History (B.A.)

First-Year Seminars

* HIST 006b / HSHM 005b, Medicine and Society in American History  Rebecca Tannenbaum

Disease and healing in American history from colonial times to the present. The changing role of the physician, alternative healers and therapies, and the social impact of epidemics from smallpox to AIDS. Enrollment limited to freshmen. Preregistration required; see under Freshman Seminar Program.  WR, HU
TTh 1pm-2:15pm

* HIST 012b / AMST 012b, Politics and Society in the United States after World War II  Jennifer Klein

Introduction to American political and social issues from the 1940s to the present, including political economy, civil rights, class politics, and gender roles. Legacies of the New Deal as they played out after World War II; the origins, agenda, and ramifications of the Cold War; postwar suburbanization and its racial dimensions; migration and immigration; cultural changes; social movements of the Right and Left; Reaganism and its legacies; the United States and the global economy. Enrollment limited to freshmen. Preregistration required; see under Freshman Seminar Program.  HU
MW 1pm-2:15pm

* HIST 017a, American Indians in Higher Education: Introduction to the Indigenous History of American Education  Ned Blackhawk

Education remains an essential element in Native American history, a complex arena full of conflict, resistance, adaptation, and social change. Charting the centuries-long relationships between Native Americans and Euro-American institutions of higher education, this seminar seeks to expose students to the educational history of Native North America. Through in-class assignments, discussion, and sets of experiential campus and off-campus tours, this class both introduces the educational history of Native North America and links it with the broader political history of federal Indian law and policy. Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.  WR, HU
TTh 9am-10:15am

* HIST 020b / ARCG 031b / CLCV 059b / EVST 030b / NELC 026b, Rivers and Civilization  Harvey Weiss

The appearance of the earliest cities along the Nile and Euphrates in the fourth millennium B.C. Settlements along the rivers, the origins of agriculture, the production and extraction of agricultural surpluses, and the generation of class structures and political hierarchies. How and why these processes occurred along the banks of these rivers; consequent societal collapses and their relation to abrupt climate changes. Enrollment limited to freshmen. Preregistration required; see under Freshman Seminar Program.  HU, SO
TTh 9am-10:15am

* HIST 022a, What History Teaches  John Gaddis

An introduction to the discipline of history. History viewed as an art, a science, and something in between; differences between fact, interpretation, and consensus; history as a predictor of future events. Focus on issues such as the interdependence of variables, causation and verification, the role of individuals, and to what extent historical inquiry can or should be a moral enterprise. Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.  WR, HU
MW 1pm-2:15pm

* HIST 033a / WGSS 033a, Fashion in London and Paris, 1750 to the Present  Becky Conekin

Introduction to the history of Western fashion from the mid-eighteenth century to the present, with a focus on Paris and London. Approaches, methods, and theories scholars have historically employed to study fashion and dress. Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.  WR, HU
TTh 1pm-2:15pm

* HIST 034b, Cuba from Slavery to Revolution  Anne Eller

Cuba’s rich history from the early colonial period to the present. Topics include colonialism, slavery, independence, emancipation, the Cuban Revolution, and the nation's relationship with the United States. Enrollment limited to freshmen. Preregistration required; see under Freshman Seminar Program.  WR, HU
TTh 9am-10:15am

* HIST 037a / CLCV 034a / HSHM 002a, Medicine and Disease in the Ancient World  Jessica Lamont

Examination of ancient medicine considering modern fields of pathology, surgery, pharmacology, therapy, obstetrics, psychology, anatomy, medical science, ethics, and education, to gain a better understanding of the foundations of Western medicine and an appreciation for how medical terms, theories, and practices take on different meanings with changes in science and society. All readings in English. Enrollment limited to freshmen. Preregistration required; see under Freshman Seminar Program.  HU
MW 9am-10:15am

* HIST 055b, A History of Modern London  Becky Conekin

Chronological and thematic exploration of modern London as a metropolitan and imperial center from the late-nineteenth-century to the present day. Topics include race, gay rights, women's rights, consumer culture, the experience of war, and the development of a multi-racial society. The fashion, food, and popular music of London emerge as important components of the city's global identity in the twentieth century. Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.  WR, HU
TTh 1pm-2:15pm

* HIST 072a, The History of World History  Valerie Hansen

How the great historians of ancient Greece, Rome, China, the Islamic world, and nineteenth-century Europe created modern historical method. How to evaluate the reliability of sources, both primary and secondary, and assess the relationship between fact and interpretation. Using historical method to make sense of our world today. Strategies for improving reading, writing, and public speaking skills. Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.  WR, HU
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm

* HIST 078b, Truth and Post-Truth  Marci Shore

This European intellectual history seminar explores the epistemological question in philosophy: does the world really exist? How do I know it's really there and not just a projection of my consciousness? is there such a thing as truth? We begin with European philosophy, moving through Descartes, Kant and Husserl and through the role of ideology and lies in 20th century totalitarianism, then to dissident thought in Eastern Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, and finally to the emergence of "post-truth" in the 20th century and its implications in both philosophy and life. Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.  HU
TTh 9am-10:15am

HIST 101a, The World Circa 1000  Valerie Hansen and Anders Winroth

A study of the world's major societies and the encounters among them circa 1000, when globalization began. Attention to China, India, Europe, the Vikings, Africa, the Islamic world, Amerindians including the Maya. Analysis of written and archaeological sources.  HU
TTh 1:30pm-2:20pm

HIST 115a / AMST 188a, The Colonial Period of American History  Staff

This course explores the history of North America from the period of European colonization through the era of the Seven Years’ War, from roughly 1492 to 1763. Emphasis is placed on the migration of people from Europe and Africa to North America; their contact and interaction with Native Americans; the formation of new societies and economies; and the corresponding development of new political and social ideas in America, with special attention paid to the evolving relationship between slavery and freedom. Although the course addresses the major themes and issues of early American history, the lectures and readings frequently focus on the lives of individuals, both prominent and obscure, who shaped and were shaped by larger forces and developments.  HU
TTh 1:30pm-2:20pm

HIST 119b / AFAM 172b, The Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1845–1877  David Blight

The causes, course, and consequences of the American Civil War. A search for the multiple meanings of a transformative event, including national, sectional, racial, constitutional, social, gender, intellectual, and individual dimensions.  HU
TTh 10:30am-11:20am

HIST 122a / DEVN 198a / EP&E 329a / GLBL 444a / PLSC 405a, Power and Politics in Today’s World  Ian Shapiro

A comparative study of power and politics since the Cold War. Topics include the decline of trade unions and increased influence of business; growing inequality and insecurity; changing attitudes towards democracy and authoritarianism; and the character and durability of the new international order. We start with the impact of the USSR’s collapse, both in former communist countries and the West, focusing on reordered relations among business, labor, and governments. Next we take up the Washington Consensus on free trade, privatization, and deregulation, and agendas to fight terrorism, prevent human rights abuses, and spread democracy. Then we turn to the backlash that followed the financial crisis, as technocratic elites lost legitimacy, the global war on terror became mired in quagmires, and humanitarian intervention and democracy-spreading agendas floundered. The new politics of insecurity is our next focus. We examine the populist explosions of 2016 and the politics to which they have given rise. This leads to a consideration of responses, where we discuss the policies most needed when congenital employment insecurity is going to be the norm, and the political reforms that would increase the chances of those policies being adopted. Introductory courses in twentieth-century European, American or global history, comparative politics, or political economy are helpful but are not required.  HU, SO
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm

HIST 135b / ECON 182b, American Economic History  Naomi Lamoreaux

The growth of the American economy since 1790, both as a unique historical record and as an illustration of factors in the process of economic development. The American experience viewed in the context of its European background and patterns of industrialization overseas. After introductory microeconomics.  WR, SO
MW 2:30pm-3:45pm

HIST 141a / AMST 141a, The American West  Travis Ross

The history of the American West as both frontier and region, real and imagined, from the first contacts between Indians and Europeans in the fifteenth century to the multicultural encounters of the contemporary Sunbelt. Students work with historical texts and images from Yale's Western Americana Collection.  HU
TTh 11:35am-12:25pm

HIST 140a / HSHM 215a, Public Health in America, 1793 to the Present  Naomi Rogers

A survey of public health in America from the yellow fever epidemic of 1793 to AIDS and breast cancer activism at the end of the past century. Focusing on medicine and the state, topics include quarantines, failures and successes of medical and social welfare, the experiences of healers and patients, and organized medicine and its critics.  HU
TTh 10:30am-11:20am

HIST 184a / AFAM 160a / AFST 184a / AMST 160a, The Rise and Fall of Atlantic Slavery  Edward Rugemer

The history of peoples of African descent throughout the Americas, from the first African American societies of the sixteenth century through the century-long process of emancipation.  HU
TTh 1:30pm-2:20pm

HIST 187b / AFAM 162b / AMST 162b, African American History from Emancipation to the Present  Staff

An examination of the African American experience since 1861. Meanings of freedom and citizenship are distilled through appraisal of race and class formations, the processes and effects of cultural consumption, and the grand narrative of the civil rights movement.  WR, HU
HTBA

HIST 199a / AMST 236a / EVST 318a / HSHM 207a, American Energy History  Paul Sabin

The history of energy in the United States from early hydropower and coal to present-day hydraulic fracturing, deepwater oil, wind, and solar. Topics include energy transitions and technological change; energy and democracy; environmental justice and public health; corporate power and monopoly control; electricity and popular culture; labor struggles; the global quest for oil; changing national energy policies; the climate crisis.  HU
TTh 11:35am-12:25pm

HIST 202a, European Civilization, 1648–1945  John Merriman

An overview of the economic, social, political, and intellectual history of modern Europe. Topics include the rise of absolute states, the scientific revolution, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution and Napoleon, the industrial revolution, the revolutions of 1848, nationalism and national unifications, Victorian Britain, the colonization of Africa and Asia, fin-de-siècle culture and society, the Great War, the Russian Revolution, the Europe of political extremes, and World War II.  HU
MW 1:30pm-2:20pm

HIST 205b / CLCV 205b / HUMS 143b, Introduction to Ancient Greek History  Jessica Lamont

Introduction to Greek history, tracing the development of Greek civilization as manifested in the political, military, intellectual, and creative achievements from the Bronze Age through the end of the Classical period. Students read original sources in translation as well as secondary scholarship to better understand the rise and fall of the ancient Greeks—the civilization at the very heart of Western Civilization.  HU
TTh 9am-10:15am

HIST 211b, The Birth of Europe, 1000-1500  Paul Freedman

Europe during the central and late Middle Ages, from the feudal revolution to the age of discoveries. Europe as it came to be defined in terms of national states and international empires. The rise and decline of papal power, church reform movements, the Crusades, contacts with Asia, the commercial revolution, and the culture of chivalry.  HU
TTh 2:30pm-3:20pm

HIST 217a / CLCV 206a / HUMS 144a, The Roman Republic  Andrew Johnston

The origins, development, and expansion of Rome from the earliest times to the deaths of Caesar and Cicero. Cultural identity and interaction; slavery, class, and the family; politics, rhetoric, and propaganda; religion; imperialism; monumentality and memory; and the perception and writing of history. Application of literary and archaeological evidence.  HU
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm

HIST 218b / CLCV 207b, The Roman Empire  Andrew Johnston

The history of the Roman Empire from its establishment by Augustus to the reign of Justinian. Attention to social, intellectual, and religious changes, as well as to the framework of historical events within which these changes took place, and to the processes by which the Roman Empire was replaced by the institutions of the Western Middle Ages and the Byzantine Empire.  HU
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm

HIST 225b / CLCV 236b, Roman Law  Noel Lenski

Basic principles of Roman law and their applications to the social and economic history of antiquity and to the broader history of international law. Topics include the history of persons and things, inheritance, crime and tort, and legal procedure. Questions of social and economic history and the history of jurisprudence from the fifth century B.C.E. to the present.  HU
MW 9am-10:15am

* HIST 227a / SPAN 367a, The Spanish Civil War: Words and Images  Noël Valis

An introduction to the history and cultural-literary impact of the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) from national and international perspectives. Views both from within and from outside the war; women and the war; memory and the war. Authors include George Orwell, Ernest Hemingway, Javier Cercas, Alberto Méndez, Mercè Rodoreda, Ramón J. Sender, W. H. Auden, and Stephen Spender. Open to students who have placed into L5 courses or who have successfully completed an L4 course in Spanish. Counts toward the Spanish major.  L5, HU
MW 11:35am-12:50pm

HIST 228b, Vikings  Anders Winroth

Introduction to the history, literature, and culture of Scandinavia between 700 and 1250. Viking raids, skaldic and eddic poetry, Icelandic sagas, and northern myths; rune-stones, ships, halls, and swords in literature and history; Viking women, northern trade, colonization, Christianization, and Viking landings in America.  HU
MW 2:30pm-3:20pm

HIST 229a, From Oligarchy to Democracy in Britain, 1780-1914  Stuart Semmel

British politics, society, and culture in the long nineteenth century, a period of constitutional reform, industrial development, social dislocation, imperial expansion, and cultural criticism.  HU
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm

* HIST 230b, Twentieth-Century Jewish Political History: Holocaust, Israel, American Jewry  David Sorkin

ter midterm in the fall for seminars offered in the spring term, and after spring recess for seminars offered in the subsequent fall term. All students who wish to preregister must declare their major beforehand.

During the course selection period, application for admission should be made directly to the instructors of the seminars, who will admit students to remaining vacancies in...