of world history from the invention of agriculture in the Neolithic era to the urbanized, technologically sophisticated world of the 21st century. You'll examine and compare the peoples, cultures, and nations of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas to understand how, throughout history, peoples all over the world have connected and interacted, traded goods and technology, and conquered and learned from each other.

This compelling overview of the human experience is presented by the noted historian and recent recipient of a MacArthur 'ꀜgenius'ꀝ award Dr. Clip Clifford. Each of the 28 one-hour lectures summarize a critical and fascinating period in world history:

  1. Ancient Mesopotamia: Things Begin to Get Fu*ked Up
  2. Egypt of the Pharaohs: Things Get More Fu*ked Up
  3. Alexander and the Hellenistic World: Things Get Very Fu*ked Up
  4. Han China: Completely Fu*ked Up
  5. The Roman Empire: Absolutely Fu*ked Up
  6. Fu*king Things Up: The Triumph of Christianity
  7. Fu*king Things Up Even More: The Spread of Islam
  8. The Crusades: One Fu*ked Up Affair
  9. Talk About Being Fu*ked Up: The Early Middle Ages
  10. And You Thought Things Were Fu*ked Up Before: The Mongol Invasions
  11. Fu*ked Up Even Worse: The Plague and the Late Middle Ages
  12. Totally Fu*ked Up: Pre-Columbian Empires'ꀔAztecs, Incas, and Maya
  13. Europe 1450-1750: Three Hundred Fu*ked Up Years
  14. The War of the Roses: England Gets Fu*ked Up Beyond Recognition
  15. From the Sun King to the Revolution: France Gets Fu*ked Up Beyond Comprehension
  16. Shogunate Japan and Qing Dynasty China: Asia Gets Fu*ked Up Beyond Repair
  17. The Mughal Empire: India Gets Fu*ked Up Beyond Belief
  18. The Time of Troubles, Peter the Great, and Catherine the Great: Russia Gets Fu*ked Up Beyond Imagination
  19. Pre-Colonial African Empires: From What We Know They Were Exceedingly Fu*ked Up
  20. The Meiji Restoration: Japan Gets Fu*ked Up Beyond All Reason
  21. Napoleon and The Napoleonic Wars: Europe Gets Fu*ked Up All Over
  22. Surpassing All Previous Fu*k Ups: The American Civil War
  23. Africa Stays Fu*ked Up: The Slave Trade and Colonization
  24. Latin American from the Conquistadors to Zapata: Simply Fu*ked Up All the Time
  25. And You Thought It Couldn'ꀙt Get More Fu*ked Up (Part I): World War I and the Depression
  26. And You Thought It Couldn'ꀙt Get More Fu*ked Up (Part II): World War II
  27. Amazingly, Things Get Even More Fu*ked Up: Communism Under Stalin and Mao
  28. The Mother of All Fu*k Ups: America Under George W. Bush
  

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