Free History Courses

Explore Chinese history and culture from the perspective of the individual through philosophical texts, literary works, and art.

An exploration of the magnetic and ambivalent character of Shylock in William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.

Examine how cultures of the ancient world defined themselves through literature and how their vision of literature contributes to our understanding of civilization, culture, and literature today.

Explore the impact of the conquest dynasties and the world of the Ming.

Gain an understanding of history, museum studies, and curation by looking at, organizing, and interpreting art, artifacts, scientific curiosities, and the stuff of everyday life.

Learn how early American politics informed the U.S. Constitution and why its promise of liberty and equality has yet to be fully realized.

Learn about China’s origins, its integral early thinkers, and competing states and schools of thought.

Learn how to read William Shakespeare's plays through his biography, Elizabethan and Jacobean history, and modern performance.

Traces Albert Einstein’s engagement with relativity, quantum mechanics, Nazism, nuclear weapons, philosophy, the arts, and technology.

Join Harvard faculty in this online course to discover the physical history of the Jewish bible.

Explore China’s imperial period, with a focus on the Song dynasty and the role of the exam system in government.

An overview of divination systems, ranging from ancient Chinese bone burning to modern astrology.

Learn about the Qin and Han dynasties, and how Buddhism and ideas of self-realization influenced the medieval period.

Explore the birth of modern China with a focus on the time between the fall of the Qing and the end of World War II.

Learn how the Manchus conquered the Qing and established the last of the imperial dynasties.

Gain a foundational knowledge of American constitutional democracy while crafting your own civic voice and identity.

Explore the reunification of China under the Tang with a focus on aristocratic culture — from poetry to calligraphy to literature.

Develop skills in digital research and visualization techniques across subjects and fields within the humanities.

Explore what makes cities energizing, amazing, challenging, and perhaps humanity’s greatest invention.

An overview of modern Chinese history, including the fall of the Qing and the end of imperial China.

Explore the Maoist period of China, from the Communist Party to the death of Mao and the reopening of China.

Learn how American women created, confronted, and embraced change in the 20th century while exploring ten objects from Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library.

Learn about the forces in American politics that seek to influence the electorate and shift the political landscape.

Use the case study method to study China from the rise of Deng Xiaoping to the present.

Study Japanese scroll art as text and as "little movies" that immerse the viewer through visual narration.