The information below is taken from the printed catalog the college produces each year. For more up to date information, including links to course websites, faculty homepages, reserve readings, and more, use the 'courses' or semester specific link to your left..

Introductory Courses

03. Europe in the Twentieth Century. (EU) This course offers a broad survey of European history in the twentieth century. It will cover events such as World War I; the Bolshevik Revolution and the ensuing Soviet experiment; the Spanish Civil War; Nazism, World War II, and the Holocaust; the Cold War in Europe; the collapse of communism; and the Balkan Wars in the 1990s. In addition, the course will focus on the broad themes of twentieth-century European history: the confrontation between liberalism, fascism, and communism; the role of nationalism; the development of the welfare state; the decline of Europe's role in the world; the movement for European unity; and changing notions of race, class, and gender during the course of the century. Course materials will focus on primary documents, including films, memoirs, novels, political manifestos, and government and other official documents.

Limited to 60 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Epstein.

04. Europe at the Zenith of World Power. (EU) A survey of European history in the century separating the end of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars (c. 1813-1815) from the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. The course explores two principal themes: first, the contested development of "nationality" and "nation" states; and, secondly, the trajectory of overseas expansion, imperialism and empire which historians today characterize as the first era of globalization. Two class meetings per week.

Omitted 2007-08. Professor Bezucha.

05. Russia: A History of Russia Until Approximately 1800. (EUP) An examination of the roots of Russian culture in the Kievan and Muscovite periods; the development of social and political institutions in the Imperial period, including serfdom and bureaucratic absolutism. The course will consider new thinking about the course of Muscavite and Imperial history in light of the recent disappearance of the imperial structure of the Soviet state. Three class meetings per week.

Omitted 2007-08. Professor Czap.

06. Russia: A History of Late Imperial and Soviet Russia. (EU) As Russia struggles today to redefine itself as a democratic, non-imperialist multi-ethnic state and nation with a market-oriented economy, the country’s experience at the turn of the century and the early years of the Soviet era have taken on urgent relevance for Russian scholars, politicians and economists. The course will examine Russia’s economic take-off and superindustrialization; collapse of the autocracy and moves toward constitutional monarchy and "Soviet democracy"; land reform and forced collectivization; Russification and Soviet multi-nationalism; ideologies of reform and revolution. We will also consider new interpretations of the 1917 Revolution that have emerged since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Two class meetings per week.

Omitted 2007-08. Professor Czap.

08. Colonial North America. (USP) A survey of early American history from the late 1500s to the mid-1700s. The course begins by looking at Native American peoples and their initial contacts with European explorers and settlers. It examines comparatively the establishment of selected colonies and their settlement by diverse European peoples and enslaved Africans. The last half of the course focuses on the social, economic, political, and cultural conditions influencing the rise of the British colonies. Three class meetings per week.

Omitted 2007-08. Professor Sweeney.

09. Nineteenth-Century America. (US) A survey of American history from the early national period to the turn of the century, with an emphasis on social history. The course will trace the growth of slavery, the dispossession of Native Americans, Civil War and Reconstruction, the rise of postwar large-scale industry, and big cities. Topics will include changing ethnic, racial, gender, and class relations, the struggles between labor and capital, and the emergence of middle-class culture. The format will include lectures and weekly discussions; readings will be drawn from both original and secondary sources. Two class meetings per week.

Omitted 2007-08. Professor Saxton.

10. Twentieth-Century America. (US) The course traces United States political, social, and cultural history from 1900 to the present. Among the topics covered are the rise of the modern corporation, class conflict and the Progressive movement; immigration, ethnic pluralism, and the rise of mass culture; the Great Depression and the New Deal; World War II, the Cold War, and McCarthyism; the civil rights and women’s movements, the New Left, the New Right, and the continuing inequalities of race and class. Films and videos will regularly supplement class readings. Three class meetings per week.

First semester. Professor Couvares.

11. Black Diaspora from Africa to the La Escalera Conspiracy. (LAP or AFP) (Also Black Studies 21.) This course maps the range of black experiences in Latin America and the Caribbean from the emergence of Atlantic slave-based economies in the sixteenth century to the 1844 slave conspiracy of La Escalera in Cuba. It treats the Atlantic Ocean as a crossroads of diverse cultures and as a point of reference for understanding the condition of Africans and people of African descent. Topics of discussion will include the rise of the transatlantic slave trade, slave and free black communities, the meaning of Africa and African culture, changing ideas of freedom, and forms of black activism. We will read Alejo Carpentier’s historical novel The Kingdom of This World (1949), slave narratives and monographic works on the British colony of Demerara (today Guyana), Mexico, Peru, Jamaica, Brazil, Haiti and Cuba. Two class meetings per week.

First semester. Professor Castro Alves.

12. Black Diaspora from Emancipation to the Present. (LA or AF) (Also Black Studies 33.) This course explores the historical roots of contemporary racial formations in Latin America and the Caribbean. It focuses particularly on the black experiences, inter-ethnic conflicts and racial solidarities in Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti and Puerto Rico from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Topics of discussion will include the struggles for emancipation from slavery, black notions of sovereignty, forms of black nationalism, Pan-Africanism, and political radicalism. We will examine a multiplicity of historical sources, including novels, music, film, personal testimonies, and historical monographs in order to understand the black diaspora as both an historical process and as a seedbed for various identities, racial cultures and political projects. Two class meetings per week.

Second semester. Professor Castro Alves.

14. Struggles for Democracy in Modern Latin America, 1820 to the Present. (LA) This course will consider the historical struggle for democracy in various Latin American countries. Students will critically engage major themes and historical periods in modern Latin America. In terms of periodization, we pay particular attention to the relationship between Liberalism and democracy during the 19th century; the broadening of democracy at the start of the 20th century; the rise and fall of military dictatorships in the 1960s-80s; and the current clashes between neo-Liberal economic programs and the neo-populist resurgence of the Left. Major themes that carry across these time periods include the ways broad economic and political shifts impacted individuals' lives; how each economic class experienced these shifts differently; the way race and gender have shaped peoples' experience with democratization and repression; and the personal processes of radicalization among slaves, workers, students, and peasants who rose up to demand inclusion and against repression. Discussion will draw on secondary studies, historical documents, testimonials, music, images, film, and media coverage. Two class meetings per week.

First semester. Professor López.

15. Chinese Civilization. (ASP) (Also Asian 24.) A survey of Chinese history from ancient times to the eighteenth century. We will focus on texts and artifacts to explore the classical roots and historical development of Chinese statecraft, philosophy, religion, art, and literature. Using these media for evidence, we will trace the histories of inter-state relations, imperial institutions, global commerce, and family-based society through the ancient Han empire, the great age of Buddhism, the medieval period of global trade, and the Confucian bureaucratic empires that followed the Mongol world conquest. We will also compare these histories to those of European and other civilizations, considering Chinese and non-Chinese views of the past. Readings include the Analects of Confucius and other Confucian and Daoist texts, Buddhist tales and early modern fiction, selections from the classic Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji), and Jonathan Spence’s Emperor of China: Self-portrait of Kangxi. Two class meetings per week.

First semester. Professor Dennerline.

16. Modern China. (AS) (Also Asian 46.) A survey of Chinese history from the Manchu conquest of 1644 to the present. Beginning with the successes and failures of the imperial state as it faced global economic development, expanding European empires, and internal social change, we will study the Opium War, massive nineteenth-century religious rebellions, Republican revolution and state-building, the "New Culture" movement, Communist revolution, the anti-Japanese war, Mao’s Cultural Revolution, and the problems of post-Mao reform, all with comparative reference to current events. Readings, which include a wide variety of documents such as religious and revolutionary tracts, eye-witness accounts, memoirs, and letters, are supplemented by interpretive essays and videos. Two class meetings per week.

Second semester. Professor Dennerline.

17. Japanese History to 1700. (ASP) (Also Asian 25.) This course surveys the societies, cultures, and traditions of the Japanese archipelago from pre-history to 1700. We will examine critical themes in early Japanese history, including the rise of the Yamato court, influences from the Chinese continent and Korean peninsula, the Heian court, the emergence of samurai rule, as well as the civil wars and cosmopolitanism of the sixteenth century, concluding with the pacification of the realm under the Tokugawa shoguns in the seventeenth century. We will read eighth-century mythology, Heian court literature, chronicles of war, as well as religious and philosophical texts, asking how they refract the diverse experiences of early Japanese history. Classes will entail lectures coupled with close readings and discussion. Requirements include short response papers and topical essays. Three class meetings per week.

First semester. Professor Maxey.

18. Modern Japanese History: 1800-2000s. (AS) (Also Asian 47.) This course introduces the modern history of the Japanese archipelago, from the late Tokugawa period through the rise of the modern Meiji nation-state, colonial expansion and total war. We will conclude with the postwar economic recovery and the socio-political challenges facing the Japanese nation-state in the early 2000s. Along the way, we will explore in the specific context of Japanese history themes that are relevant to modern societies, including the collapse of a "traditional" regime, industrialization, imperialism, feminism, nationalism, war, and democracy. Classes will consist of lectures along with close readings and discussions that engage primary texts, scholarship, and film. Requirements include short response papers and topical essays. Three class meetings per week.

Second semester. Professor Maxey.

19. Middle Eastern History: 600-1800. (MEP) (Also Asian 26.) This course surveys the history of the Middle East from the outset of the Islamic period to the beginning of the modern period. It is divided into the following segments: the formative period of Islam, the classical caliphates, the medieval courts, the Mongols, and the great empires of the Ottomans and the Safavids. The course is organized chronologically and follows the making and breaking of empires and political centers; however, the focus of the course is on the intellectual, social, cultural and religious developments in these periods. Two class meetings per week.

First semester. Professor Ringer.

20. The Modern Middle East: 1800-Present. (ME) (Also Asian 48.) This course surveys the history of the Middle East from 1800 to the present. The focus is on the political, social and intellectual trends involved in the process of modernization and reform in the Middle East. General topics include the Ottoman Empire and its decline, the impact of European imperialism and colonialism, programs of modernization and reform, the construction of nationalism and national identities, Islamism, development and contemporary approaches to modernity. Two class meetings per week.

Second semester. Professor Ringer.

22. Colonial and Post-Colonial Africa. (AF) (Also Black Studies 47.) This is a history of Africa from the late nineteenth century to the present day. In the first half of the course, we will study the imperial scramble to colonize Africa, the integration of African societies into the world economy, the social and medical impact of imperial policies, and the nationalist struggles that resulted in the independent African states. We will also examine the divisiveness of ethnicity in post-colonial states. In the final half of the course, we will investigate three cases: Congo-Zaire-Democratic Republic of Congo and the state as a source of chaos; the cultural and political dynamics of racial and individual identity in Botswana; and the historical background of the recent troubles and land-seizures in Zimbabwe. Three class meetings per week.

Second semester. Professor Redding.

Intermediate Level Courses

29. The Reformation Era, 1500-1660. (EUP) The course begins with writings by the great reformers (Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, and Loyola), using them as a basis for examining the relationship between religious ideas, individual temperament, and social, political, and cultural change. It then takes up the connection between Protestantism and the printing press, the role of doctrinal conflict in the evolution of urban institutions, the rise of antisemitism, the significance of the Reformation for urban women, the social impact of the Counter-reformation, and the role of religious millenarianism in the German Peasants' Revolt of 1525, the English Revolution of 1640, and the Thirty Years' War. Readings include several classic interpretations of the Reformation as well as recent works in social history, urban history, women’s history, and the history of popular culture. Two class meetings per week.

Second semester. Professor Hunt.

30. The European Enlightenment. (EUP) This course begins with the political, social, cultural and economic upheavals of late seventeenth-century England, France, and the Netherlands. The second part of the course will look at the Enlightenment as a distinctive philosophical movement, evaluating its relationship to science, to classical antiquity, to organized religion, to new conceptions of justice, and to the changing character of European politics. The final part will look at the Enlightenment as a broad-based cultural movement. Among the topics discussed here will be the role played by Enlightened ideas in the French Revolution, women and non-elites in the Enlightenment, the rise of scientific racism, pornography and libertinism, and the impact of press censorship. Readings for the course will include works by Descartes, Locke, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Hume, Adam Smith, Choderlos de Laclos, Kant and Madame Roland. Two class meetings per week.

First semester. Professor Hunt.

32. The Era of the French Revolution. (EUP) The history of France during the thirty turbulent years separating the start of the ill-fated reign of Louis XVI in 1774 and the imperial coronation of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1804. Two class meetings per week.

First semester. Professor Bezucha.

33. Modern Germany. (EU) This course will explore the history of Germany since 1871. It will examine unification, as well as militarism and colonialism in Imperial Germany; Germany in World War I; the politics of culture in Weimar Germany; Nazi Germany, including Nazi racial ideology, World War II, and the Holocaust; communist East Germany and the revolution of 1989; and the evolution of democracy in West and now united Germany. The course will consider major questions of modern German history: Did Germany pursue a peculiar path of development in the nineteenth century? Was the Nazi rise to power inevitable? How did the Nazi past shape East and West Germany? How did Germany become a stable democracy after 1945? Finally, the course will explore recurring themes in German history such as authoritarianism and dictatorship, and continuities and ruptures in political, social, and cultural history. Texts will include films, slides, fiction, memoirs, diaries, government documents, and classic and recent secondary accounts. Two class meetings per week.

Omitted 2007-08. Professor Epstein.

34. Nazi Germany. (EU) This course will explore the history of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. It will examine the emergence of Hitler and Nazism in Germany, Nazi ideology and aesthetics, Nazi racial policies, daily life in the Third Reich, women under Nazism, resistance to the Nazis, Nazi foreign policy and World War II, the Holocaust, and the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial. Class participants will also discuss themes that range beyond the Nazi case: How do dictatorships function? What constitutes resistance? How and why do regimes engage in mass murder? Texts will include films, diaries, memoirs, government and other official documents, and classic and recent scholarly accounts of the era. Three class meetings per week.

Limited to 60 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Epstein.

35. From Habsburg to Hitler: Bohemian Politics, 1848-1948. (EU) This course explores the complex, sometimes comic, and ultimately tragic history of Bohemia, a territory that is located today in the Czech Republic, but previously was a part of the Habsburg Monarchy, of Czechoslovakia, and of Hitler's Third Reich. We will begin with the Revolution of 1848, and progress first through the stunning achievements and worrisome trends of Emperor-King Francis Joseph's 68-year reign, then through the horrors and hopes of two world wars, national self-determination, fascism, genocide, mass expulsion, and the onset of the Cold War. Throughout the course, emphasis will lie on understanding Bohemia's two national movements, Czech and German, as well as how those linked movements eventually succeeded, despite modest beginnings, in dominating Bohemian politics as a whole. Readings will come from many primary sources and a few secondary ones. Class meetings will feature a combination of lecture and discussion. Please come ready to ask questions and to answer them. Two class meetings per week.

Second semester. Professor King of Mount Holyoke College.

36. Modern Spain. This course explores the history of Spain from the Napoleonic period (1808) through the transition to democracy in the 1970s. The class will focus on significant topics within this time frame including the process of decolonization during the nineteenth century, the social and cultural changes of the early twentieth century, the Spanish Civil War, the rise of regional nationalisms, the dictatorship of Francisco Franco and the transition to democracy. We will utilize secondary readings and discussion along with a variety of primary source texts including literature and film. Knowledge of Spanish is not required. Two class meetings per week.

Second semester. Visiting Professor Bunk.

37. Material Culture of American Homes. (USP) (Also Fine Arts 33.) Using architecture, artifacts, visual evidence and documentary sources, the course examines social and cultural forces affecting the design and use of domestic architecture, home furnishings, and domestic technology in the eastern United States from 1600 to 1960. In addition to providing a survey of American domestic architecture, the course provides an introduction to the study of American material culture. Field trips to Historic Deerfield, Old Sturbridge Village, Hartford, Connecticut, and sites in Amherst form an integral part of the course. Two class meetings per week.

Limited to 25 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Sweeney.

38. The Era of the American Revolution. (USP) Surveying the period from 1760 to 1815, this course examines the origins, the development and the more immediate consequences of the American Revolution. The course looks at the founding of the American republic as an intellectual debate, a social movement, a military conflict, an economic event and a political revolution. Three class meetings per week.

Omitted 2007-08. Professor Sweeney.

39. Native American Histories. (USP) This course examines selectively the histories and contemporary cultures of particular groups of American Indians. It will focus on Algonquian- and Iroquoian-speaking native peoples of the east in the period from 1600 to 1800; Indians of the northern plains during the 1800s and 1900s; and the Pueblo and Navajo peoples from the time before their contacts with Europeans until the present day. Through a combination of readings, discussions, and lectures, the course will explore the insights into Native American cultures that can be gained from documents, oral traditions, artifacts, films and other sources. Two class meetings per week.

Omitted 2007-08. Professor Sweeney.

41. African-American History from the Slave Trade to Reconstruction. (US; or may be included in AF concentration, but not AF for distribution in the major) (Also Black Studies 57.) See Black Studies 57.

Combined enrollment limited to 50 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Moss.

42. African-American History from Reconstruction to the Present. (US; or may be included in AF concentration, but not AF for distribution in the major) (Also Black Studies 58.) See Black Studies 58.

Combined enrollment limited to 50 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Moss.

44. The Old South, 1607-1876. (USP) This course will examine southern culture, politics and economic life from its origins up to the Civil War. Primary and secondary readings will cover issues including Indian slavery and the roots of African slavery, the development of a distinctive Afro-American culture, the rise of a planter aristocracy based on staple crop cultivation, and the evolution of a westward expanding backcountry acquired from Native people. The course will focus on the growth and expression of southern ideas of freedom as they played out in the Revolution, Indian removal, and the sectional crisis. Two class meetings per week.

Omitted 2007-08. Professor Saxton.

45. Women’s History, America: 1607-1865. (USP) (Also Women's and Gender Studies 63.) This course looks at the experiences of Native American, European and African women from the colonial period through the Civil War. The course will explore economic change over time and its impact on women, family structure, and work. It will also consider varieties of Christianity, the First and Second Awakenings and their consequences for various groups of women. Through secondary and primary sources and discussions students will look at changing educational and cultural opportunities for some women, the forces creating antebellum reform movements, especially abolitionism and feminism, and women’s participation in the Civil War. Two class meetings per week.

Omitted 2007-08. Professor Saxton.

46. Women’s History, America: 1865 to Present. (US) (Also Women's and Gender Studies 64.) This course begins with an examination of the experience of women from different racial, ethnic and economic backgrounds during Reconstruction. It will look at changes in family life as a result of increasing industrialization and the westward movement of settler families, and will also look at the settlers' impact on Native American women and families. Topics will include the work and familial experiences of immigrant women (including Irish, Polish, and Italian), women’s reform movements (particularly suffrage, temperance, and anti-lynching), the expansion of educational opportunities, and the origins and programs of the Progressives. The course will examine the agitation for suffrage and the subsequent splits among feminists, women's experiences in the labor force, and participation in the world wars. Finally, we will look at the origins of the Second Wave and its struggles to transcend its white middle-class origins. Two class meetings per week.

Second semester. Professor Saxton.

47. Women and Politics in Twentieth-Century America. (US) (Also Women's and Gender Studies 67.) This course will ask how the entry of women and their concerns has altered politics over the past century. We will look at a number of political battles women have fought over the last one hundred years, beginning with suffrage, and including protective legislation and benefits for mothers and children. We will look at women's experiences in the Civil Rights and anti-war movements and the development of Second Wave Feminism as well as the many feminisms that emerged in its wake. Students will study the backgrounds of, and engage in debate about, a number of current battles including those over reproductive rights, pornography, and sexual harassment. We will make an effort to relate these controversies to earlier themes in twentieth-century women's politics. Two class meetings per week.

Limited to 25 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Saxton.

 

48. Historical Perspectives on Criminal Justice and the U.S. Economy. This course will look at the development of our penal system and place it in the context of the economic and political development of the U.S. We will begin with the introduction of the penitentiary in the antebellum period at a time of extraordinary economic expansion and optimism about social institutions. After the Civil War we will look at changing ideas of criminal control as rapid industrialization in the North and large waves of immigration produced labor unrest and unprecedented urban poverty. We also explore the convict-lease system in the post-emancipation "New South" after the abandonment of hopes for Reconstruction. We will look at Progressives' creation of the juvenile justice system at the turn of the century as well as ideas linking criminality with heredity. The course will conclude by examining the current boom in prison populations and place this growth in the context of our post-industrial economy and growing economic inequality. The course will be conducted inside a correctional facility and enroll an equal number of Amherst students and residents of the facility. Permission to enroll will be granted on the basis of a questionnaire and personal interview with the instructor. Amherst students studying the philosophical and material development of the penal system within the Northampton Jail in the company of incarcerated men will get the benefit of their fellow students’ personal experience of that system. The setting creates the unique pedagogical opportunity to bring together the two perspectives.

One class meeting per week.

Admission with consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. First semester. Professor Saxton.

49. American Diplomacy I. (US) (Also Political Science 36.) To better understand the present commanding position of the United States in world politics, this course will examine critical historical moments in its foreign policy. In general, we will explore the variety of ways in which historians and political scientists have sought to explain foreign policy up to America's initial rise to world power during the Spanish-American War and the First World War. If foreign policy is the face American society presents to the rest of the world, how has this been manifested historically? Has the manifestation of American foreign policy been continuous and consistent or has it been filled with contradictions and paradoxes? Can the current policy of unilateralist globalism be traced to the nineteenth century when American statesmen sought to safeguard their nation’s interests as they saw them by shunning great power entanglements and quarrels, and, at the same time, by constantly promoting territorial expansion, annexation, conquest and foreign markets? Or conversely, can the current unilateralist policy be more accurately traced to the eighteenth-century ideology of Providence and the nineteenth-century concept of Manifest Destiny, both of which saw America as the redeemer nation, part of a higher purpose, with a transcendent mission and status? Specifically, we will assess the combined significance of geography, social class, racism as well as religious and secular values on American diplomacy; investigate the major domestic political, social, economic and intellectual trends and impulses towards and against an imperial or imperialist foreign policy; analyze competing visions for conquests or interventions as advocated by various American elites; examine the methods used to extend the nation’s borders, foreign trade and international influence; and seek to understand the impact of key foreign policy moments on American society's institutions, culture and human rights record during this period. Among the topics to be considered are the Federalist-Anti-Federalist debates over the scope of constitutional constraints on foreign policy, the political and diplomatic crises of the 1790s, the diplomacy of Jefferson and Madison, the Monroe Doctrine, the Mexican War, the Civil War, late nineteenth-century American imperialism as well as the great power diplomacies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. One class meeting per week.

Omitted 2007-08. Professors Levin and Machala.

50. American Diplomacy II. (US) (Also Political Science 38.) Using the methods of diplomatic history and political science, this course will explore the evolution of American diplomacy from the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 to the Korean War. Our central concern will be to understand how and why the United States, having rejected Wilson's vision of American world leadership in and through the League of Nations, nonetheless emerged thirty years later as the leading global power. Among the topics we will examine are the rise in the 1920s and 1930s of an isolationist reaction to Wilsonian ideology and to America's role in the First World War; the development and eventual victory of a counter-isolationist movement by President Franklin Roosevelt in the face of the challenge posed by the rise of fascism and the expansion of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan; the reasons for American entry into World War II and the nature of the alliance of the United States with Great Britain and the Soviet Union formed to fight that war; the origins of the Cold War and the debates over America's emerging role as the leader of an anti-Soviet coalition in Europe; and the domestic controversy created by the expansion of the Cold War to Asia in the context of the victory of the Chinese Communist Revolution, the war of the Communist Vietminh against France in Indochina, and the coming of the Korean War. One class meeting per week.

Requisite: Some prior course work in American Diplomacy, or World Politics, or American Foreign Policy. Limited to 40 students. Not open to first-year students. Omitted 2007-08. Professors Levin and Machala.

51. American Diplomacy III. (Also Political Science 47.) Using the methods of diplomatic history and political science, this course will explore the evolution of American diplomacy from the end of the Korean War to the end of the Cold War. Our central concern will be to understand how and why the United States was able to emerge from decades of dangerous bipolar conflict into a position of unipolar predominance. Among the topics we will examine are the globalization of the Cold War under Eisenhower and Kennedy; the Cuban Missile Crisis; the escalation of the Vietnam War under Kennedy and Johnson and the domestic conflict over Vietnam; the efforts of Nixon and Kissinger to use detente with the Soviet Union, the opening to China, and step-by-step diplomacy in the Middle East to stabilize the Cold War and to achieve a peace in Vietnam consonant with American interests; the American defeat in South East Asia and its consequences under Ford and Kissinger; Carter's achievements in Panama and the Middle East, and the origins of the Carter Doctrine amidst the crises of 1979-1980; the revitalization of American diplomacy under Reagan and the domestic conflict over policy in Central America; and Reagan, Bush and Gorbachev and the ending of the Cold War on American terms. One class meeting per week.

Admission preference given to students who have taken American Diplomacy I or II, Colloquium 18 or 19, or Political Science 13, 20 or 35. Limited to 40 students. Not open to first-year students. First semester. Professors Levin and Machala.

53. Popular Revolution in Modern Mexico. (LA) Few countries are as well known, yet so poorly understood, as is Mexico among North Americans. Stereotypes of illegal immigration, violence, and drug smuggling often take the place of real understanding. As a result, few North Americans appreciate their neighbor's historical struggles to achieve political stability and economic prosperity. The goals of the course are two-fold: (1) to provide students with a general overview of the course of Mexican history, focusing not only on the dominant narrative, but also on the experience of subaltern groups (including women, indigenous peoples, peasants, and those from the periphery); and (2) to grapple with the question of what genuine social revolution looks like, how it unfolds, and to what degree it has been attained in Mexico. Discussions and secondary readings will be supplemented by original documents, testimonials, on-line materials, movies, images, music, and art. Two class meetings per week.

Second semester. Professor López.

54. Environmental History of Latin America. (LA) Environmental history has taken off in exciting new directions. Lamentations about the felling of the trees have given way to larger questions that connect environmental history with social, political, and economic issues. What unexpected links exist between environmental problems (such as environmental degradation, desertification, soil salination, species extinction, biotic invasions, deforestation, and animal grazing) and human problems (such as declining subsistence, income inequality, scientific racism, regional underdevelopment, incomplete capitalist transformation, social marginalization, and political violence)? Taking environmental history seriously forces us to revise our understanding of social changes, the rise and fall of civilizations, and contemporary problems of political instability. And putting current environmental debates into historical context enables us to ask: What models of environmental activism have worked in Latin America, and which have not? Why? Can history guide us in our current efforts to develop a sustainable approach to the environment that helps the land and its fauna but does so in a way that brings greater justice and self-determination to the people who live there, while at the same time balancing the interests of the state and of investors? Discussion and secondary readings will be supplemented by original documents, testimonials, on-line materials, movies, images, and art. Two meetings per week.

Second semester. Professor López.

55. Japan as Empire, 1895-1945. (AS) (Also Asian 45.) As Japan pursues a permanent seat on the UN Security Council today, its past as a multi-ethnic empire looms large in East Asia. Japan acquired its first colonial territory following the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, and until its defeat in 1945 the acquisition and administration of a colonial empire shaped Japanese life at all levels. Post-1945 history has tended to sequester the experience of empire as an aberration that belonged only to the domain of international relations. Challenging such a view, this course asks how imperialism was intimately related to Japan's modern politics, economic development, and cultural production. We will first consider the origin and acquisition of an empire, then examine how securing and administering that empire produced its own logic for expansion. Throughout, we will ask how a colonial-empire, with its complex identity politics, shaped the Japanese experience. Course materials will include literature and film, as well as scholarship and primary documents. Two class meetings per week.

First semester. Professor Maxey.

57. China in the World, 1895-1919. (AS) (Also Asian 49.) In 1895 the emergent Japanese empire imposed a humiliating defeat on the declining Qing empire in China, began the colonization of Korea and Taiwan, and set in motion the reformist and revolutionary trends that would shape the political culture of the Chinese nation in later times. In 1919, concessions by the Chinese warlord regime in Beijing to Japan at Versailles sparked the student movement that would further radicalize the political culture and ultimately divide the nation politically between Nationalist and Communist regimes. This course focuses on the intellectual, cultural, political, and economic issues of the era in between, when, despite the weakness of the state, the creative visions and efforts of all informed people were in line with those of progressives throughout the world. We will explore these visions and efforts, with special reference to national identities, civil society, and global integration, and we will consider their fate in wartime, Cold War, and post-Cold War Asia. Two class meetings per week.

First semester. Professor Dennerline

58. Religion and Society in Greater China. (AS) (Also Asian 50.) This course will focus on religious beliefs and practices in Chinese communities, past and present, in China and abroad. The goal is to develop comparative perspectives on the varieties of religious activity in Chinese societies by studying them in local and global contexts. Among the issues to be considered are the following: (1) Is there such a thing as "Chinese religion" as distinct from the specific rites and doctrines of Buddhism or Taoism? (2) What has been the role of states in shaping religion in China? What have been the roles of Confucianism, Nationalism, and Communism? (3) How are the activities of local cults related to particular social or political interests? (4) How are the beliefs and practices of household religion and ancestor worship compatible with or contradictory to those of Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam? (5) How do current religious developments in Chinese communities support or oppose what political analysts call "civil society"? Reading, discussion, and individual research projects. Two class meetings per week.

Second semester. Professor Dennerline.

59. Topics in Tokugawa Japan. (ASP) (Also Asian 51.) This course examines significant topics in Tokugawa Japan, a vibrant period of social, cultural, and economic change stretching from 1600 to 1868. We will study topics such as the rise of the Tokugawa shogunate, urban life and culture, economic development, and intellectual and religious conversations. As we examine the structure of Tokugawa society, its economic developments, and cultural productions such as puppet-theater and popular literature, we will challenge preconceptions about "traditional" Japan and emphasize the important currents of change, conflict, and crisis. In addition to reading primary texts in translation, we will also explore different modes of historical analysis: material/economic, intellectual/cultural, and political. Classes will entail lectures coupled with close readings and discussion. Short response papers and one longer paper (10-12 pages) on a topic chosen by the student are required. Two class meetings per week.

Omitted 2007-08. Professor Maxey.

60. Early Islam: Construction of an Historical Tradition. (MEP) (Also Asian 55.) This course examines in depth the formative period of Islam between c. 500-680. Using predominantly primary material, we will chart the emergence, success, and evolution of Islam, the Islamic community, and the Islamic polity. The focus of this course is on understanding the changing nature over time of peoples' understanding of and conception of what Islam was and what Islam implied socially, religiously, culturally and politically. We concentrate on exploring the growth of the historical tradition of Islam and its continued contestations amongst scholars today. This course will familiarize students with the events, persons, ideas, texts and historical debates concerning this period. It is not a course on the religion or beliefs of Islam, but a historical deconstruction and analysis of the period. Two class meetings per week.

Omitted 2007-08. Professor Ringer.

61. The History of Israel. (ME) This course will survey the history of Israel from the origins of Zionism in the late nineteenth century to the present. Two class meetings per week.

Second semester. Professor Levin.

62. Women in the Middle East. (ME) (Also Asian 63 and Women's and Gender Studies 62.) The course examines the major developments, themes and issues in women's history in the Middle East. The first segment of the course concerns the early Islamic period and discusses the impact of the Quran on the status of women, the development of Islamic religious traditions and Islamic law. Questions concerning the historiography of this "formative" period of Islamic history, as well as hermeneutics of the Quran will be the focus of this segment. The second segment of the course concerns the 19th- and 20th-century Middle East. We will investigate the emergence and development of the "woman question," the role of gender in the construction of Middle Eastern nationalisms, women's political participation, and the debates concerning the connections between women, gender, and religious and cultural traditions. The third segment of the course concerns the contemporary Middle East, and investigates new developments and emerging trends of women's political, social and religious activism in different countries. The course will provide a familiarity with the major primary texts concerning women and the study of women in the Middle East, as well as with the debates concerning the interpretation of texts, law, religion, and history in the shaping of women's status and concerns in the Middle East today. Two class meetings per week.

First semester. Professor Ringer.

63. State and Society in Africa Before the European Conquest. (AFP) (Also Black Studies 48.) Africa has been called by one historian the social laboratory of the human species; the continent has been the birthplace of some of the oldest known and most various civilizations on the earth. Art, trade, small-scale manufacturing, medical knowledge, religion, history and legend all flourished before the formal political takeover of the continent by Europeans in the late nineteenth century, and continue to have a decisive impact on African societies today. It is the variety of social organization in Africa in the period before 1885 that this course will examine. Initially, we will investigate the notion of "tribe" and its relationship to language and identity. We will look at some historical myths and their impact on researching and writing the history of precolonial Africa. The bulk of the course will focus on four broad topics to be discussed in depth: domestic slave systems and the slave trade in precolonial Africa; the interaction of religion and power on the development of the kingdom of Kongo and the Sahel states; the genesis of the Zulu state in southern Africa and its significance in the early 1800s; and the changing roles of women in various regions in the period before 1885. Two class meetings per week.

Omitted 2007-08. Professor Redding.

64. Introduction to South African History. (AFP) (Also Black Studies 49.) This course will explore major themes in the history of a historically troubled but intriguing country. It will begin by examining evidence regarding indigenous cultures, move on to study the initiation and expansion of white settlement and African resistance, the effects of gold-mining, the development of racially based conflict, and African nationalism and responses to apartheid. The course will end with discussions of recent events in South Africa, particularly the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its aftermath, as well as the AIDS epidemic. Roughly half the semester will be spent on the pre-industrial period (until 1869), and half on the period after the major mineral discoveries through to the present. Two class meetings per week.

Second semester. Professor Redding.

66. Disease and Doctors: An Introduction to the History of Western Medicine. (C) Disease has always been a part of human experience; doctoring is among our oldest professions. This course surveys the history of Western medicine from antiquity to the modern era. It does so by focusing on the relationship between medical theory and medical practice, giving special attention to Hippocratic medical learning and the methods by which Hippocratic practitioners built a clientele, medieval uses of ancient medical theories in the definition and treatment of disease, the genesis of novel chemical, anatomical, and physiological conceptions of disease in the early modern era, and the transformations of medical practice associated with the influence of clinical and experimental medicine in the nineteenth century. The course concludes by examining some contemporary medical dilemmas in the light of their historical antecedents. Two class meetings per week.

First semester. Professor Servos.

67. Turning Points in the History of Science. (EUP) An introduction to some major issues in the history of science from antiquity to the twentieth century. Topics will include the genesis and decay of a scientific tradition in Greco-Roman antiquity, the reconstitution of that tradition in medieval Europe, the revolution in scientific methods of the seventeenth century, and the emergence of science as a source of power, profit, and cultural authority during the past century. Two class meetings per week.

Omitted 2007-08. Professor Servos.

68. Science and Society in Modern America. (US) A survey of the social, political, and institutional development of science in America from the Civil War to the present. Emphasis will be on explaining how the United States moved from the periphery to the center of international scientific life. Topics will include the professionalization of science; roles of scientists in industry, education, and government; ideologies of basic research; and the response of American scientists to the two world wars, the Depression, and the Cold War. Two class meetings per week.

Second semester. Professor Servos.

69. Public History in the United States. (US) This course examines the many ways Americans encounter their pasts--in textbooks, films, monuments, museums, historic sites, and public policy. The versions of history presented in these public forums challenge and augment the interpretations of professional historians, and raise questions about who owns and interprets the past. Readings will include works on the overall problem of history’s relationship to "memory" and "heritage," as well as several case studies that look closely at the politics of public history. Examples might include the ongoing assertions of Confederate heritage, Native American claims to historical places and objects, the National Park Service’s interpretation of battlefields and parks, the Smithsonian's exhibition on the use of the atomic bomb, debates over reparations for historical injustice, and commemorations of 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing. Requirements include several short papers and an individual project that explores how a particular historical event might be visualized and presented to a broad public audience. Two class meetings per week.

Limited to 25 students. Second semester. Professor Sandweiss.

70. A World of Cities: Urban History in Global Perspective. (C) This course will offer students a global introduction to the development of cities around the world. Readings will include case studies of cities in North America, Europe, and Asia, as well as at least one field trip to a metropolis (New York) and one to a small regional city (Holyoke). The course will emphasize the movement of people, capital, and ideas among very different cities around the globe. In addition to city-specific readings, the course will explore different theoretical approaches to urban history and urban planning. It will focus on differences among cities, while also asking whether universal patterns are discernible in urban development across ages and cultures. Three class meetings per week

Limited to 50 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professors Couvares and Page (University of Massachusetts).

Seminars (Upper-Level Courses)

74. Topics in the History of Sex, Gender and the Family. (C) (Also Women and Gender Studies 20.) The topic changes from year to year. In spring 2008 this seminar will focus on sexuality and reproduction mostly in Europe and America from approximately 1700 to the present. We will read a few key theoretical texts (e.g. Jewish and Christian scripture, Thomas Malthus, some feminist sociobiologists) but most of the class will be divided as follows: First half: the experience of sex and reproduction in times past including childbirth in the pre-modern age; infanticide; the Demographic Revolution; and birth control and abortion from the eighteenth century to Roe v. Wade. Second half: modern debates about sexuality and the family including reproductive technologies; gay and "Third World" adoption; polygamy; and internet sex. One class meeting per week.

Limited to 20 students. Second semester. Professor Hunt.

75. Seminar on Modern European History. (EU) The topic changes each time the course is taught. In fall 2007 the general focus will be on European overseas expansion and empire between the Seven Years War (1756-1763) and the Great War (1914-1918). We will compare and contrast the historical experience of France and Great Britain. As Maya Jasanoff has noted: "To write the history of the British Empire without including France would be like writing about the United States during the cold war without mentioning the Soviet Union." Particular attention will be given to recent trends in scholarship, as well as to the current public debate over the heritage of European colonialism and imperialism. Two class meetings per week.

Not open to first-year students. Limited to 20 students. First semester. Professor Bezucha.

76. Topics in European History: The Politics of Memory in Twentieth-Century Europe. (EU) This course will explore the role of historical memory in the politics of twentieth-century Europe. It will examine how evolving memories of major historical events have been articulated and exploited in the political cultures of England, France, Germany, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union/Russia. Topics will include the politics of memory surrounding World Wars I and II, Vichy France, the Holocaust, Soviet Stalinism, and Eastern European communism. Seminar participants will also discuss general issues concerning collective memory: why societies remember and forget historical events, how collective memories resurface, the relationship between memory and authenticity, and the pitfalls of politicizing historical memory. Finally, seminar participants will analyze different sites of memory including film, ritual, monuments, legal proceedings, and state-sponsored cults. One class meeting per week.

Limited to 15 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Epstein.

80. Seminar in Russian History: The Russian Empire in the Nineteenth Century, 1801-1905. (EU) Nineteenth-century Russia was the largest state on earth and was inhabited by more than 100 different ethnic groups. It was a society of extreme contradictions--political, social, economic. Alternately, by means of reform and reaction, the state attempted to resolve these contradictions and failed. This not withstanding, Russia produced a world-class cultural legacy in the nineteenth century, leaving monuments in art, literature, music and architecture. The seminar will consider many facets of this nineteenth-century experience. Readings in primary and secondary sources, short stories, novels, films, music, slides, etc. Class reports and a research paper. One class meeting per week.

Not open to first-year students. Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Czap.

82. Topics in African-American History: Slavery and the American Imagination. (US; or may be included in AF concentration, but not AF for distribution in the major) (Also Black Studies 67.) This interdisciplinary seminar explores how Americans have imagined slavery over time. Drawing from works of history, fiction, and film, this course examines depictions of the "peculiar institution" to uncover connections between America's racial past and its racial present. Specific discussion topics include the origins of American slavery; the slave narrative; the emergence of radical abolitionism and pro-slavery ideology; the invention of the South; the politics of slavery in the Civil Rights era; the "discovery" of slave society; the "Roots" of black power; agency and resistance; slavery in contemporary fiction; and slavery and autobiography. Weekly readings will span a wide array of primary sources including poetry, short essays, novels, and slave narratives. There will also be occasional film screenings. Two class meetings per week.

Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Moss.

82. Topics in African-American History: Race and Educational Opportunity in America. (US; or may be included in AF concentration, but not AF for distribution in the major) (Also Black Studies 67.) This seminar is an interdisciplinary exploration of the relationship between race and educational opportunity in American history. Students will gain a historical understanding of the divergent educational experiences of various groups within American society. The course is divided into four units: ethnicity and educational access in early America, education and segregation in Jim Crow America, desegregation (implementation and opposition) after Brown v. Board of Education, and contemporary discussions over race and access to education. In the first section of the course, students will pay special attention to trends including northern and southern resistance to African American education, education as assimilation, and vocational vs. classical education. Next, they will delve into twentieth- and twenty-first-century issues involving race and education. For example, they will examine how specific communities - northern, southern, and western - grappled with the desegregation process. Finally, students will assess the extent to which desegregation has been achieved and the transformative effects of this policy on public schools. One class meeting per week.

Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Moss.

83. Making Places: Research Methods in American Cultures. (US) (Also American Studies 68 and English 95-05.) See American Studies 68.

Second semester. Professors Sandweiss and Sánchez-Eppler.

84. Seminar in U.S. Cultural History. (US) The topic changes from year to year. The topic for 2006-07 is "Culture Wars." The seminar will explore cultural conflicts in America from the early nineteenth century to the present. Topics may include conflicts over alcohol and drug use, over freedom of the press, over immigration, over the teaching of evolution, over prostitution, and over "decency" in movies and other forms of entertainment. Special attention will be paid to the class and ethnic roots of such conflicts. Students will be expected to write a research paper on a subject of their choice. One class meeting per week.

Admission with consent of the instructor. Preference given to History majors. Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Couvares.

85. Seminar in Western American History. (US) This seminar will focus on the West of the imagination, considering how historical texts, novels and visual images can function as primary source materials to understand some of the central issues of western American history. We will examine a broad range of pictorial materials - including maps, prints, paintings, photographs, and films - in order to understand how images have shaped American perceptions of the western landscape and the diverse peoples of the West. We will also consider how novels--including Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona and Owen Wister’s The Virginian--have molded popular understanding of the region's past. Particular attention will be given to the ways in which artists and writers have both expressed and influenced broader cultural ideas relating to exploration and settlement, relations between native and non-native peoples, and the legacy of the Spanish Southwest. Students will be expected to write a 20-page research paper on a topic of their choice. Two class meetings per week.

Limited to 15 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Sandweiss.

86. Visual Culture and American History. (US) This seminar explores the ways in which images - as both reportage and as propaganda - have been used throughout American history to reflect and shape popular ideas about current events. Attention will also be given to the ways in which historians have subsequently used these images to develop their own understandings of the past. This class will meet in Special Collections and Archives at Frost Library so that we can give sustained attention to original photographs, prints, political cartoons, periodicals, and illustrated books. We will consider the role of visual images at a number of key junctures in American history and explore a number of events and themes including the Mexican American War, the Civil War, attitudes towards Native Americans, immigration, the creation of the national parks, the Depression, and the environmental movement of the late twentieth century. All students will be required to write a documents-based research paper of at least 20 pages. Two class meetings per week.

Limited to 15 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Sandweiss.

87. Seminar on Race and Nation in the U.S.-Mexican Borderland. (LA or US) The U.S.-Mexican borderland has been the site of intense struggle and even violence over race and nation. These tensions have a long history within the region, and they have had important consequences both for the region, and for the rest of Mexico and the U.S. Most studies tend to focus on either the U.S. Southwest or northern Mexico, but in this course we will attempt to unite the study of these two regions and their people. Within this land short on ecological resources, whites, Native Americans, and mestizos (mixed bloods) competed violently over politics, economics, and culture. We will discuss the similarities and differences between U.S. and Mexican understanding of the boundaries and significance of race, particularly concerning Native Americans, and how this related to politics and economics. We also consider the emergence of the European-American as the ideal U.S. type north of the border, and the mestizo as the ideal Mexican type south of the border, and how these developments impacted indigenous politics differently within the two countries. Central themes include race, gender, violence, state and nation formation, industrialization, colonialism and imperialist expansion, popular politics, and environmental change. In addition to secondary readings, the class incorporates original documents, music, and images. Two meetings per week.

Requisite: One course in either U.S. or Latin American history. Not open to first-year students. Limited to 15 students. First semester. Professor López.

88. Latin America and the Caribbean in the Age of Revolution. (LA) (Also Black Studies 41.) This seminar examines in historical perspective the complicated transition of several Latin American countries from colony to independent nation-states during the Age of Revolution. It focuses particularly on the role of the Caribbean working people in the making of modern nation-states in Brazil, Mexico, Haiti, Cuba, and the Andean region (Peru, Colombia, Bolivia and Ecuador). How did the subaltern classes view the colonial order? What are the causes of popular protest? Is there such a thing as popular nationalism? What is the meaning of postcolonialism in Latin America? Overall, the seminar's objectives are threefold: to make students more familiar with the historical development of Latin America and the Caribbean during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; to introduce the themes and issues in the current historiography of anti-colonialism and postcolonialism; and finally, to guide students to write their own research papers. In the first two weeks, readings will include theoretical texts on nationalism, state formation, and popular discontent. In the remaining weeks, we will read historical studies, documents and literary texts, which discuss various aspects of popular political activism from 1789 to 1850. One class meeting per week.

Limited to 15 students. First semester. Professor Castro Alves.

90. The History and Memory of the Asia-Pacific War. (AS) (Also Asian 62.) The varied names given to the fifteen years of war conducted by Japan--the Pacific War, the Great East Asian War, the Fifteen-Year War, World War II, and the Asian-Pacific War--suggest a number of conflicting perspectives arise from that war. How has the experience of a fifteen-year war during the 1930s and 1940s shaped memory and history in Japan, East Asia, and the United States? This seminar begins with this broad question and pursues related questions: How are the memory and history of war intertwined in both national and international politics? What forms of memory have been included and excluded from dominant historical narratives and commemorative devices? How does critical historiography intersect with the politics and passions of memory? We will use oral histories, primary documents, film, and scholarship to guide our thoughts and discussions. We will begin with a history of Japan's Fifteen-Year War and move on to prominent debates concerning the history and memory of that war. A reading response journal, short response papers, and a research paper will be required. Students will also serve as discussion initiators. One class meeting per week.

Not open to first-year students. Limited to 15 students. Second semester. Professor Maxey.

 

92. Topics in African History: Riot and Rebellion in Colonial and Post-Colonial Africa. (AF) (Also Black Studies 50.) This seminar will examine the development of several outbreaks of violence in Africa in the colonial and post-colonial periods. We will look at the economic, social, religious, and political roots of these disturbances, and we will discuss the problems historians face in trying to narrate and analyze these often chaotic events. The events studied will include the Bambatha or Zulu revolt in South Africa in 1907-08; the Maji Maji rebellion in German-controlled Tanganyika; Hutu extremism and the 1994 genocide in Rwanda; the widespread revolt in the 1980s and 1990s in South Africa, and the rebel movement led by Alice Lakwena in northern Uganda beginning in the late 1980s. We will also discuss the legends that often develop in the aftermath of violence in the creation of historical narratives. One class meeting per week.

Limited to 20 students. Admission with consent of the instructor. First semester. Professor Redding.

93. Seminar on Middle Eastern History: Modern Turkey--Modern Iran: From Authoritarian Modernization to Islamic Resistance. (ME) (Also Asian 64.) In the early twentieth century Turkey and Iran seemed to be on similar trajectories towards modernization. Turkey and Iran today, however, evidence very different societies, political systems, and relationships to religion and the West. This course will examine the programs of the authoritarian modernizers of the twentieth century in historical context and seek to illuminate the basis of their very different political, cultural and social legacies. Why does Turkey follow a secularism that is intolerant of sartorial freedoms and cultural and religious minorities? Why, in such a secular state, is Turkey experiencing a rise of Islamist movements? Conversely, why does Iran follow an Islamic government that is likewise intolerant of sartorial freedoms and religious minorities? Both claim to be democratic--how and why are these claims validated? What are the roots of their visions of the modern world and where are these societies headed? One class meeting per week.

Not open to first-year students. Limited to 20 students. Preference given to students who have taken at least one course regarding the Middle East. Second semester. Professor Ringer.

94. Seminar on the "Wonder Drugs" and Modern Medicine. (US) Physicians often say that medicine became truly effective only in the mid-twentieth century, when an avalanche of new remedies became available, first in Europe and North America but quickly around the world. Collectively dubbed "the wonder drugs," these products included sulfa drugs and antibiotics for bacterial infections, cortico-steroids for arthritis and other inflammatory diseases, tranquilizers for mental illness, and diuretics for hypertension. The new medicines offered millions of patients relief from dread diseases and physicians long-awaited validation of the effectiveness of scientific medicine. For a generation that came of age in the 1940s and 1950s, they supplied powerful testimony to the creative and beneficent powers of science. The "wonder drugs" also gave pharmaceutical firms lucrative new products and governments complex new regulatory challenges. Many of our current debates over drug development, testing, marketing, and pricing commenced in the 1950s, as newly introduced drugs helped reshape the structure of the health care industry. This seminar will treat the history of the "wonder drugs"--their origins in biomedical research, their production and distribution (both in the United States and world-wide), and some of the medical and political issues that are associated with their use, distribution, and safety. All participants in the seminar will be required to write a research paper involving the use of primary sources. One class meeting per week.

Not open to first-year students. Admission with consent of the instructor. Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Servos.

99. Proseminar in History: Writing the Past. This course offers an opportunity for history majors to reflect upon the practice of history. How do we claim to know anything about the past at all? How do historians construct the stories they tell about the past from the fragmentary remnants of former times? What is the connection of historians' work to public memory? How do we judge the truth and value of these stories and memories? The course explores questions such as these through readings and case studies drawn from a variety of places and times. Two class meetings a week.

Not open to first-year students. Required of all history majors. First semester: Professor Czap. Second semester: Professor Servos.

77, 77D, 78, 78D. Senior Departmental Honors. Culminating in one or more pieces of historical writing which may be submitted to the Department for a degree with Honors. Normally to be taken as a single course but, with permission of the Department, as a double course as well.

Open to juniors and seniors. First and second semesters. The Department.

97, 97H, 98, 98H. Special Topics. Independent Reading. Full or half course.

First and second semesters.

Related Courses

Post-Cold War American Diplomatic History. (US) See Colloquium 18.

Second semester. Professors Levin and Machala.

American Diplomacy in the Middle East. (US or ME) See Colloquium 19.

Omitted 2007-08. Professors Levin and Machala.

The American Dream. (US) See American Studies 11.

First semester. Professors Clark and Sandweiss.

Religion, Democracy and American Culture. See American Studies 12.

Limited to 20 students per section. Second semester. Professors Couvares and Sánchez-Eppler.

The Athenian Empire. (EUP) See Classics 31.

Second semester. Professors R. Sinos and Debnar (Mount Holyoke College).

Economic History of the United States, 1600-1860. (USP) See Economics 28.

Requisite: Economics 11. First semester. Professor Barbezat.

Economic History of the United States, 1865-1965. (US) See Economics 29.

Second semester. Professor Barbezat.

Law and Historical Trauma. (C) See Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought 38.

Omitted 2007-08. Professor Hussain.

Cuba: The Politics of Extremism. (LA) See Political Science 48.

Second semester. Professor Corrales.

Religion in the United States. (US) See Religion 19.

Omitted 2007-08. Professor Wills.

History of Christianity - The Early Years. (EUP) See Religion 45.

Second semester. Professor Doran.

Religion in the Atlantic World: 1441-1808. (C) See Religion 58 (also Black Studies 28).

Second semester. Professor Wills.

Tags:  history  courses