#146 overall
A Brief History of Humankind
Coursera
3 recommenders · 4 threads · recommended in 4 years, 2013–2023 · score 3.0
A Brief History of Humankind is a Coursera course taught by historian Yuval Harari that surveys the long history of Homo sapiens, from early human societies through the agricultural, scientific and modern eras. It was the basis for his book Sapiens.
Commenters describe it as a fun, enriching course, with one calling it the best enrichment course they had taken.
Recommendations by year
20062026
This approach reminds me of a course I took on Coursera a while ago called "A Brief History of Humankind": https://www.coursera.org/course/humankind
It is the best enrichment course I had ever taken. I wonder if the lecturer (Yuval Harrari) was influenced by this "Big History", or he arrived at this teaching method independently.
I enjoyed Yuval Harari's course A Brief History of Humankind when it was available on Coursera (it can still be found on youtube, although at low video quality — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGhTQ4iruLc&list=PLE-kxvSEhk...). This was before Harari released his book, Sapiens, largely based on this course; and before he started fantasizing about the future.
Yeah, I remember Dan Ariely's course on behavioral economics, and — my favorite — Yuval Harari's course on the human history from the early, pre-paid-certificate days of Coursera. That was fun! I have a feeling that as the site became more commercial it has also become less fun.
There is currently a great course on Coursera named "A Brief History of Humankind"[1] that is exploring those ideas. If you have another source that goes deeper into the subject I would be interested to know it.
[1] https://www.coursera.org/course/humankind