If you put in the time to this class, you can definitely get an A. You should attend all of his lectures as he gives you hints as to what is going to be on the test in them. The class requires a lot of time to get an A, but is doable. I was lazy and attended about half the lectures, did none of the readings and ended up with a B+. DO THE READINGS! The entire final was based off of them!

He is a good lecturer, but I dont recommend this class as a GE, just because it covers too much.
If youre looking for an easy history GE, take the 13 series, theyre just APUSH stuff.
This class covers from about 3000 BCE to 843 CE. yes, about 4000 years of history... not even one country, but the whole western world.
You do get a good sense of how the modern Europe is, but its not worth it for a GE.

Selling two books: Classics of Western Thought and Introduction to Western Civilization. Please text me: **********.

Professor Langdon is very passionate and knowledgeable about his subjects! Occasionally his personality can be a bit abrasive but overall he really cares about his students’ understanding and in making the subject as interesting and engaging as he can. Halfway through my quarter (Winter 2016) he had a mini luncheon event where students were able to give him feedback on how we thought the class was going. He’s very opinionated but he’s also a very good listener and takes such feedback seriously. Since it was election season he tended to make lots of political references and drew parallels to more modern politics and events that might be a bit hard to understand if you’re not super versed in some basic world history already, but overall he was very clear.

As far as lectures go, sometimes I felt like the order of the way he spoke about things was a bit meandering, but overall they were very organized and for a course that basically does the job of roughly covering a couple thousands of years of human history in only ten weeks he was very thorough. One thing that I was less used to was the use of the course reader binder. It’s very thick and a bit intimidating, but overall it is VERY helpful in studying and for following along with the lectures when the Professor is spouting lots of names and dates without a slideshow to look up to.

Regarding required readings: Since most of the readings are pretty old, a lot of them are in the public domain already and thus can be found to read for free either in the library or on archive sites like Project Gutenberg; that’s how I read Suetonius, Res Gestae, and Einhard’s Life of Charlemagne, and The Secret History. The primary resource readings are kind of the most important (and some of the most interesting) parts of the course, so its pretty important to not skip those.

The course is definitely a LOT of information to digest, though, and for me it was a bit overwhelming but overall it is very excellent and I would definitely love to take a course with Professor Langdon again on maybe some more specific subjects.

Selling the full reading package including the course reader (essential to the course), The Western Experience (also cited as Chambers), The Twelve Caesars, The Life of Charlemagne, and Classics Of Western Thought: The Ancient World. All for $50.

text me @ **********

Professor Langdon is just awesome! He is super knowledgeable about this history period and has special interest in Greece, Rome, and Byzantine. He is always passionate about teaching. His lecture style was just like telling stories but very helpful for you to remember the key points. The breakdown is like this: one midterm, one essay, one final, and discussion participation. He will also record the class by himself so that you can always go to his office hour for the missed one. Besides, he really cares about his students . He held luncheon with students to gain response and would do a quick survey before every lecture to get some basic responses. The workload may be a little bit heavy since you need to remember all the important events and names for the exams, but it is definitely doable. And trust me the TAs are really mercy in grading the essays and exams. Overall a good class to take as a GE.

Professor Langdon is very caring for his students. I had a bad eye emergency the day before the midterm and he was very understanding about me making it up. Furthermore, when I went into his office the following week to take my midterm, he was genuinely concerned about my health and called his eye specialist on the spot to make an appointment for me, and made sure that the best eye specialists in the office would be there on the day I came in. He really cares about his students and is very enjoyable in class!

I'm selling Langdon's course reader (essential for the class) and the two required textbooks Classics of Western Thought and The Western Experience, all for 40. Text me @ ********** if interested.

Selling "Classics of Western Thought: The Ancient World" and course reader for this class!
Text me at **********

This class turned out to be really interesting, and I'm really glad I took it. The professor is extremely knowledgable and passionate about what he is teaching. He really reaches out to demonstrate the different characteristics and lessons you can learn from famous events, figures, and empires that you may not have known about before. At first I was overwhelmed with how the class is set up. There's a course reader that contains a myriad of notes, charts, outlines, and maps, but once you follow along and really listen to what he says and highlight what he points out, you see that you don't need to know every single detail, which works in your favor. You only need to know the major themes and general contributions and characteristics of different groups, which is far more easier and actually useful to know. At the core of this class, you learn how different empires influenced subsequent empires and societies, and eventually how the U.S. runs today.

Overall, the professor is an extremely nice guy. He really tries to get to know students individually. This class is fair. It may seem a bit too much at first, but in true reality, it's not too hard.