"With its blend of Eastern mysticism and Western culture, Hesse's best-known and most autobiographical work is one of literature's most poetic evocations of the soul's journey to liberation. Harry Haller is a sad and lonely figure, a reclusive intellectual for whom life holds no joy. He struggles to reconcile the wild primeval wolf and the rational man within himself without surrendering to the bourgeois values he despises. His life changes dramatically...

A history of Western civilization's rise to global dominance offers insight into the development of such concepts as competition, modern medicine, and the work ethic, arguing that Western dominance is being lost to cultures who are more productively utilizing Western techniques. "The rise to global predominance of Western civilization is the single most important historical phenomenon of the past five hundred years. All over the world, an astonishing...

"A book on how Western nations are often blamed for history's atrocities, while all nations have tarnished histories. This is a thorough argument in the defense of Western values and history"--

Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro argues that Western Civilization is in the midst of a crisis of purpose and ideas. Our freedoms are built upon the twin notions that every human being is made in God's image and that human beings were created with reason capable of exploring God's world. We can thank these values for the birth of science, the dream of progress, human rights, prosperity, peace, and artistic beauty. Jerusalem and Athens built America,...

People who are anonymous and whose lives are usually ignored in traditional historical accounts are no less important than more prominent individuals in influencing the flow of events. These ordinary, but often heroic, people are the focus of this course. Each of these lectures looks at history from a nontraditional perspective, that of the weak and marginalized-- the poor, sick, disabled, and elderly, as well as the refugees, slaves, women, children,...