Long Shadow of the Ancient Greek World

The Long Shadow of the Ancient Greek World immerses you in this exciting crucible of innovation in 48 fascinating lectures that focus on Greek democracy, law, and empire, as well as the people who molded them during the Archaic and Classical periods. Taught by award-winning scholar and educator Ian Worthington of the University of Missouri–Columbia, this comprehensive course takes you from 750 to 323 B.C.—a span of history that contains the emergence of Greece at the end of the Dark Ages and the final disintegration of Greek autonomy through the Macedonian kings Philip II and Alexander the Great.

Throughout these insightful lectures, you explore the contributions of many celebrated figures from this period such as these:

* Pisistratus, the benevolent Athenian dictator who practiced a peaceful foreign policy and encouraged the cultivation of olives to make and export olive oil—an industry that the area surrounding Athens continues to pursue
* Lycurgus, Sparta's mysterious lawgiver who (according to legend) instituted the city-state's rigorous and notorious system of military training
* Cleisthenes, a reformer who eased Athens's class strife through a radical reorganization of its citizen body and who is referred to by some as the father of democracy
* Ephialtes, who completed the political revolution begun by the lawgiver Solon and inaugurated radical democracy in Athens
* Pericles, the Athenian statesman and general who made Athens an imperial power and sparked the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War
* Philip II, the king who transformed Macedonia from a backwater into the era's foremost military power
* Alexander the Great, Philip's son and one of history's most renowned military figures, who furthered his father's imperial mission and conquered most of ancient Greece (and beyond) before his death