"In 1945, Europe lay in ruins. Some fifty million people were dead, and millions more languished in physical and moral disarray. The devastation of World War II was unprecedented in character as well as in scale. Unlike the First World War, the second blurred the line between soldier and civilian, inflicting untold horrors on people from all walks of life. A continent that had previously considered itself the very measure of civilization for the world...

This remarkable story from the past is especially timely today. Filmed in Cordoba, Granada, Seville, and Toledo, this film retraces the 800 years in medieval Spain when Muslims, Christians, and Jews forged a common cultural identity that frequently transcended their religious differences, revealing what made this rare and fruitful collaboration possible, and what ultimately tore it apart.

People who are anonymous and whose lives are usually ignored in traditional historical accounts are no less important than more prominent individuals in influencing the flow of events. These ordinary, but often heroic, people are the focus of this course. Each of the 48 lectures looks at history from a nontraditional perspective, that of the weak and marginalized-- the poor, sick, disabled, and elderly, as well as the refugees, slaves, women, children,...