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Course Recommendations by Topic

Don’t know which Great Courses to start with? Below, you’ll find some of our most popular courses in each of our fascinating subject categories. They’re the perfect way to start your adventures in lifelong learning.

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  • Optimizing Brain Fitness sale
    Quick Look
    Optimizing Brain Fitness Professor Richard Restak Save up to $160
  • Secrets of Mental Math sale
    Quick Look
    Secrets of Mental Math Professor Arthur T. Benjamin Save up to $160
  • Effective Communication Skills sale
    Quick Look
    Effective Communication Skills Professor Dalton Kehoe Save up to $185
  • Nutrition Made Clear sale
    Quick Look
    Nutrition Made Clear Professor Roberta H. Anding Save up to $275
  • The World Was Never the Same: Events That Changed History sale
    Quick Look
    The World Was Never the Same: Events That Changed History Professor J. Rufus Fears Save up to $275
  • Practicing Mindfulness: An Introduction to Meditation sale
    Quick Look
    Practicing Mindfulness: An Introduction to Meditation Professor Mark W. Muesse Save up to $185
  • Neuroscience of Everyday Life sale
    Quick Look
    Neuroscience of Everyday Life Professor Sam Wang Save up to $275
  • Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition sale
    Quick Look
    Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition Professor Grant Hardy Save up to $275
  • Understanding the Human Body: An Introduction to Anatomy and Physiology sale
    Quick Look
    Understanding the Human Body: An Introduction to Anatomy and Physiology Professor Anthony A. Goodman Save up to $390
  • Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft sale
    Quick Look
    Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft Professor Brooks Landon Save up to $185
  • Great Tours: Greece and Turkey, from Athens to Istanbul sale
    Quick Look
    Great Tours: Greece and Turkey, from Athens to Istanbul Professor John R. Hale Save up to $185
  • Understanding the Brain sale
    Quick Look
    Understanding the Brain Professor Jeanette Norden Save up to $275
  • The Everyday Guide to Wine sale
    Quick Look
    The Everyday Guide to Wine Professor Jennifer Simonetti-Bryan Save up to $205
  • History of the United States, 2nd Edition sale
    Quick Look
    History of the United States, 2nd Edition Various Professors Save up to $550
  • Stress and Your Body sale
    Quick Look
    Stress and Your Body Professor Robert Sapolsky Save up to $185
  • Optimizing Brain Fitness sale Save up to $160
Optimizing Brain Fitness
Professor Richard Restak

Discover the secrets to increasing your brain's power to meet everyday challenges and enhance your life with Optimizing Brain Fitness. This engaging 12-lecture course shows you how to take advantage of the basic principles of brain operation and build the brain you want to live with for the rest of your life. Delivered by Dr. Richard Restak, an award-winning teacher and practicing neurologist, these lectures are packed with vital information and research-based exercises you can perform every day to tap into your hidden mental potential.
  • Secrets of Mental Math sale Save up to $160
Secrets of Mental Math
Professor Arthur T. Benjamin

Improve and expand your math potential—whether you're a corporate executive or a high-school student—in the company of Professor Arthur T. Benjamin, one of the most entertaining members of The Great Courses faculty. The Secrets of Mental Math, his exciting 12-lecture course, guides you through all the essential skills, tips, and tricks for enhancing your ability to solve a range of mathematical problems right in your head. Along the way, you'll discover how mental mathematics is the gateway to success in understanding and mastering higher fields, including algebra and statistics.
  • Effective Communication Skills sale Save up to $185
Effective Communication Skills
Professor Dalton Kehoe

Effective Communication Skills is your chance to learn more about how you communicate verbally, the common problems you can encounter in doing so, and how you can improve your own effectiveness—especially by overcoming the psychological and biological hard-wiring that often gets in the way of success. These 24 mind-opening lectures by Professor Dalton Kehoe, packed with the tools and strategies you need, are a powerful exploration of what's really going on in any conversation you take part in.
  • Nutrition Made Clear sale Save up to $275
Nutrition Made Clear
Professor Roberta H. Anding

Replace nutritional misconceptions with hard science you can understand in Nutrition Made Clear. In 36 in-depth lectures taught by dietitian and Professor Roberta H. Anding, explore the fundamentals of good nutrition and learn how to practically apply them to your unique lifestyle. Designed to appeal to anyone at any age, this course is an invaluable source of medically backed, statistically proven information about the necessary guidelines for healthy living and eating.
  • The World Was Never the Same: Events That Changed History sale Save up to $275
The World Was Never the Same: Events That Changed History
Professor J. Rufus Fears

Join storyteller and award-winning Professor J. Rufus Fears as he presents what he considers to be the 36 defining moments in our past with The World Was Never the Same: Events That Changed History. This course is an intriguing tour of history, from the creation of the Code of Hammurabi to the opening battles of the American Revolution to the terrorist attacks of September 11th. Using his impressive ability to draw lessons from the past, Professor Fears gives you new insights into familiar and unfamiliar events.
  • Practicing Mindfulness: An Introduction to Meditation sale Save up to $185
Practicing Mindfulness: An Introduction to Meditation
Professor Mark W. Muesse

Learn how to better live in harmony with the realities of the world and to feel more deeply connected to the whole of life with Practicing Mindfulness: An Introduction to Meditation. In these 24 lectures, award-winning Professor Mark W. Muesse gives you a clear and useable understanding of the essence of meditation and how to practice it. You'll learn the principles and techniques of sitting meditation; the related practice of walking meditation; the highly beneficial use of meditative awareness in activities such as eating and driving; and much more.

  • Neuroscience of Everyday Life sale Save up to $275
Neuroscience of Everyday Life
Professor Sam Wang

Discover what the exciting field of neuroscience reveals about how the intricate inner workings of the human brain produce all the experiences of daily life. The Neuroscience of Everyday Life, crafted by distinguished neuroscientist and Princeton University Professor Sam Wang, covers a remarkable range of subjects in 36 richly detailed lectures. You'll explore the brain under stress and in love, learning, sleeping, thinking, hallucinating, and just looking around. Assuming no background in science, Professor Wang's insightful approach makes this course a joy for people who want to know how their brains work every single day of their lives.
  • Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition sale Save up to $275
Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition
Professor Grant Hardy

Discover an often-overlooked, but equally important, side of human philosophy with Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition—a comprehensive survey of the East's most influential thinkers. In 36 lectures, award-winning Professor Grant Hardy introduces you to the people responsible for molding Asian philosophy and for giving birth to a wide variety of spiritual and ideological systems, including Hinduism, Daoism, Confucianism, Sufism, and Buddhism.
  • Understanding the Human Body: An Introduction to Anatomy and Physiology sale Save up to $390
Understanding the Human Body: An Introduction to Anatomy and Physiology
Professor Anthony A. Goodman

Surgeon, writer, and Professor Anthony A. Goodman puts a solid understanding of human anatomy and physiology within your grasp. You'll learn to see how structure and function are integrated into efficient unity—a perspective that reveals the logic and symmetry of the human organism with awesome clarity. Using detailed color illustrations, life-sized models, and, in one lecture, a video shot during surgery, Dr. Goodman gives clear descriptions of anatomy and physiology aimed at the level of the interested layperson.
  • Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft sale Save up to $185
Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft
Professor Brooks Landon

Investigate the myriad ways we think about, talk about, and write sentences. In Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft, Professor Brooks Landon from the University of Iowa—one of the nation's top writing schools—shows you the pleasure in reading and writing great sentences. Explore the stylistic rewards (and risks) of various sentence forms, learn how to build and appreciate effective and elegant sentences, get unique insights into the nature of great writing—and discover how you can achieve some of this greatness yourself.
  • Great Tours: Greece and Turkey, from Athens to Istanbul sale Save up to $185
Great Tours: Greece and Turkey, from Athens to Istanbul
Professor John R. Hale

Join Professor John R. Hale as he guides you through the fabulous civilizations of the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, and Ottomans, and to the natural wonders surrounding them. The Great Tours: Greece and Turkey, from Athens to Istanbul is a journey unlike any other, giving you the chance to experience important sites—such as the Acropolis of Athens, Ephesus, and Sardis—through the eyes of a scholar whose depth of insight goes far beyond any ordinary travel narrative. Featuring vibrant commentary and extensive field footage, these 24 lectures are a rich resource for travelers and a cultural journey that can also be enjoyed from the comfort of home.

  • Understanding the Brain sale Save up to $275
Understanding the Brain
Professor Jeanette Norden

Understanding the Brain, a 36-lecture course by award-winning Professor Jeanette Norden of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, takes you inside the astonishingly complex human brain and shows you how it works, from the gross level of its organization to the molecular level of how cells in the brain communicate. With its combination of neurology, biology, and psychology, this course helps you understand how we perceive the world through our senses, how we move, how we learn and remember, and how emotions affect our thoughts and actions.
  • The Everyday Guide to Wine sale Save up to $205
The Everyday Guide to Wine
Professor Jennifer Simonetti-Bryan

Whether you're a novice looking to master the basics, an enthusiast who tours vineyards, or something in between, there's no better way to learn about wine than from a wine expert. The Everyday Guide to Wine brings this rare opportunity right into your home with 24 engaging lectures delivered by acclaimed Master of Wine Jennifer Simonetti-Bryan, who has trained thousands inside and outside of the wine industry. In this interactive and accessible course, you'll explore the language of wine; look behind the scenes at the process of wine making; survey the tastes and aromas of various wines; tour the world's great wine regions; and learn practical tips on how to properly taste wine, which wines to pair with which foods, and much more. This course is a dynamic way to strengthen your understanding of and improve your ability to try, buy, talk about, and, most of all, enjoy wine.
  • History of the United States, 2nd Edition sale Save up to $550
History of the United States, 2nd Edition
Various Professors

This sweeping, 84-lecture series features three award-winning professors sharing their insights into this nation's past in their own areas of special interest, from European settlement and the Revolutionary War to the Civil War, 19th-century industrialization, world wars, and today's outlook. You will gain a lucid picture of the factors that enabled the United States to become the largest, wealthiest, and most powerful democratic republic in history.
  • Stress and Your Body sale Save up to $185
Stress and Your Body
Professor Robert Sapolsky

From Dr. Robert Sapolsky, one of the world's foremost researchers on stress and neurobiology, comes this fascinating 24-lecture course that guides you through the science of the stress that is a central part of daily life. You'll explore the nuts and bolts of the stress-response system, its various effects on the body, its ramifications on psychological health, and more. Filled with intriguing case studies, helpful analogies, and heartfelt stories, Stress and Your Body will give you a thorough knowledge of how and why stress affects you the way it does.
  • Optimizing Brain Fitness SALE
  • Secrets of Mental Math SALE
  • Effective Communication Skills SALE
  • Nutrition Made Clear SALE
  • The World Was Never the Same: Events That Changed History SALE
  • Practicing Mindfulness: An Introduction to Meditation SALE
  • Neuroscience of Everyday Life SALE
  • Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition SALE
  • Understanding the Human Body: An Introduction to Anatomy and Physiology SALE
  • Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft SALE
  • Great Tours: Greece and Turkey, from Athens to Istanbul SALE
  • Understanding the Brain SALE
  • The Everyday Guide to Wine SALE
  • History of the United States, 2nd Edition SALE
  • Stress and Your Body SALE
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