This course is really interesting and informative. It gave me a much better understanding for the history and politics behind some of the issues we are all facing today, and really broadened my mind.
The course was good. But the real situation has been changing drastically. A supplement or extension of course is required to cover the up to date situation about IS activities, syria Iraq etc.
By Noor A A
•Dedicated resource person. Good reading materials. Challenging quizzes and assignments.
By Vladimír P
•The course is very interesting, but videos are too long to be honest.
By Zeyu C
•generally good but kind of not clearly formulated
By Luc L
•Thank you for a very in
By Juanjo G M
•Really good course!
By Sarah E P
•I once had a boyfriend who said my mind was like an encyclopedia that had come free from its binding. To some extent that's true, and it makes me, I think, fun to drink with. I think the Prof of this course would be super fun to drink with, too. I can only imagine the directions the conversation would careen, how many diversions and reversions and tangents we would go on. In terms of instruction, though, I find it rather exhausting. First we're talking about Ottoman reforms, then a diversion into Goethe (or some other dour Teutonic thinker) then a tangent into- but we'll cover that in another video so in 1924, but if you read L'etranger.... I've taken to listening to the lectures while doing something else, and then parsing the transcripts, trying to tease out some sort of linear narrative for my notes and it's just so effortful and time-consuming.
By Joy S
•Long, especially the week on Iran. Really proud of myself for getting through it.
By Carlo
•I have attended 24 courses on Coursera and this one is the worst by far. It is such a pity. I was very much looking forward to attending it. The course is poorly designed (for example, the lecturer doesn't begin by explaining what Islam is, what distinguish shiites and sunnis...). The lecturer makes almost no use of the media (apart from him reading his notes we only see a picture and a title from time to time), he is unbearably slow, stumbles on words (why didn't they re-shoot some of these sequences???). His course is an almost uninterrupted flow of words, with very little effort to hierarchize the claims he makes (slides would have helped doing just that), and, what is worst, he repeats himself time and again. His ideas are half-backed, as if he lacked the time to think things through. I have attended two weeks of the course and am amazed by how little I have learned. Don't loose your time watching this. Check out the books in the collection "Very Short Introductions to" instead. I have found them very helpful. It's such a pity...