The Modern World, Part Two
Global History since 1910

Being more involved with the world - politics, economics, social issues

I feel a bit uncomfortable opening a topic about this issue, as I know there is a lot of stigma around people "not being interested in politics". "They must be stupid", and so on. Well, I know that's not the case for me. I've spent my life so far mostly being interested in science, engineering, technology, neurology, psychology, but also creative ventures. I'm a very curious person I would say, and enjoy finding out a lot about many different topics. However, I have never developed a solid base when it came to geography, politics, economics, culture. Due to undetected depression in primary school, I performed badly and was sent to lower vocational (is how you call it I think - I'm Dutch). Long story short I managed over time to find myself and climbed up to university level. I never did any proper high school though (not on university preparatory level) and so miss a lot of basic knowledge about the world that I feel embarrassed about. On top of that, I'm a very abstract and visual person, and have a great deal of difficulty remembering names (of things, places, people). That's difficult with specifically these subjects. I've been triggered by events in the last few years to get more interested in politics, but after a short burst of reading online articles I'd usually give up because it felt like there was just too much for me to know and catch up on, too many relationships spanning the globe with too many dependencies and stakes. It was overwhelming. With the elections in the US my interest was peaked again and I notice myself reading a lot of articles in the last 3 days. I'm running into the same problems though; not knowing a lot about the history, the games in the shadows, the international relationships, the wars and war crimes, the whole situation with Russia, there's just too much. I feel like knowing everything that is playing, everything that is at stake, and then staying up to date, would leave me no time for the things that really interest me as a passion instead of a necessity.

However, I do see the importance of these subjects and I do want to develop at least a gross feel for it. It will probably never be the focus of my life. My question to you is, could you advise me some good summaries, books, sources of information that can get me up to speed in a reasonable amount of time? In other words, let's say you had to start over. What would you do?

Edit:

I found some sources myself. Coursera:

• The Modern World 1 2

• Understanding Europe: Why it Matters and What it Can Offer You

• The Emergence of the Modern Middle East 1 2

• Corruption

• The Social Context of Mental Health and Illness

• Global Diplomacy: Diplomacy in the Modern World

• Configuring the World 1 2 and 3 to be made available this fall (2016).

• International Cyber Conflicts

There are 2 Coursera online courses that basically have what you seem to be looking for (and you can audit them for free if you don't need a certificate):

https://www.coursera.org/learn/modern-world

https://www.coursera.org/learn/modern-world-2

Also check out Kahn Acedamy's History: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/world-history

Biology: MITx Introduction to Biology is the best MOOC I've ever taken (I completed >10 and started dozens). The lecturer is amazing, the problem sets are really fun, and it really made me appreciate biology.

CS: I really enjoyed Algorithms by Roughgarden from Stanford on Coursera.

Economics: Marginal Revolution University intros to Micro and Macro are great (taught by Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok).

History: my favorite course is The Modern World: Global History from 1760 to 1910 (part 1, part 2).

(I have a few more MOOCs I liked listed on my site but listing all of them would be too much here).

Not exactly what you've asked for, but I've enjoyed free online courses available through sites like Coursera. You might find something of interest on there. I have found how engaging online courses are varies - one I did was mostly dry lecture videos with someone just standing in front of a screen talking at a camera. The one I took on Understanding Violence (from a public health approach) was a lot more engaging. I've also seen other ones where it's more like there's an actual classroom of students and you're watching a recording of it. Here's one called The Modern World, Part Two: Global History since 1910. Might be worth a try?

Here's Langara's history courses. From here, it doesn't look like they have any in the evening, but I could be missing something.

I do know that SFU has that SFU NOW program that's aimed at working adults looking to take evening and/or weekend classes to work towards a BA. Here's what courses they're offering for Fall 2019, although I don't see any history courses this semester. When I was at SFU, I was briefly in a classics course that was part of SFU NOW, so you may find something there, but I don't think it'll be that close to History 12

Here's what Douglas College has for history courses. These four are offered as evening classes for Fall 2019: HIST 1103 World History 1900 - 1945, HIST 1113 Canada Before Confederation, HIST 1120 Modern Africa, HIST 3300 The Atlantic World. All of those are at the New West campus, and only the last one has a prerequisite.

I took Global History 12 and Canadian History 11 in high school (Nova Scotia curriculum). The history I learned in social studies in elementary school and junior high only covered Canadian history from the beginning of European colonization. Elementary seemed to be the Acadians every year, although I may be remembering it wrong now... In university, the only history courses I ever took were music history and art history. (I also took an online course called Indigenous Canada since then.) So beyond Canadian history and the 20th century, I feel like I've got a kind of wacky understanding of things - I only learned about historical events for the purpose of understanding how they influenced music and art.