# "The Great Courses" series on the Black Death **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 24, 2020, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-courses-series-on-the-black-death/854387 "2020-05-24T16:18:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-courses-series-on-the-black-death/854387/21 "2020-05-28T06:58:13Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Well, of course, with all that drinking going on. “Sweah ta Gawd, ossifer, I only lissened ta two lessures. I’m fine ta drife home.” ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-courses-series-on-the-black-death/854387/22 "2020-05-28T09:22:10Z")
if I lived on my own id be all over it but there anti-history here, if you like history try to find the "western tradition series " by Eugen weber way back in the late 80s early 90s they tried university courses on cable and since he was pretty much the history guy at UCLA they taped him for a whole year and he was pretty entertaining and didn’t shy away from some of the indelicate parts of history What I didn’t know was he was also a Christian historian (but agnostic)also but it never seeped through the c except for a pithy comment here and there … What shocked me is the place who originally recorded it wanted 79.99 per 2 class tape … it was almost 600 dollars … I definitely skipped that part and watched it on the lausd’s PBS channel … here’s his wiki [Eugen Weber - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugen_Weber) ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-courses-series-on-the-black-death/854387/23 "2020-05-28T12:32:21Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I just want to jump in here and offer an anti-recommendation. I’ve seen other people in past threads recommend Greenberg but I’ve found him to be the worst lecturer offered by the company that I’ve encountered. Aw. Greenberg definitely has his eccentricities, but I enjoy him. Besides, I’m his friend. I know that because of the way he keeps referring to the listeners as “My friends!” He wouldn’t lie about a thing like that, would he? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Limmin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f04885/32.png) [@Limmin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limmin)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-courses-series-on-the-black-death/854387/24 "2020-05-28T14:46:45Z")
I was a shameless consumer of the “free sample” CDs they used to send out. Maybe they still do…? In which they’d put in one lecture from one of the famous sets mentioned above (music appreciation, astronomy, civil war history, etc.). Loved those samples and listened to them occasionally. But I never subscribed. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-courses-series-on-the-black-death/854387/25 "2020-05-28T18:40:03Z")
Looks like the subscription or single course cost is out of my reach. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-courses-series-on-the-black-death/854387/26 "2020-05-28T18:51:12Z")
The cost of a single course is definitely prohibitive. But the subscription is $20/month. Hell, Netflix is $12.99/month for much less meaty content. And I’m thinking of canceling Netflix, because I can’t remember the last time I watched anything there. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-courses-series-on-the-black-death/854387/27 "2020-05-28T19:03:34Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I just want to jump in here and offer an anti-recommendation. I’ve seen other people in past threads recommend Greenberg but I’ve found him to be the worst lecturer offered by the company that I’ve encountered. Same here. We couldn’t get through it. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-courses-series-on-the-black-death/854387/28 "2020-05-28T19:48:42Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I just want to jump in here and offer an anti-recommendation. I’ve seen other people in past threads recommend Greenberg but I’ve found him to be the worst lecturer offered by the company that I’ve encountered. I have his courses on Great Orchestral Works and the Beethoven Symphonies, and I loved them both. Even listened to them multiple times. It might help that I lived in New Jersey also. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-courses-series-on-the-black-death/854387/29 "2020-05-28T21:49:20Z")
I used to buy and rent Great Courses lectures back when they were on VHS (_get off my lawn_). I still have a big box full of tapes in the attic. Excellent concept and the execution was well done. Some courses were semi-clunkers, but most were quite good. I used to watch them with my dad before he died (kinda pissed mom off: we commandeered the TV when she and my wife [now ex, thank Great Spaghetti Monster] wanted to watch Cops and Judge Wapner’s People Court). My parents were our next door neighbors for the last decade of their lives. I particularly liked the lectures by Egyptologist Bob Brier. Unlike some of you, I enjoyed Robert Greenberg’s music lectures. The physics lectures were good, too. I recently stumbled across 3 free Great Courses lectures on YouTube on the 1918 Pandemic. Well done, though quite unsettling, considering Covid-19: [1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MHT5xTkL2g&t=1s) / [2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkgQQaVgqMw&t=1s) / [3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRU3RFZWY8I&t=1s) ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-courses-series-on-the-black-death/854387/30 "2020-05-28T22:04:39Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > The cost of a single course is definitely prohibitive. But the subscription is $20/month. Hell, Netflix is $12.99/month for much less meaty content. And I’m thinking of canceling Netflix, because I can’t remember the last time I watched anything there. It’s not bad, but I don’t have Netflix either, and I just functionally lost my job last week. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2020, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-courses-series-on-the-black-death/854387/31 "2020-06-03T21:01:18Z")
I just noticed that this lecture series on The Black Death is currently free to watch on Amazon Prime (until 6/30, I think). ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2020, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-courses-series-on-the-black-death/854387/32 "2020-06-03T23:30:09Z")
Does anyone have any of their courses on CD that they’d like to get rid of? That’s the only thing I can use, and they don’t make them anymore. I want something to listen to as I drive. I don’t have any other time to listen to them. I still have a bunch of the CDs I haven’t listened to yet, but eventually I will finish listening to all of them. I have been listening to them since 1999. I first listened to them on cassette tapes, but eventually I switched to CDs when I got a car that played them. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2020, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-courses-series-on-the-black-death/854387/33 "2020-06-07T16:32:50Z")
**High Middle Ages** was painful. The lecturer kept losing his place, and repeating himself. It took me awhile to figure out when he said ‘Deh-mez-nuh’ he meant the word demesne. **Russian History** was decent. Heavier on soviet history and less on the early empire, but it was a good introduction for those interested in the subject. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2020, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-courses-series-on-the-black-death/854387/34 "2020-06-07T17:37:48Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Does anyone have any of their courses on CD that they’d like to get rid of? That’s the only thing I can use, and they don’t make them anymore. There’s a good chance you’re already aware of this, but in case not: you can often find used CD courses for relatively cheap on Amazon. > [@Sitnam](#): > > **High Middle Ages** was painful. The lecturer kept losing his place, and repeating himself. I happened to listen to that one recently. I thought it was fine, and I didn’t notice the things you did. That lecturer (Philip Daileader) came across as a young nerdy guy, less polished and professional-sounding than some lecturers, but not (IMHO) in a bad way: I thought he was perfectly fine. But yeah: as a general rule, different lecturers are going to rub different people the wrong way, with their style and manner of speaking. (For me, Lawrence Cahoone, of “The Modern Political Tradition” fits this description: the content was okay, but the delivery made him hard to listen to.) ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2020, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-courses-series-on-the-black-death/854387/35 "2020-06-07T18:19:59Z")
Thanks, Thudlow Boink. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2020, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-courses-series-on-the-black-death/854387/36 "2020-06-07T21:57:30Z")
I have bought my husband a bunch of their CD’s for assorted gift-giving occasions. He enjoys listening to them in the car. I was annoyed when they quit making CD’s. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-courses-series-on-the-black-death/854387.md?page=1)