excellent

excellent

Excellent

excellent

I love it

exelente

Amazing!

Superb

Super

Nice!

Good

test

挺不错

e

9

T

V

This is the longest course that I have completed thus far on Coursera. I have to say, overall, this course was a comprehensive, intriguing and informative experience. The professor comes off as very engaging and knowledgeable. I would never tire of listening to his way of explaining things. He does a great job at breaking down events in history into digestible chunks that link together cohesively. He really made me see history as a series of events and decisions that all build up on one another. One particular aspect I appreciated was his use of art as examples. He did a great job selecting art pieces and contextualizing them to the topic we were covering. It definitely gave me a deeper sense of the concept that he was addressing. Moreover, I appreciated the fact that this wasn't as Euro-centric as a lot of world history courses tend to be. He introduced me to some things I either never heard of (King Leopold's atrocious plundering of the Congo) or things that have never really been fully fleshed out for me (the slave revolts in Haiti ). He does a great job at making those key connections that help you explain why it something happened. For example, how the Louisiana purchase was not just sold by France willy nilly but that it was due to their defeat in Haiti that led them to sell the territory to the United States.

Moving on to some cons that attributed to my 4-star rating, I'd like to point out two cons. The first is that I felt there wasn't much in the course besides watching the lectures. As insightful as they may be, I would have liked more reading material to follow up on topics discussed. Additionally, I would have liked discussion prompts here and there so the learner can make sense of the information by writing it out and discussing it with others. There were times I felt it was much too passive. I know there are discussion boards for this course, but it's not the same as them appearing after lectures like in other Coursera courses. Lastly, the other con that I'd like to mention is the way the quizzes are. A lot of the questions were about overly specific dry facts like numbers, percentages and dates. I would have appreciated more concept-checking questions to see because that's what can really help in assuring the content was received well.

Overall, I thought this is a great overview of some major transitions that all seem to lead into the significant clashes of the 20th century. I look forward to taking the follow up course and I thank the professor for taking his time to make all these lecture videos.

Very interesting and intriguing, quizzes are a bit hard because they cover so much material so if you are a working individual I feel it's almost impossible to accomplish but it's nice for general knowledge.

Two notes-

First, it would be nice if the professor wouldn't use "get yourself comfortable" in the beginning of EACH video - it is a bit annoying.

Second, on quizzes & tests it's recommended that you omit the sentence "in the presentation" that starts EVERY question/quizz/test because obviously it is based on what we are presented in the videos so it's just time consuming, in my opinion.

Besides that, great for general knowledge, awesome teacher, I really enjoyed this course, thank you!

Good presentations. Enjoyed the lectures, good information, and good illustrations and maps. I'm grateful to have this opportunity to learn about this period. Phillip Zelikow takes you through the history through time zones, while visiting various ideas and happenings around different parts of the world, and how they are interconnected. I would like to see some reading material for further understanding (not just suggested books). Overall, I would recommen

It took a little while to get interested in the course, but by the end of first week it began to get interesting. I liked the professor and his friendly style. It is definitely an overview of the major events of history. One can always find out details about events that one wants to know more about. This course gives a broad idea about world history and in a way helps us see what the future would be like. Because history does repeat itself.

Dr. Zelikow is a fairly engaging lecturer. I like his emphasis on the why things occurred and the focus on the situation and decisions people were making which made the course much more interesting than just reciting the facts. I would encourage him to consider making fuller use of the media available for online courses which I think could increase student engagement. I plan to take the second half of this course.

Good lectures, analytical narration, with short quizzes at the end of each lecture. What I didn't appreciate (more about the Coursera platform) was needing to pay to take the final quizzes in order to count as having progressed to the next parts of the course. The quizzes themselves are a little too facts-based to be too useful as a marker of having understood the concepts in the lectures.

Excellent overview and an inspired teacher....BUT:

1.A short bibliography for each week/session would be extremely helpful.

2.Response and interactive involvement by the teacher in the discussions would be appreciated.

3. Lecture notes and Illustrations in digital format would be wonderful as a reference for further work and non-native english speakers.

Thanks

Rod Allwright

Another great course from a professor at UVA! Almost all of the lectures were engaging. He teaches history in an easily accessible way, using very good maps, diagrams, paintings, and clear illustrations of his topics. I would recommend this course everyone, but especially folks who find history to be a dry, dusty thing, as he breathes life into the material.