HIEU 2112

I thought this class was extremely fascinating. Professor Linstrum is an excellent lecturer who made 50 minute classes fly by. His lectures are superbly structured and I cannot recommend him enough. He provides lecture handouts to give you an outline of the class's lecture that are also super useful when studying for exams. The material is interesting, covering much of the development of Britain from 1688 onwards. There was a solid amount of reading (~150 pages a week) but a lot of it was actually pretty straightforward and interesting.

It is relatively straightforward to get a B+/A- but due to the grading it can be tough to reach an A. Additionally, it can be a little unclear what the specific expectations were for papers.

Grade Breakdown:
15%: 1st Paper
15%: In class midterm (a few IDs, a couple short answers related to the readings, and a longer essay)
25%: 2nd paper
20%: Discussion participation
25%: In class final exam (similar to midterm)

Linstrum is an excellent professor. He really knows his stuff and his lectures are very interesting. You should know that he teaches British history from a Marxist perspective. If that doesn't worry you, I'd definitely recommend it.

Not the best lecturer, readings were DULL and very long, especially toward the end where he expected you to read 4 novels- one per week (hint- you don’t have to do them because they never came up outside of the discussion for that week).

This class is simply amazing. Linstrum is easily one of the best professors I've ever had. He has a clear passion for European History and his lectures are so interesting. Grade consists of a short paper (15%), a longer paper (25%), a midterm (15%), a final (25%) and participation in section (20%). The papers require you to really think critically and form your own opinions regarding the topics at hand. The exams were very straightforward- Linstrum gives you the essay prompts beforehand so you can make an outline for them. There is TONS of reading for this course- he doesn't make a course packet but still requires you to print out all the readings which sucks, but it's manageable. Would definitely take this class again!

Linstrum was very friendly and engaging. The class focused mainly on the social movements, class relations, etc. of British history, which some might find boring, though to me this seems like the most reasonable way to approach British history. His lectures were easy to follow and he was always available for questions or discussions after class and in office hours. The reading load varied from 80-150 pages per week, though it was never necessary to read everything. The importance and relevance of the readings varied, but usually they were usually helpful.

The TA, Oscar, was great and very helpful. He made the discussion somewhat fun and he did a great job clarifying the class (both content and assignments).

I didn't find the class too difficult. You'll find that the professor is really nice and very intelligent if you talk to him in person, even if the syllabus makes him sound sort of intimidating. Course is two papers, a midterm and a final.

That said, this class is a very particular type of history class, in that it teaches social history". It focuses a lot on social movements, the disenfranchised and "ordinary people" as opposed to narrative history that focuses on diplomatic, economic and military history. This class is very focused on dynamics surrounding gender, social class, religion and late in the semester, race. So if you prefer more focus on political/economic/military history I'd suggest another class.

I didn't love the readings, they were often relatively long with an average load of about 150 pages a week (which by the way, means that some weeks are much, much worse). The problem I had though is that the readings often only seem tangentially related to the lectures and didn't really do much to improve students' understanding of history and were usually pretty irrelevant when it came to the exams, though using a few as an example did help your grade. This also means that the readings cannot make up for lectures. The lectures give you a broader understanding of British history while the readings often focused on a particular aspect of one era.

The class did not use a textbook so you'll be printing A LOT of readings, but I'd suggest getting a cheap book on Amazon that gives you an overview of British history as a companion, I did and I found it really helpful.

The papers were very different. The first one, I personally disliked, you were given three court cases from the 1600s and told to write an essay about "what they told you about the era". I get that this may seem like standard primary source interpretation, however, the sources were relatively scarce in material to use for the interpretation and students were given very little guidance as to what the professor was looking for. The second essay was standard stuff, the read a book and write a response to it kind of essay.

The TA for this class, Oscar Ax, was awesome and really helpful. Unfortunately, he finished his PhD this past semester so he won't be there the next time this class is taught.

Solid History Course. Very good professor. Not hard to do well. Work to put in is straightforward and fair.