The Great Courses

24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture Taught by Elizabeth Vandiver - Whitman College Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin Lecture 2: https://rumble.com/v4obvgk-classical-mythology-what-is-myth-lecture-2.html Professor Vandiver is the 1998 recipient of the American Philological Association's Excellence in Teaching Award, the most prestigious teaching award given to American classicists. She also teaches the related Teaching Company courses The Iliad of Homer, The Odyssey of Homer, and Virgil's Aeneid. From Athena to Zeus, the characters and stories of classical mythology have been both unforgettable and profoundly influential. They have inspired and shaped everything from great art and literature, to our notions of sexuality and gender roles, to the themes of popular films and TV shows. Classical Mythology is an introduction to the primary characters and most important stories of classical Greek and Roman mythology. Among those you will study are the accounts of the creation of the world in Hesiod's Theogony and Ovid's Metamorphoses; the gods Zeus, Apollo, Demeter, Persephone, Hermes, Dionysos, and Aphrodite; the Greek Heroes, Theseus and Heracles (Hercules in the Roman version); and the most famous of all classical myths, the Trojan War. Professor Elizabeth Vandiver anchors her presentation in some basics. What is a myth? Which societies use myths? What are some of the problems inherent in studying classical mythology? She also discusses the most influential 19th- and 20th-century thinking about myth's nature and function, including the psychological theories of Freud and Jung and the metaphysical approach of Joseph Campbell. Professor Vandiver examines similarities between the Theogony and Mesopotamian creation myths and considers the possible influences that the prehistoric Greek cultures, the Minoans and Mycenaeans, may have had on classical mythology. She also cautions you about the dangers of probing for distant origins. For example, there is little evidence, as many today believe, that a prehistoric "mother goddess" lies at the heart of mythology. This notion may simply be wishful thinking—a modern myth about ancient myth. In addition, Professor Vandiver explores the challenges we face in studying mythology—which is rooted in oral tradition and pre-literate society—through the literary works that recount them. How do we disentangle the original myth from its portrayal in Aeschylus's The Oresteia, or Sophocles's Oedipus the King? The more renowned the author, the more difficult this task becomes. Lecture 1: We set the stage by defining key terms and outlining some problems that develop when studying classical mythology. The course approach will be to include synopses of specific myths, discussions of their cultural background, and examinations of larger issues implied by them.

Lecture 2: Although myths are very old, most of the self-conscious theorizing about them dates from only the last two centuries. What do the most influential theorists say about the origin, nature, and function of myth? What distinguishes myth from legend and folklore? Can myth be understood as a subcategory of something else, or does it play some psychic role that is universal across particular cultures? Lecture 3: https://rumble.com/v4obwr0-classical-mythology-why-is-myth-lecture-3.html

Lecture 3: This lecture continues our examination of ideas about myth, including psychological theories of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, structuralist approaches of Claude Lévi-Strauss and others, and the work of Joseph Campbell, a psychological and metaphysical theorist of myth. Lecture 4: https://rumble.com/v4obzcx-classical-mythology-first-was-chaos-lecture-4.html

Lecture 4: In his Theogony, the Greek poet Hesiod describes the creation of the universe through the creation of the gods, and the multigenerational struggle for cosmic power that followed. How does Hesiod's version of the creation story compare with the much later Roman version preserved in Ovid's Metamorphoses? Lecture 5: https://rumble.com/v4occll-classical-mythology-the-reign-of-the-olympians-lecture-5.html

Lecture 32: Earlier tensions and disagreements between the Soviet Union and both the United States and Great Britain now turned into a long-term standoff called the Cold War. This lecture examines Europe in the key years of 1946–1949, as the split between former allies widened, and explores the distinctive crisis diplomacy of the Cold War. Issues included the future of Poland and divided Germany and the civil war in Greece. After the 1947 announcement of the Truman Doctrine, American involvement in Europe extended to the Marshall Plan for economic recovery, the massive and dramatic airlift of supplies in the Berlin Crisis of 1948–1949 and support for the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany formed out of the western zones of occupation. Essential Reading: Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 446–72. Supplementary Reading: Reynolds, David. “The Origins of the Cold War: The European Dimension, 1944–1951,” The Historical Journal.

Lecture 36: This concluding lecture of our course covers the years from 1991 to the beginnings of the 21st century, including the expansion of NATO and the European Union, renewed violence in the Balkans, and Russia’s search for an international role. We end by considering key questions of tremendous import for the future of our world: What is the current trajectory of the European Union project and what challenges does it face? What dynamics now guide relations between Europe, the United States, and the world at large? Is Europe now entering a fundamentally new stage in its experience of statecraft, or do the historical dynamics of war, peace, and power still apply? Essential Reading: M. S. Anderson, The Rise of Modern Diplomacy 1450–1919, pp. 291–3. Supplementary Reading: Robert Kagan, Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order.

Lecture 35: With unexpected rapidity, the Communist states of eastern Europe and the Soviet Union collapsed near the end of the century. This lecture, covering the years 1980–1991, discusses the deeper causes leading to this startling transformation. It introduces the new generation of leaders on both sides of the Cold War divide—British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, American President Ronald Reagan, and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev—and discusses the negotiations that followed a renewed stage of the Cold War. The dramatic internal consequences of a shifting international scene included the liberation of eastern European countries and German reunification, in spite of the anxieties that these sudden changes could produce. Essential Reading: Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 762–803. Supplementary Reading: Timothy Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name: Germany and the Divided Continent.

Lecture 34: In response both to the changed status of Europe after a half century of destructive tensions and world wars, as well as its location as ground zero of the Cold War conflict or a future World War III, European political leaders sought to craft a new departure from the competitive politics of statehood inaugurated at the long-ago Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. This lecture surveys the European project of unity from 1957 to 1980 (later culminating in today’s European Union) in the midst of the perilous experience of the Cold War. We examine surprising French-German cooperation, the impact of the Cuban Missile Crisis, détente, German approaches to eastern Europe (Ostpolitik), and the unsuspected significance of the Helsinki Accords of 1975. Essential Reading: Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 568–761. Supplementary Reading: John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History.

Lecture 33: This lecture covers two processes growing apace in the period from 1949 to 1956. On the one hand, Europe as a key arena of the Cold War stand-off was increasingly polarized into separate blocs to the East and West, configured into the military alliances of NATO and the Warsaw Pact. We discuss challenges to this division of Europe and important exceptions. On the other hand, European powers simultaneously underwent decolonization (a process that could be fast or slow, negotiated or contested), losing most of their once huge imperial holdings around the world, with a profound psychological impact on political self-understanding. Essential Reading: Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 473–567. Supplementary Reading: David Reynolds, “A ‘Special Relationship’? America, Britain and the International Order Since the Second World War,” International Affairs, 62.1 (Winter 1985–1986), pp. 1–20. Marc Trachtenberg, ed., Between Empire and Alliance: America and Europe during the Cold War.

Lecture 31: This lecture devotes special attention to the immediate aftermath of World War II from 1945 to 1946. No final and comprehensive settlement was worked out as had been the case in Paris in 1919 after World War I, as the victorious alliance, which had already experienced earlier strains, began to drift apart. We trace the outlines of the founding of the United Nations as a successor to the failed League of Nations; the results of the Potsdam Conference held in defeated Germany by the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union; Stalin’s reimposition of harsh personal control; and growing tensions between the victorious powers. Essential Reading: Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 423–45. Supplementary Reading: Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, pp. 347–95.

Lecture 30: World War II (1939–1945) was a renewed and perfected “total war,” even more intense than World War I and ultimately taking a toll of some 50 million dead. This lecture examines the diplomatic bombshell that paved the way to war: the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939. We outline the scale of Hitler’s ambitions for hegemony, culminating at last in the invasion of his Soviet ally in 1941. We turn to discuss the complicated alliance coordination of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, including the key conferences in Tehran and Yalta, where the personalities of the wartime leaders Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin played crucial roles. Essential Reading: Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 332–422. Supplementary Reading: John Keegan, Winston Churchill. Norman Rich, Hitler’s War Aims: Ideology, the Nazi State, and the Course of German Expansion, pp. 121–250.

Lecture 27: After four years of devastating war, the victors of World War I gathered in Paris in 1919 for a grand diplomatic conference to draft a comprehensive settlement and create a new international order replacing that of the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Many factors were involved: the strong personalities of the negotiators (Clemenceau of France, Lloyd George of Great Britain, and Wilson of the United States), their pursuit of national interest and common stability, as well as chaotic realities on the ground in remote parts of Europe. These all combined to shape a controversial peace settlement, including the Treaty of Versailles imposed on a defeated Germany and the plan for an international League of Nations to replace the balance of power with collective security. Essential Reading: Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 227–45. Supplementary Reading: Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World.

Lecture 28: This lecture, which covers the turbulent years from 1919 to 1929, first outlines the new diverse map of Europe and traces the great hopes vested in the League of Nations, its internal dynamics, efforts to protect minorities in the new Europe, and urgings for disarmament. Relations between France and Germany, however, remained tense; eastern Europe was in a state of turmoil as the new states of the region contended over borders, and the United States withdrew from European politics. The 1925 Treaties of Locarno seemed to offer a new beginning, pacifying wartime hatreds in Europe. A key figure of the period was the controversial German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann, who sought a new international role for Germany before his untimely death. Essential Reading: Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 246–87. Supplementary Reading: Carole Fink, Defending the Rights of Others: The Great Powers, the Jews, and International Minority Protection, 1878–1938. Jonathan Wright, Gustav Stresemann: Weimar’s Greatest Statesman. League of Nations Photo Archive at Indiana University: www.indiana.edu/~league/

Lecture 29: The promise of the interwar period rapidly ebbed, however, as the Great Depression of 1929 and the shift toward Authoritarianism and Fascism in European politics moved the continent toward another plunge into disaster. This lecture covers the darker period from 1929 to 1939 and tracks the rise to power of Mussolini in Fascist Italy, Hitler in Nazi Germany, and the calculations of Stalin in the Soviet Union. We observe Hitler’s aggressive racist ideology of domination and his diplomatic revolution, overthrowing the Treaty of Versailles and exploiting the appeasement policies of the Western democracies before launching World War II in 1939 after signing the Nazi-Soviet Pact—an unexpected and strange alliance. Essential Reading: Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 288–318. Supplementary Reading: Norman Rich, Hitler’s War Aims: Ideology, the Nazi State, and the Course of German Expansion, pp. 1–120.

Lecture 26: World War I (1914–1918) is often called a “total war” because of the all-encompassing mobilization of mass armies, entire economies, domestic societies, and allies demanded by the stakes of the conflict. The changes produced by the experience of war, in which at least nine million soldiers died, were correspondingly deep on the level of international politics. Long-standing diplomatic patterns were overturned under the pressure of war, war aims changed and grew more radical as the conflict dragged on, four empires collapsed (the Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman, and Russian empires), and two new ideological actors began their ascent to superpower status: Woodrow Wilson’s United States and Lenin’s Soviet Russia. Essential Reading: Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 218–227. Supplementary Reading: Aviel Roshwald, Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires: Central Europe, Russia, and the Middle East, 1914–1923. Hew Strachan, The First World War.

Lecture 19: When the unification of Italy as a nation-state was achieved from 1858 to 1861, it was the fulfillment of long-standing patriotic wishes dating back to a time when Italy had been dismissed as a “mere geographic expression.” The achievement of nationhood, however, also relied on changes in the international scene and assistance from a Great Power—Napoleon III’s France—skillfully engineered by Count Camillo di Cavour, the Prime Minister of Piedmont. The bloody modern battles of the war waged against Austrian forces in Italy also prompted another important event: the founding of the Red Cross to aid the wounded under a neutral international flag. Essential Reading: A. J. P. Taylor, The Struggle for the Mastery of Europe, 1848–1918, pp. 99–125. Supplementary Reading: Denis Mack Smith, Cavour: A Biography.

Lecture 20: When Germany was unified as an empire around the hard core of the German kingdom of Prussia, this unification was called a “German Revolution,” upsetting all the political certainties of the age. A new power factor appeared at the center of the continent, but would it anchor peace or disrupt stability? From 1862 to 1871, the Prussian “Iron Chancellor” Otto von Bismarck (though not a nationalist himself) steered the process of national unification through a series of wars with Denmark, Austria, and France. In this lecture, we examine closely his fascinating character, elusive aims, and ruthless methods—in particular his trademark “politics of Realism,” or Realpolitik. Essential Reading: Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 103–36. Supplementary Reading: A. J. P. Taylor, Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman.

Lecture 21: After Bismarck had forged the German Empire, the new challenge that faced him was finding a way of reconciling the powerful new empire’s neighbors to the fact of the German Revolution and presenting Germany as a guarantor of stability. This lecture examines the period from 1871 to 1894, as we follow the development, functioning, and eventual breakdown of the Bismarckian system of diplomacy, which could not long outlast the firing of Bismarck himself in 1890. We consider the repeated crises weathered by the European state system in this period, the tangled webs of alliances woven by Bismarck, and the perilous trends strengthening at this time. Essential Reading: Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 137–67. Supplementary Reading: A. J. P. Taylor, Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman, pp. 123–274.

Lecture 22: While a general war was avoided on the European continent in the later part of the 19th century, the European powers launched a scramble for empire from the 1870s that cruelly carved up entire continents, subjecting foreign populations to “gunboat diplomacy” and colonialist rule. By 1914, the European powers had divided up among themselves three-quarters of the world’s land. Colonial conferences sought to resolve conflicting claims at the expense of the subject populations. Expansion in central Asia, with Britain and Russia as rivals, was called “The Great Game.” This lecture examines the wave of High Imperialism from the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the “Scramble for Africa” to the perilous moment in 1898 when France and Britain were on the brink of a colonial war. Essential Reading: René Albrecht-Carrié, A Diplomatic History of Europe Since the Congress of Vienna, pp. 186–94. Supplementary Reading: H. L. Wesseling, The European Colonial Empires 1815–1919.

Lecture 23: This lecture examines decisive changes in diplomatic patterns at the start of the 20th century, as new alignments emerged. We first consider how the colonial clash between France and Britain at Fashoda in Sudan was averted. Next, we trace how German naval expansion and colonial brinksmanship inadvertently produced ties between France, Russia, and Great Britain to resist German ambitions. We explore the reasons behind Germany’s zigzag diplomatic route into increasing isolation. Next, we examine telling trends of the period: the establishment of popular movements for peace at a time when Europe was arming on land and on the sea; Japan’s defeat of the Russian Empire in 1905, which stunned contemporaries and announced the advent of non-European powers; increased American presence in international venues; and a growing peril in the form of regional crises. Essential Reading: Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 168–95. Supplementary Reading: M. S. Anderson, The Rise of Modern Diplomacy 1450–1919, pp. 103–48 and 236–79.

Lecture 24: This lecture, covering the years from 1900 to 1913—the very eve of the First World War—returns to the long-standing Eastern Question concerning the future of the Ottoman territories now that the Turkish realm was seen by contemporaries as being in terminal decline. The Eastern Question now reached a critical stage. We observe the growing tension in southeastern Europe, fueled by the flaring up of local Balkan nationalisms, the Bosnian Crisis of 1908 (which seemed to take Europe to the brink of war), Great Power rivalries and colonial disputes, and then the sudden outbreak of the two Balkan Wars of 1912–1913. Essential Reading: Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 195–200. Supplementary Reading: Mark Mazower, The Balkans: A Short History.

Lecture 25: This lecture examines the causes of the outbreak of World War I in the summer of 1914. This classic case of escalation is the object of one of the biggest debates in modern history, responsible for a voluminous amount of scholarship. We examine how it was that European diplomats and statesmen brought the continent to the brink of and then plunged it into an ever-widening war. We analyze in turn the main competing explanations for this route into catastrophe, weighing long-term and short-term causes, the role of intention versus accident, and the crucial question of contemporary expectations. Finally, we trace how scholarly debate has evolved and explore the current state of that debate. Essential Reading: Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 200–17. Supplementary Reading: James Joll, The Origins of the First World War, 2nd ed.

Lecture 16: This lecture covers the period from 1848 to 1870 and examines two surprises in the realm of diplomacy: extensive revolutions in 1848 that did not produce war (as had been the case after the French Revolution), and a new Napoleon who rose to power. Initially, a profound challenge to the conservative order established at the Congress of Vienna came with the series of revolutions that broke out across the continent in 1848—the “Springtime of Nations.” A testament to the growing importance of Nationalism and liberal ideas, the revolutions were nonetheless put down and general war avoided. In the wake of the revolution, the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte came to power in France as the emperor Napoleon III. This enigmatic figure championed Nationalism and Liberalism and hatched diplomatic conspiracies to redraw the European map, yet those same intrigues led to his undoing in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Essential Reading: A. J. P. Taylor, The Struggle for the Mastery of Europe, 1848–1918, pp. 1–45. Supplementary Reading: Matthias Schulz, “A Balancing Act: Domestic Pressures and International Systemic Constraints in the Foreign Policies of the Great Powers, 1848–1851,” German History, 21.3 (2003), pp. 319–46.

Lecture 17: “Britannia rules the waves,” a patriotic song proclaimed. This lecture examines the trajectory of the British Empire over the course of the 19th century. During this period, Britain represented the largest empire the world has ever seen, extending to a quarter of the landmass of the globe. We examine the empire’s industrial and economic might as the “workshop of the world,” its liberal advocacy of international free trade and the abolition of slavery, and its fateful dominion over India. During the reign of Queen Victoria, noted statesmen including Palmerston, Gladstone, and Disraeli coped with imperial issues guided by distinctive visions of British identity and interests. Nonetheless, by the end of the century, Britain was challenged by relative decline. Essential Reading: Simon C. Smith, British Imperialism 1750–1970. Supplementary Reading: John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson, “The Imperialism of Free Trade.” The Economic History Review, 6.1 (1953), pp. 1–15.

Lecture 18: The Crimean War of 1853–1856 has been called an unnecessary war, but it reflected deeper tensions and diplomatic problems in the European order. Arising out of the long-standing Eastern Question of the future of the Ottoman lands, this crisis pitted the Russian Empire against two other Great Powers in the West—Great Britain and France—which invaded Russia through the Black Sea. A crucial outcome of the war, which ended in a Russian defeat, was the battering of the Concert of Europe and its vision of conservative solidarity now that Great Powers had come to blows. While Russia withdrew to reform and reorganize, the earlier structures were weakened, setting the stage for dramatic changes. Essential Reading: A. J. P. Taylor, The Struggle for the Mastery of Europe, 1848–1918, pp. 46–98. Supplementary Reading: J. C. Hurewitz, “Ottoman Diplomacy and the European State System.” Middle East Journal 15 (1961), pp. 141–52. Alexis Troubetzkoy, A Brief History of the Crimean War.