EdX

American Capitalism: A History (edX)

American Capitalism: A History (edX)

Examine how economic development fueled the United States’ evolution from 13 backwater colonies to a global power.

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see EdX's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

Perhaps no story is as essential to get right as the history of capitalism. Nearly all of our theories about promoting progress come from how we interpret the economic changes of the last 500 years. This past decade’s crises continue to remind us just how much capitalism changes, even as its basic features—wage labor, financial markets, private property, entrepreneurs—endure. While capitalism has a global history, the United States plays a special role in that story. This course will help you to understand how the United States became the world’s leading economic power, revealing essential lessons about what has been and what will be possible in capitalism’s on-going revolution.

Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

Sustainable Development: The Post-Capitalist Order (edX) EdX
SDGAcademyX,SDG Academy

Sustainable Development: The Post-Capitalist Order (edX)

Sustainable development represents a shift from our current system of inequitable capitalism to one that prioritizes prosperity for all, while remaining conscious of its environmental impact and sustainability for future generations. Learn why sustainable development has been adopted by countries and multilateral organizations around the world, and how this approach is transforming the way we live, work, and govern our planet.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
The History of Medieval Medicine Through Jewish Manuscripts (edX) EdX
University of Pennsylvania,PennX

The History of Medieval Medicine Through Jewish Manuscripts (edX)

Learn about medieval Jewish medical training and thought by exploring and interpreting medical manuscripts. This mini-course is a general introduction to both to medieval medicine and to the value of using manuscripts. Professor Y. Tzvi Langermann presents a case study that builds from a unique 15th-century volume in which three important medical manuscripts in Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic (Arabic in Hebrew characters) are sewn together.

Self-Paced
Self-Paced
The Worldview of Thomas Berry: The Flourishing of the Earth Community (Coursera) Coursera
Yale University

The Worldview of Thomas Berry: The Flourishing of the Earth Community (Coursera)

Thomas Berry (1914-2009) was a historian of world religions and an early voice awakening moral sensibilities to the environmental crisis. He is known for articulating a “new story” of the universe that explores the implications of the evolutionary sciences and cultural traditions for creating a flourishing future. This course investigates Berry’s life and thought in relation to the Journey of the Universe project.

Aug 17th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Søren Kierkegaard - Subjectivity, Irony and the Crisis of Modernity (Coursera) Coursera
University of Copenhagen

Søren Kierkegaard - Subjectivity, Irony and the Crisis of Modernity (Coursera)

In this course created by former associate professor at the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre, Jon Stewart, we will explore how Kierkegaard deals with the problems associated with relativism, the lack of meaning and the undermining of religious faith that are typical of modern life. His penetrating analyses are still highly relevant today and have been seen as insightful for the leading figures of Existentialism, Post-Structuralism and Post-Modernism.

Aug 17th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Women Making History: Ten Objects, Many Stories (edX) EdX
HarvardX,Harvard University

Women Making History: Ten Objects, Many Stories (edX)

Learn how American women created, confronted, and embraced change in the 20th century while exploring ten objects from Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library. As we approach the centennial of the passage of women’s suffrage in 1920, there has been a recent burst of activism among American women. Women are running for political office in record numbers. Women are organizing and taking to the streets to demand change. Women are grappling with inclusion and intersectionality.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
The Civil War and Reconstruction - 1850-1861: A House Divided (edX) EdX
Columbia University,ColumbiaX

The Civil War and Reconstruction - 1850-1861: A House Divided (edX)

Discover how the issue of slavery came to dominate American politics, and how political leaders struggled and failed to resolve the growing crisis in the nation. A House Divided: The Road to Civil War, 1850-1861 begins by examining how generations of historians have explained the crisis of the Union. After discussing the institution of slavery and its central role in the southern and national economies, it turns to an account of the political and social history of the 1850s.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
Deciphering Secrets: Unlocking the Manuscripts of Medieval Burgos (Spain) (edX) EdX
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid - UC3M,UC3Mx

Deciphering Secrets: Unlocking the Manuscripts of Medieval Burgos (Spain) (edX)

Explore the medieval city of Burgos (Spain) and assess its history of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religious and cultural coexistence. This history course delves into the medieval history of the city of Burgos, from its inception in 884 c.e. as the homeland of the Spanish Kingdom of Castile and Leon, until the completion of the Spanish Reconquista in 1492.

No sessions available
5-12 Weeks
China’s First Empires and the Rise of Buddhism (edX) EdX
HarvardX,Harvard University

China’s First Empires and the Rise of Buddhism (edX)

Learn about the Qin and Han dynasties, and how Buddhism and ideas of self-realization influenced the medieval period. This course, the second in a collection on Chinese history and culture, addresses how the Qin dynasty conquered China and established a new system of government and how the Han dynasty built a stable, centralized empire that lasted for hundreds of years. We cover the early history of Buddhism in China and how the rising feudal aristocracy responded to the loss of empire by looking inward.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
Pyramids of Giza: Ancient Egyptian Art and Archaeology (edX) EdX
HarvardX,Harvard University

Pyramids of Giza: Ancient Egyptian Art and Archaeology (edX)

Explore the archaeology, history, art, and hieroglyphs surrounding the famous Egyptian Pyramids at Giza. Learn about Old Kingdom pharaohs and elites, tombs, temples, the Sphinx, and how new technology is unlocking their secrets. Where is Giza? How were the Pyramids built? How did the cemeteries and hundreds of decorated tombs around them develop? What was Giza’s contribution to this first great age of ancient Egyptian civilization, the Old Kingdom?

Self Paced
Self-Paced
Visualizing the Birth of Modern Tokyo (edX) EdX
MIT,MITx

Visualizing the Birth of Modern Tokyo (edX)

See Tokyo’s modernization through the “100 views” tradition, from the gas-lit 1870s to the jazz era 1930s. From MIT Visualizing Cultures, with the Smithsonian Institution. This course shows the emergence of modern Tokyo through artist renderings of its neighborhoods, daily life and nightlife, nested between its recurring destruction by natural disasters and war.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
La percepción del paisaje (edX) EdX
Universidad Autonoma de Madrid,UAMx

La percepción del paisaje (edX)

En este MOOC nos proponemos dos objetivos: recrear la historia del paisaje y percibirlo no sólo por la vista, sino por los cinco sentidos. De forma que veremos cómo se ha ido pasando de una percepción frontal del paisaje (la del caminante y el navegante), a una lateral (la de las ventanillas del ferrocarril) y a otra vertical (la de los submarinos y los satélites espaciales). Y desde la aparición de internet ha surgido otra dimensión: el paisaje virtual.

Self Paced
Self-Paced