| source Northwestern (X) |
level |
department HISTORY History (X) |
In recent years historians have developed a new technique called microhistory for capturing the lives of the people who have been lost to historyÂpeasants, heretics, poor women, gays, and con-conformists of all sorts. These were the people who because of their low social status, rural origins, illiteracy, or unpopular beliefs were ignored, despised, or persecuted by the dominant society. Microhistory is a method of investigation that usually relies on the evidence from judicial trials of otherwise obscure people who found themselves in trouble with the authorities. The method gives a voice to those who otherwise left no written record of their lives. The result of these studies has been a remarkable re-evaluation of the experiences and beliefs of the common people of pre-modern Europe. Microhistory gives life to an otherwise lost world.
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Community organizing entered national discussion as never before during the 2008 presidential election, thanks to President ObamaÂs early training and work in the field. But what exactly is community organizing? How did it start, and why have generations of Americans turned to it as a tool for achieving change? And how have critics assessed it? This course examines the origins and evolution of community organizing from its first beginnings at the opening of the twentieth century to the present, and invites students to draw their own conclusions, from the sources, about its contributions and limitations as a tool of active democracy. We will examine the lives and writings of three leaders in the field (Jane Addams, Saul Alinsky, and Ella Baker) and then explore important examples of their ideas in action. Chicago was the home of both Addams and Alinsky and it has been a leading site in the development of community organizing for over a century, so the course will also acquaint new students with local history and invite them to research Chicago community organizations. The course carries a rewarding but demanding reading load.
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This seminar will examine: a) the bases of power underpinning the projection of hegemony in international affairs; b) the ways in which, in various circumstances and on varying issues, power may be more usefully applied; c) historical examples of the exercise of hegemony by European powers and the United States in Vietnam and the Middle East, and its consequences, and d) the role of the media in interpreting U.S. foreign policy and international affairs. In the last two to three weeks of the course we will focus upon issues that the class decides it would like to explore.
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This course surveys the history of military institutions and the conduct of war from 1815 to the present. We emphasize, but do not exclusively deal with, Western military technology and practice. Subjects covered include the impact of the Industrial Revolution on military technology and practice, the influence of Clausewitzian theory, the development of staffs and doctrine, the phenomenon of total war, the character of insurgency, and the rise of global terrorism. Conflicts studied in some detail include the U.S. Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Arab-Israeli Wars. When studying behavior, a cultural approach figures prominently. The material presented is specifically designed to interest a wide range of students who simply want to know more about humankind. Increase your understanding of this escapable, though regrettable and costly, side of human experience.
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This is a basic course for majors and non-majors, intended to provide an introduction to the history of pre-industrial European civilization. Its goal is to present students with some knowledge of the broad lines of European development from roughly 1050 to roughly 1750, as well as with an introduction to some outstanding current problems of interpretation. The principal topics include the later Middle Ages, Renaissance, Reformation, Scientific Revolution, and Enlightenment. Geographical emphasis will be on Western Europe, primarily England, France, Germany and Italy. An attempt will be made to retain a balance in topical coverage, rather than focusing exclusively on any one topic such as political, social, economic or cultural history.
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Modernity has dramatically changed the profile of western civilization and had a major impact on European Jewry. The course will take students from French Revolution that started integrating the Jews into the fabric of European society through the establishment of the State of Israel. It will highlight the plurality of models of Jewish integration and acculturation, the formation of new Jewish identities, the split of the traditional community under the impact of Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment), the rise of Liberal and Orthodox trends within Judaism, and the spread of Jewish political movements such as socialism and nationalism. Based on a plethora of English-language documents, the course will introduce students to those problems of interaction between the general society and the Jewish minority that pointed toward the twentieth century transformation of modernity. In sum, the course will explore the fascinating response of Jews to modernity on political, societal, theological, and cultural levels.
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This course will examine the history of the United States from the end of the Civil War through the beginning of the twenty-first century. We will focus on the following themes: American capitalism and its regulation; legacies of slavery; foreign policy and military conflict; and changing structures of gender, sexuality, and the family. We will devote considerable attention to reading and interpreting primary sources and to learning to make historical arguments.
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This course is an introductory survey of the history of Asian immigrants and Asian Americans in the United States. We will examine the experiences of Asian immigrants and Asian Americans from a historically-grounded, interdisciplinary perspective that locates these experiences within the international context of diaspora and labor migration and the domestic context of race relations, nation-building and U.S. prominence as a world power. Reaching back to the earliest encounters of Asians with the Americas, we will discuss how European imperialism and American expansionism shaped those encounters into a history that is often closer in nature to the forced migration of African slaves than to the migration of European settlers. We will examine the ways in which images such as the Yellow Peril and the Model Minority have concrete impact on the lived experience of Asian immigrants and Asian Americans, and explore their significance in American discourse on race and racial difference. The significance of race and ethnicity, class, and gender in the ongoing creation of the American nation and Asian American communities will be an important leitmotif throughout this course. Topics include work and labor; nationalism, nativism and anti-Asian movements, including the internment of Japanese Americans; gender, family and generational change, post-1965 immigration, global restructuring and Asian American communities; civil rights and the emergence of Asian American identities; and Asian Americans and multiculturalism in the so-called post-civil rights era.
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This course examines the history and culture of traditional China, from the beginning of recorded history, ca. 2000 BCE, through the early modern period, ca. 1600 CE. The class will address important topics such as the late Neolithic and Bronze Age foundations of Chinese civilization; Confucian, Daoist, and alternative schools of thought; the question of when China became "Chinese;" unification and creation of empire; the construction of imperial orthodoxy; the introduction and spread of Buddhism; the splendor and social tensions of commercialized urban centers; the development of the examination system as a method of bureaucratic recruitment; the increasing constriction of women's social lives; the political and social significance of the Tang-Song "transition" (8th-12th c. CE); Pax Mongolica; cultural and trade relations across Eur-Asia; technological improvements and late imperial commercialization; Ming elite culture of consumption; and some of the continuities and transformations that mark modern China. Throughout the course we will trace the contributions of ChinaÂs on-going cultural, trade, and military interactions with its neighbors in defining an evolving sense of "Chinese" identity.
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This lecture/discussion course seeks to understand terrorism and the use of terrorist tactics as a historical phenomenon, from ancient times to the present. What unites the examples we study is not so much their causes or goals but their practices and the reactions to them. While we deal with radical Islamist terrorism; it is not our sole focus. In addition, we consider the use of terror tactics during wartime, racist terrorism in the United States, and the actions of the IRA, the Tamil Tigers, and the radical left in Europe. This course also tries to consider current events in historical context, and to that purpose we use the New York Times. Over the course of the semester, every student will be required to lead a discussion on a subject dealt with in the Times during the previous week. Terrorism provides a low entry cost for violent extremists that it is fated to be a deadly reality in the years to come, and in dealing with its future, there is much to be learned from its past.
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This course examines US history during the tumultuous years of the Great Depression, World War II, the early Cold War, and new contests over race, gender, and sexuality. It emphasizes how "war" in its various forms was pursued by the US and how it reshaped the U.S. Did this period yield a "greatest generation" of Americans? Is that how Americans thought of themselves at the time? Given how busy these years were, this course cannot cover everything, but in varying degrees it will address foreign policy, war, politics, economics, and culture and the arts.
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This course surveys the history of American foreign relations from the colonial period did the Spanish-American War. How did a cluster of colonies in eastern North America expand into an independent nation that spanned the continent and became an imperial power in its own right? In this course, we will examine the expansion of the United States through state policies, military action, and the activities of private citizens and organizations. We will use primary sources to consider Americans competing visions of expansion and how foreign relations contributed to the formation of national, racial, and ethnic identities. Topics will include the Revolution and independence, the War of 1812, westward expansion and manifest destiny, ÂIndian removal, war with Mexico, the international politics of slavery, immigration, commercial expansion, and the creation of an American empire.
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This is the first half of a two-quarter course dealing with urbanization and urban communities in America from the period of first European settlement to the present. The first quarter deals with the period from the fifteenth century to about 1870. The second quarter deals with the period from 1870 onward. Topics for the first half include the transfer and adaptation of European city forms and culture to North America, the growth of mercantile cities, the relation between industrialization and urbanization, the implications of explosive growth in the 19th century, and the roles of Irish, German, and African-American migrations to U.S. cities.
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The early Middle Ages were characterized by upheaval and dramatic social change. It is a period framed by symbolic disasters, inaugurated by Âthe end of civilization with the fall of Rome and concluding with the anxieties surrounding the year 1000, when the world was supposed to end. And yet, despite these morbid markers, it was a time of immense creativity and energy during which the characteristic fusion of Roman, German, and Christian traditions laid the groundwork for European culture. Topics will include gender, Christianity, and the fall of Rome; monasticism and the preservation of culture; the rise of Islam; the ÂBarbarian Emperor Charlemagne; feudalism, and the gradual ascendance of the papacy.
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This course will provide an in-depth discussion and analysis of the political, social, and economic history of Europe between 1815 and 1945. The course will cover the rise of nation states, international relations, the causes and courses of major wars and revolutions, as well as the main developments in technology, labor and population change. The course will place special emphasis on precedents to the European Union, and discuss in depth centrifugal and centripetal forces within Europe. It will not cover intellectual and cultural history as these courses are adequately dealt with in other departmental offerings.
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This course covers the complete history of the Soviet Union: from its emergence from the Russian Revolution of 1917 as a radical power that seemed determined to spread revolution to the rest of the world, through hyper-industrialization and hyper-terror under Stalin, its almost single-handed defeat of Nazi Germany in WWII, abrupt de-Stalinization under Khrushchev in the 1950s, the sharp deterioration of the Soviet systemÂs vitality under Brezhnev in the 1970s, and finally its collapse under Gorbachev (1985-1991). Every one of these apparently abrupt shifts in direction took observers and scholars by surprise. The goal of the course is not to explain definitively the peculiar life course of the Soviet Union, but to figure out what exactly has to be explained, and what sorts of explanations might work.
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This course deals with Latin AmericaÂs transition from colonial status to political independence and the problem of forming new states (and nations?) in the nineteenth century. Topics include patterns of economic and social change, including economic dependency and changes in modes of social stratification, as well as political patterns, including caudillismo, political ideologies, and Church-State conflict. Attention is focused particularly on the cases of Mexico, Colombia, Chile, the Rio de la Plata, and Brazil.
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This course will survey some of the major events and personages which shaped South Asian history, culture, and politics in the early modern era. We begin with the integration of IndiaÂs multiple religious, literary, and visual cultures under the Mughal EmpireÂs tolerant vision of political islam, encapsulated by their ideology of Âpeace with all (sulh-i kull). This policy included the welcoming of European merchants and missionaries who began arriving in the Indian subcontinent ca. 16th century; but as Mughal power waned in the 18th century, it faced challenges not only from former client states and regional kingdoms that sought to fill its shoes, but also from the encounter with Europe, particularly the growing military and economic might of the British. We will follow this trajectory through to the consolidation of the British East India CompanyÂs power in Bengal in the late eighteenth century, as the British role in India transitioned from one of mere traders to that of imperial colonists with a determination to enact a so-called Âcivilizing mission.Â
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AMERICAN MATERIAL CULTURE TO 1877 -- Historians are trained in text and speech, but some insights about the past are only available by consulting objects. A shard from a teapot might help explain frontier economies, while a stray seashell could alter current views on slave religion. This course will examine the material record of the early America by analyzing archaeological artifacts, architecture, consumer goods, and visual art from the colonial period through Reconstruction. Students will learn to examine and question these artifacts in the same manner as a historian reads text, using detail, context, and symbolism to form theories about the past. The course will also show how the cultures of labor, agriculture, fashion, building, and other aspects of daily life can shed light on broader historical themes including politics, religion, economics, race, and gender.
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PROFESSIONAL LINKAGE SEMINAR Â HISTORY MUSEUMS AND AMERICAN CULTURE -- How do history museums narrate the nationÂs history and shape American culture? This course examines history museums and historical exhibitions in the United States with a special focus on the way that national memory is constructed and contested within museum exhibitions and memorial sites. Our readings and discussions over the course of the semester will move from general considerations of museum history and practice to multiple case studies of some of the most controversial exhibitions and memorials in recent memory. We also will explore how the proliferation of historical exhibitions on the Web has changed the way we think about museum exhibition and about public history.
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This course is the second part of a three-quarter sequence required of first-year doctoral students in U.S. history and intended to prepare them for later work as teachers and scholars. History 410-2 is designed to introduce students to scholarship on major issues in the history of the nineteenth-century United States, and to the evolution of scholarly thinking about those issues.
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We will sample historical literature on how nation, race, and tribe were imagined in modern Africa. Possible topics will include: Zulu ethnic nationalism; Christianity and the creation of the Yoruba nation; Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda; pan-Africanism and the modern African nation-state.
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This course will offer a survey of European History from 1050-1750. We will concentrate on the big events of the period  the Great Schism, the Black Death, the Reformation, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment  but we will also try to recognize the longer historical trends, such as the evolution of the nation-state and the power and violence of imperialism. Comprehending the immense change that took place during this period will prove invaluable for students seeking to understand the world today. For this reason, we will maintain a strong focus on critical thinking and interpretation of primary sources.
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Our course will begin with an examination of the two great British revolutions: the Glorious Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. We will then look at the expansive British Empire and the ways in which imperialism affected its subjects, both at home and abroad. Moving through the twentieth century, we will examine the ways that British dominance has been compromised though war, the disintegration of the Empire, and the increasing strain of class society. Although we will maintain a focus on England, we will also look at Scotland, Wales and Ireland and the ways that indigenous nationalism has contested a unified British identity.
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In 1939, Warsaw, PolandÂs capital, boasted the largest Jewish population in Europe. By 1945, the once vibrant city lay in ruins and its Jews murdered. Following the 1939 Nazi invasion, Poland became ground zero for HitlerÂs racial war, leaving despair, destruction, and mutual recrimination in its wake. Through the prism of the Second World War, this seminar will explore the painful and complex history of modern Polish-Jewish relations. While paying particular attention to chronological developments, this course will be thematically organized. Topics under consideration include assimilation and its discontents; antisemitism and the Polish Right; Polish-Jewish relations during the Nazi occupation; the legacy of the 1946 Kielce pogrom; and PolandÂs recent struggles to come to terms with its Jewish past. This course is designed to encourage first-year students to think, write, and speak critically about controversial historical topics. Through a combination of lectures and seminars, this course emphasizes the development of the research and communication skills necessary for both the academic and professional arenas. Significant participation, presentation and analysis on the part of students are required. Mindful of this courseÂs intellectual and practical goals, students will engage key secondary and primary sources, including memoirs, novels, newspaper articles, films, and photo documentaries. Source materials will shed light on far-reaching issues that extend beyond the Polish context, including race relations, religious prejudice, collaboration, victimization, and national mythology. All told, this course endeavors to provide an understanding of the mutual enmity and distrust that have often typified Polish-Jewish relations over the course of the last century.
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