Part 1: Lecture 1: Why we study history -- Lecture 2: World War I and the lessons of history -- Lecture 3: Hitler's rise and the lessons of history -- Lecture 4: World War II and the lessons of history -- Lecture 5: Is Freedom a universal value? -- Lecture 6: Birth of civilization in the Middle East -- Lecture 7: The Trojan War and the Middle East -- Lecture 8: Ancient Israel and the Middle East -- Lecture 9: Ancient Greece and the Middle East -- Lecture 10: Athenian democracy and empire -- Lecture 11: The destiny of the Athenian democracy -- Lecture 12: Alexander the Great and the Middle East.

Part 2: Lecture 13: The Roman Republic as superpower -- Lecture 14: Rome of the Caesars as superpower -- Lecture 15: Rome and the Middle East -- Lecture 16: Why the Roman Empire fell -- Lecture 17: Christianity -- Lecture 18: Islam -- Lecture 19: The Ottoman Empire and Turkey -- Lecture 20: The Spanish Empire and Latin America -- Lecture 21: Napoleon's liberal empire -- Lecture 22: The British Empire in India -- Lecture 23: Russia and empire -- Lecture 24: China and empire.

Part 3: Lecture 25: The empire of Genghis Khan -- Lecture 26: Britain's legacy of freedom -- Lecture 27: George Washington as statesman -- Lecture 28: Thomas Jefferson as statesman -- Lecture 29: America's empire of liberty -- Lewis and Clark -- Lecture 30: America and slavery -- Lecture 31: Abraham Lincoln as stateman -- Lecture 32: The United States and empire -- Lecture 33: Franklin Roosevelt as statesman -- Lecture 34: A superpower at the crossroads -- Lecture 35: The wisdom of history and the citizen -- Lecture 36: The wisdom of history and you.