This course uses Thomas Jefferson as a lens to explore the post revolutionary era in the United States (ca. 1776-1830), with a focus on race and slavery, trans-nationalism, imperialism, and legal/constitutional developments.

Examines the period from roughly 1815 to 1861 focusing on the interaction between the developing sectional conflict and the evolving political system, with the view of explaining what caused the Civil War.

Examines the course of the Civil War and Reconstruction in detail and attempts to assess their impact on 19th century American society, both in the North and in the South.

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 social, political and economic organization of traditional Chinese society, traditional Chinese foreign policy, and major literary, artistic, and intellectual movements.

This course explores how Africans changed their interactions with the physical environments they inhabited and how the landscapes they helped create in turn shaped human history. Topics covered include the ancient agricultural revolution, health and disease in the era of slave trading, colonial-era mining and commodity farming, 20th-century wildlife conservation, and the emergent challenges of land ownership, disease, and climate change.

This course will examine the years after the Civil War, from 1865 to 1900, a period in which Americans witnessed unprecedented economic expansion that profoundly altered political and social arrangements. It explores how the nation "recovered" from the Civil War, how it reconstructed itself, and continued to define the notion of who was an American and who was not. In short, it examines how the nation transitioned from one divided to the threshold of world domination in the age of imperialism. 

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.

Built around the history of mainstream and independent American film, this course explores how Americans have viewed and interpreted various historical moments and processes through the movies.