Global Arc

Eighteenth-century enlightened absolutism: reforms of Peter and Catherine the Great, shaping of national identity and a modern state. Nineteenth-century tensions between reform from above and revolution from below, with a focus on the political role of social groups and special attention to the origins of revolutionary conflict in 1905 and 1917. Two 90-minute classes.

The history of contemporary America, with particular attention to political, social and technological changes. Topics will include the rise of a new conservative movement and the reconstitution of liberalism, the end of the divisive Cold War era and the rise of an interconneted global economy, revolutionary technological innovation coupled with growing economic inequality, a massive influx of immigrants coupled with a revival of isolationism and nativism, a revolution in homosexual rights and gender equality coupled with the rise of a new ethos of "family values."

An examination of the transformation of the Russian Empire into the Soviet Empire. Topics include: the unfolding of single-party revolutionary politics, the development of Stalin's personal despotism, the violent attempt to create a noncapitalist society, the monumental war with Nazi Germany, and the nature of everyday life. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Napoleon's contemporaries uttered his name with a mixture of admiration, awe, and horror. What were the reasons for these extreme reactions? In this course of lectures we will follow Napoleon and his armies step by step as they intrude and change the world around them during the tumultuous years of the Napoleonic wars (1798-1815): From the Battle of the Pyramids in Egypt, through the battle of Trafalgar and the campaigns in Germany, Spain, and Russia, and all the way to Napoleon's unexpected return from exile and the battle of Waterloo.

A survey of France and its colonial empire during centuries in which this country dominated the Western world. Major topics include the sixteenth-century Wars of Religion, the absolute monarchy, colonization and slavery in North America and the Caribbean, the Enlightenment, eighteenth-century social and cultural change, the French Revolution and the Terror, the Haitian Revolution, and the Napoleonic Empire.

The history of Western and Central Europe since World War I viewed from the perspective of Europe's rapidly changing role in world history. Europe's political, social, and economic adjustment to the Russian Revolution, to the emergence of America and Russia as superpowers, and to the loss of overseas imperial possessions. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Sets German history after the Napoleonic invasion in a context of international politics, and shows how the development of a peculiarly German idea of the nation was a response to pressures exerted by European political changes and by the European state system. Examination of how, after national unification in 1871, German domestic policy in turn affected the whole world: in German foreign policy before the First World War, in the aftermath of 1918, and during the Nazi dictatorship. Treatment of the separate courses of the two Germanies since 1945 and of their position in world politics. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

A study of the development of the English Constitution to 1600, with special emphasis on the institutions and ideas that form the background for American constitutional history. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

In the twentieth century, Europe underwent a range of wrenching social and political upheavals that brought into question received truths about subjectivity, the nature of society, the forms and purpose of politics, the role of religion, the relationship between the sexes, and the place of Europe within the wider world. Over the course of the semester, we will study a range of intellectual movements--Marxism, feminism, psychoanalysis, critical theory, existentialism, structuralism, and postmodernism--examining how European thinkers responded to the historical events happening around them.

Thematic survey of the social, cultural, and political transformations in the lives of women and men in Britain from the Industrial Revolution to the present. Topics include Britain's rise and fall as the first "modern" society and imperial power; national identities and civil society, gender, and class; democracy and imperialism; Irish nationalism and contemporary culture. Two lectures, one preceptorial.