Great Course on World's Greatest Structures

I just completed the 24-half-hour-lecture course "Understanding the World's Greatest Structures: Science and Innovation from Antiquity to Modernity" from The Teaching Company (link is here: http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=1153). It's an AMAZING course and I learnt a lot from it. Below is my review of this course at the Teaching Company website.

Regards

Tri

"This is, simply, one of the BEST courses from The Teaching Company.

A couple of reasons why this is such a great course:

1. Professor Ressler is an outstanding presenter; very passionate about the topic, and produces great demo/models to illustrate the insights he's teaching.

2. The course is very well organised into 3 sections: The first 4 or so lectures discusses the science of structures (free-body diagram etc., equilibrium, forces, moments etc.); the second part (6 or so lectures) discusses basic structural configurations (columns, beams, arches, trusses, etc.); and the third part (the best) actually goes through real-world great structures. The course is well structured.

3. Prof Ressler not only explains the great structures, but he also goes through the historical evolution of great structures. I found these historical stories truly enlightening.

4. Prof Ressler also covers failures of structures (such as collapsing bridges) and explains WHY these structures collapsed and HOW these failures led to the next level of innovation. Fascinating!

5. The accompanying course booklet is fantastic, with detailed & clear answers at the back for most questions.

Overall, this is an absolutely wonderful course. I learnt a lot from it, so much that since viewing the course, I often look at structures (buildings, bridges, towers) on the way to work in a new light!!"

Excellent & Passionate review of Modern China History

I just completed the course "The Fall and Rise of China" by Professor Richard Baum at the Great Courses (http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=8370). This is my 30th completed course from this company. My review of this excellent course is below: 

This is one of the best courses at The Great Courses. Partly, this is because Professor Richard Baum is an excellent and passionate presenter. 48 half-hour lectures just pass through in no time at all.

I have been a long-term China watcher - but my knowledge before I watched this course was more 'complete' in the 'ancient' Chinese historical segment and not the modern 20th century one. This course illuminated the latter outstandingly.

Like typical historical courses, this course outlines the modern history of China in a time-chronological manner, from the beginning of the 'fall' of the Chinese dynasties in the late 19th century, to China in the 21st century (this course was done sometime in 2010 and it thus covered China until then). In between, it covered important events in the modern history of China, which included:

- Birth of Chinese communist party (CCP),

- The May 4th movement,

- The fight between the CCP and the opposing Guomindang,

- The Japan invasion,

- The disastrous Great Leap Forward,

- The equally-disastrous Cultural Revolution,

- Post-Mao era and early-Deng Xiao Ping,

- The Tiananment "event" in 1989 and what caused it,

- The roaring China in the 1990s and 2000s, and

- The 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.

I think this course complemented nicely the other The Great Courses course on China ("From Yao to Mao") which covered more the 'ancient' history of China; this one continues pretty much where that course left of.

I highly recommend this course to anyone who is interested in the modern history of this country, which soon will be the largest country in the world (in GDP terms).