History

This course surveys world history from 1500, a period marked by intellectual renewal, religious conflict, and colonization, to the Arab Spring.  Watching the news today we hear frequent references to “globalization” and a “clash of civilizations” between the “West and the rest.”  Following the advent of the global “War on Terror,” and the collapse of pre-9/11 political certainties, many Americans wonder how to make sense of the world again.  How did we arrive as this moment in history?  This course will chart the growth of what is today called globalization, the emergence of modernity, and the recent development of late modernity or post-modernity.  We will also explore how peoples at different points in time responded to a constantly changing and uncertain world, especially following the French and Industrial Revolutions of the nineteenth century and the advent of global total warfare in the twentieth century.

This course surveys Chinese history from the first civilizations near the Yangzi and Yellow (Huang He) River valleys to the 21^st-century People's Republic of China under the 5^th generation leadership of general secretary / president Xi Jinping.  Chinese history is incredibly rich and varied; since we cannot possibly cover it all in only one semester, we will be focusing on specific themes.  In particular, we will examine the rise and fall of the imperial state as based on a political alliance between Confucian scholar-officials and the emperor, the development of Chinese philosophy and religious ideas, China's interaction with the rest of the world, and the invention of a communist people's republic in 1949.  Today, China is one of the world's great superpowers.  It has the largest population in the world (1.3 billion people) and the world's largest army.  In fact, one in every five humans is Chinese!  China also has one of the world's largest economies (2^nd or 3^rd depending on what measurement is used) and is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.  China is also the single largest holder of U.S. foreign debt!  Given China's obvious important to contemporary economics and politics, it is vitally important for us to gain a clear understanding of Chinese history and culture.