History-European History

Intended for first- or second-year students. Seminars involve reading, discussing, and writing about different historical topics and periods, and emphasize the enhancement of critical and communication skills. Several seminars are offered each term. Not more than two Introductory Seminars may be counted toward the major in history.

Intended for first- or second-year students. Seminars involve reading, discussing, and writing about different historical topics and periods, and emphasize the enhancement of critical and communication skills. Several seminars are offered each term. Not more than two Introductory Seminars may be counted toward the major in history.

This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of European History.

Surveys the fundamental institutions and ideas that have shaped the Western world. Topics include great religious and philosophical traditions, political ideas, literary forms, artistic achievements and institutional structures from the world of the ancient Hebrews to the eve of the modern world (ca. 3000 b.c. to 1600 a.d.).

This course examines the history of nationalism in modern Europe, from the 1700s to the present day. We will consider the emergence and consolidation of European nation-states in the eighteenth century; nationalist movements and the breakup of empires in the nineteenth; ethnic cleansing and nationalist violence in twentieth-century Europe; as well as the rise of the European Union and its challenges today.

Studies the political, military, and social history of Ancient Greece from the Homeric age to the death of Alexander the Great, emphasizing the development and interactions of Sparta and Athens.

Surveys the political, social, and institutional growth of the Roman Republic, focusing on its downfall and replacement by an imperial form of government, the subsequent history of that government, and the social and economic life during the Roman Empire, up to its own decline and fall.

Studies ways of life and thought in the formation of Western Europe from the 4th century a.d. to the 15th. Includes a survey of the development of society and culture in town and countryside, the growth of economic, political, and religious institutions, and the impact of Muslim and Byzantine civilizations.

European history, from the Reformation to Napoleon, in global perspective.

European history since the French Revolution, with an emphasis on social, cultural, and political change in global perspective.

This course surveys the pre-modern Jewish historical experience from antiquity through the sixteenth century.

Survey of Jewish history from the seventeenth century to the present, primarily in Europe, but with further treatment of Jewish life in the U.S. and Israel. Major topics include Jewish historical consciousness; patterns of emancipation; religious adjustment; the role of women; anti-Semitism; Zionism; the American Jewish experience; the Holocaust; the establishment of Israel; and Jewish life in Europe after the Holocaust.

Surveys political, social, and cultural history as Britain developed from a European backwater into a global power. Focuses on four major transformations: the Reformation and changing religious life under the Tudor monarchs; new political ideas during the Civil Wars of the 1640s and revolution in the 1680s; the unification of England, Scotland, and Ireland; and the beginnings of a global empire in North America and South Asia.

This course surveys the history of modern Britain from the Glorious Revolution of 1688 to the resurgent nationalisms of the present. Themes include the state-building, overseas expansion, and widening inequality of the Georgian years; the industrialization, urbanization, and increasingly assertive imperialism of the Victorian era; and the problems of war, decolonization, and decline in the twentieth century.

Introduction to French social, political, and cultural history from 1789 to 1871. Examines political struggles from the French Revolution to the Paris Commune, and considers how industrialization, urbanization, mass culture and imperial expansion reshaped relationships between men and women, rich and poor, city and country, artists and audiences, and metropole and colony. Traces changing ideas of nation, citizenship, and democracy.

Introduction to major developments in French society, culture, and politics since 1871: struggles to establish a secular Republic; nationalism and imperialism; antisemitism and Islamophobia; changes in women's roles and gender ideals; the traumas of world war and fascism; postwar consumer culture and economic modernization; European integration, Cold War, and decolonization; post-colonial immigration and multiculturalism.

Explores the collapse of the Russian Empire and the rise of the Communist state. Emphasizes the social revolution, Stalinism and subsequent 'de-Stalinization,' national minorities, and the collapse of the Soviet regime.

Famously dubbed 'the Dark Ages' by Petrarch, the European Middle Ages live on in popular imagination as an age of faith, a time of cultured knights and ladies, and a period of relentless violence. The period from 1100-1500 in what came to be called Europe experienced significant advancements in the flowering of religious piety, economic prosperity, ethical philosophy, the centralization of state power, law, urban life, science and medicine, literature, art, and soaring feats of architecture.

This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of European History.

Surveys the intellectual, religious, and social history of Europe c.1500-1800 through the lens of changing beliefs about the supernatural. Selected topics include the rise and decline of witch-hunting, changing understandings of the universe, the impact of religious reform on traditional belief, and the "disenchantment" of European society as beliefs in the supernatural declined in the 18th century.

Surveys the history of ancient warfare from the Homeric era until the fall of Rome.

Surveys the history and culture of the last century of the Roman Republic (133-30 b.c.), emphasizing the political and social reasons for the destruction of the Republican form of government and its replacement by a monarchy.

Study of the interrationships between law, politics and society in ancient Greece (chiefly Athenian) culture, the Hellenistic kingdoms and Rome (from the XII Tables to the Justinianic Code). Focuses particularly on the development of the idea of law; on the construction of law's authority and legitimacy; on the use of law as one method of social control; and on the development, at Rome, of juristic independence and legal codification. Prerequisite: HIEU 2031 or HIEU 2041, or permission of the instructor.

Surveys the history of Britain from the establishment of Roman rule to the Norman Conquest of 1066. Particular focus falls upon the social, political and cultural history of early England and its neighbors in Wales and Scotland, the Scandinavian impact of the 8th through 11th centuries, and Britain's links with the wider late antique and early medieval worlds.

This course will focus primarily on the 'second' empire in Asia and Africa, although the first empire in the Americas will be our first topic. Topics covered include the slave plantations in the West Indies, the American Revolution, the rise of the British East India Company and its control of India, and the Scramble for Africa. Special emphasis will be placed on the environmental history of our points of debarkation.