Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius Audio & Video

Learn about the history of the ongoing Ukraine-Russia crisis in this lecture from The Great Courses from their course A History of Eastern Europe taught by Professor Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius.

Mutiny. Disease. Starvation. Cannibals. From the ancient wayfarers to modern astronauts, world explorers have blazed trails fraught with danger.

This course looks at the reasons why the 20th century was a time of unprecedented violence in history.

How did communism become such a pervasive economic and political philosophy? Why did it first take root in early 20th-century Russia? These and other questions are part of a fascinating story whose drama has few equals in terms of sheer scale, scope, or human suffering and belief.

Eastern Europe has long been thought of as the "Other Europe", a region rife with political upheaval, shifting national borders, an astonishing variety of ethnic diversity, and relative isolation from the centers of power in the West.

Trace the growth of communism from Stalin's consolidation of power to the establishment of communist regimes in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, Vietnam, and elsewhere in Communism in Power: From Stalin to Mao.

The world of espionage is shrouded in mystery-even to those in it-but so much of what we think we know about spy craft is rooted in pop culture. Even though the true nature of espionage is quite different, that doesn't mean history's real spies are any less heroic, or less fascinating.

Step into the real world of the spy with this detailed and unforgettable tour of the millennia-long history and enduring legacy of espionage and covert operations....

This lecture series takes you on a far-reaching journey around the globe - from China to the Americas to New Zealand - to shed light on how two dozen of the top discoveries, inventions, political upheavals, and ideas since 1400 have shaped the modern world.

For much of the past five centuries, the history of the European continent has been a history of chaos, its civilization thrown into turmoil by ferocious wars or bitter religious conflicts—sometimes in combination—that have made and remade borders, created and eliminated entire nations, and left a legacy that is still influencing our world.