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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!

I thoroughly enjoyed this course for how history has been uniquely contextualized by the honorable professor. The reasons behind what happened have been enlightening. I am taking one 🌟 off from the rating for maybe involuntary but obvious downplaying of tyranny of colonialism and imperialism. The devastating effects of colonial era still continue in Africa, South Asia and Latin America; apparent from these regions being poorest in the world. Other than seemingly whitening of—or making appear less dark—the white man's black acts, the course is very informative.

Overall a good course, that managed to provide an overview of the designated world history. However, the course is structured thematically instead of chronically, making it a bit harder to get used to. Meanwhile, I would also suggest the prof set up a final exam of about 50 questions which covered the whole materials and also assigned some course reading, even some excerpts could be helpful. Personally, I found J.M. Roberts's "Penguin history of the world" helpful as complementary material for this course

Even thought a bit "old" (dating to 2014) i just took the course and found it to be still a very welcoming and joyful set of lessons thanks to the professor. As a student you just have to assume it´s only an introduction, you´re not going to find much detail or thesis material or anything like that. This seems to be aimed to the courious ones who wants a taste of what history sounds like, the potential "history buffs"... and the professor certainly grabs your attention and helps to acomplish it.

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.

[Audited only] A useful overview and revision of the period organized in terms of interacting forces of modernizing commercial, military and political developments.

Traditional social organization unsettled by technology, science and industrial production creates a succession of choices about how to adapt in changing circumstances viewed from varied perspectives of the contemporary observers and actors making those choices.

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.

This is a long course, necessarily given the breadth of the material covered. Mr Zelikow made it accessible, including a fair number of light hearted photos and informative diagrams. It was interesting, having been brought up on a diet of Anglo-centric history, how the perspective alters. I'm looking forward to continuimg with part 2 but will need to organise my time better if it is equally long.

The course is great, but deducting one star because some of the assessment questions throughout the course are out of date with the content in terms of the schedule, i.e. you have to answer questions about a piece of content that won't be presented until the following week. The ideal is to watch the content of the following week and then return and answer the previous week's questionnaire.

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.

Content is 5 for sure. The fact that they keep suggesting to go for a verified course however is a little bit annoyig, so 1 star off for that. I think it would be more appropriate to give an option to disable future asking similar to how ratings on Android work. That being said, the course is excellent I'm taking this for pure fun and it really is, ... fun! :D

Great class if you are looking for an overview of the 150-year span between the Enlightenment and World War I. What is unique (as far as classes I've taken) is that it makes mention of events in South America, the Middle East and Asia beyond how they affected the European or American powers.

I found this course to be well presented, interesting, and I learnt a lot thanks. In the presentation where you wrote things yourself, I couldn't read what you wrote, it would be better if it were typed. (I am only in Yr7 doing homeschool and I did your course as part of my History).

everything is ok in this course except some things like some implicit attempts to polish the image of the united state, also the emphasize on the question, why? while forgeting the importance of the question , how? and is it really tthat way ? but as i said everything else is fine .

Really interesting. I would like some recommended lectures (chapters or text or whole books) per week. Also the last weeks, the professor make extended use of handwriting when some slides would did the same but the plus of some additional notes in the fly are welcome.

Presentation and content are excellent. The only thing I dislike is that some of the videos are excessively long (30+ minutes). Coursera recommends no longer than about 10 minutes per video. It's hard to pay close attention for such long periods in an online course.

I thought the instructor was excellent. He engaged with the viewer in the video and was not dry and boring. He really kept my attention and framed information well. Some prompting questions once a week for discussion in the work forum might be nice.

This was great. For em, a person who's just in need of learning new things, this is great. Besides, there's no limit of certifications that you can have. But, I still don't think these videos cover everything covered in a professional university.

Someone who doesn't know history is destined to repeat it. I'm not a fan of history, so why take this class? Because I believe in the first statement and wanted an overview of how we got to where we are. This is a great course for that.