Kagan on the Greeks at Open Yale
“He was basileus who became tyrannos….”
Via Ian , here is a link to eminent classicist and historian Donald Kagan’s introductory course to Ancient Greek History at Open Yale courses. Right now I’m listening to a lecture where Kagan is distinguishing between the Greek views of monarchy and tyranny, something I happen to be teaching my own students via the writings of Polybius. 
A hundred plus years ago, when most Americans did not finish their elemntary school education, much less go on to high school, philanthropists like Andrew Carnegie liked to build public libraries because they were the university of the poor man. Today when the overwhelming percentage of Americans graduate high school, however marginal the actual competence of the grads might be and a significant plurality have at least some college, platforms like Yale Open courses and Stanford iTunes let anyone with an internet connection access the best education available on mainstream subjects on their own time, their own pace and for free.
A state of affairs that could be leveraged fairly easily to systemically enrich other levels of education, public and private.
October 19th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Zen – 1st rate. Listened to it for a quarter of an hour then put all of it on a 2 GB USB stick today together with the course materials.
October 20th, 2008 at 4:32 am
High five back to you for such a great find.
The blogosphere gets better with every turn of the blue marble!
Best
October 20th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
His book has been sitting on my Amazon Wishlist for the past few months. Thanks for showing me this! If only it would download faster!
October 21st, 2008 at 2:19 am
To my eternal shame, I did not take his course when I was at Yale. The folly of youth. Not, I can partially rectify it.
thanks, Dude.
October 21st, 2008 at 5:11 am
Elam,
.
A truism of undegraduate life is many distractions. At least you got in to Yale; I was out in flyover country trying to rub two sticks together to get a fire to read old history books by candlelight 🙂
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Glad you liked it Gents, all props go to Ian.
October 21st, 2008 at 1:27 pm
I was not aware of OpenYale.
The Shiller class on Finacial Markets looks interesting (and timely) too.
http://oyc.yale.edu/economics/financial-markets/.
October 21st, 2008 at 2:14 pm
[…] “Financial Markets with Professor Robert Shiller” I found this at OpenYale (thanks Zenpundit): “Financial Markets with Professor Robert Shiller“. The class sessions look […]
October 21st, 2008 at 2:52 pm
This is definitely a sweet find. The book is probably the second best (next to Thucydides) and Kagan is a great speaker. This lecture series is queued up on my iPhone.
November 7th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Too many god!@#$ distractions for me to finish readin’ his take on the Peloponnesian War, in spite of havin’ borrowed it several times. Might as well just order the book. ‘Nother fine addition to my antilibrary!
I’d recommend the book to anyone studyin’ the Cold War or even to make a comparison between those "interestin’" times & our own troublin’ era.