Thursday, October 8, 2009

MMW4 - New Ideas, Clash of Cultures

An excellent history professor and lecturer at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) is Matthew Herbst. Herbst's excellent instruction can be enjoyed in podcast in the recurring (and ever disappearing) podcast lecture series MMW - the making of the modern world. Just now, the fourth section of the series, MMW 4, is back on line. This is world history covering the time 1200 - 1750 CE, titled New Ideas, Clash of Cultures; a comparative perspective. (feed)

For the help of his students and the enjoyment of us podcast eavesdroppers, Herbst has set up a website to go along with his MMW teachings in general, and to begin with MMW 4 in particular. This contains questions and answers, the syllabus, articles and more. I am sure this will prove to be a valuable asset to the podcast listeners, just as much as to the students.

There are more podcasts and podcast lecture series that give insight in world history of this era. Herbst's added value is, that he genuinely does world history. He is one of the few to go beyond the western perspective and familiarize us with other histories. In this series you can expect Arabs, Mongols, Chinese, Japanese, Ottomans as well as Europeans.

One last word: UCSD courses are online only for the duration of the semester. Make sure you download while you can.

More MMW 4:
When the steppe meets empire,
Gengis Khan,
MMW 4 first review.

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