This course examines a crucial period of European history in which the emergence of the modern state, the birth of capitalism, and the expansion of European influence into the American and Asian hemispheres laid the foundations of the modern world. While the course concentrates primarily on political changes in Europe between the Thirty Years’ War and the French Revolution, considerable attention...

This course will analyze major themes and events shaping Russian history in the 20th century -- decline of the Russian empire, the October revolution, the Civil War, the rise of the Soviet Union and World War II, the Khrushchev era and the collapse of the Soviet state in 1991. The course will explore the role of individuals, institutions and trends behind radical transformation of Russian/Soviet s...

China and the United States are two very important nations in the world today. Their interactions and relations have had deep impact on both Chinese and American lives and the rest of the world. This course will explore Sino-American relations in the last several hundred years with special focus on their shared values and experiences and emphasize both diplomatic and people-people relations from c...

This course examines Qing China’s frontier and foreign relations from the beginning to the end of the dynasty, addressing specific administrative policies, their ideological and ritual background, and their wider political, military, and economic context. Particular attention is paid to local variations on individual Qing frontiers in response to differences in economic and trade conditions, terra...

This course discusses two concepts – love and loyalty – in Chinese history through the perspective of women’s history and gender studies. The purpose of this course is to provide students with a base of knowledge regarding the changing historical experiences and contexts of women and gender in Chinese history from ancient times to the present.

This course will examine the development of American capitalism, with a particular focus on the period from American independence in the 1780s until the First World War. In this period, the United States grew from an Atlantic outpost to a major figure in a globalizing economy. This period saw the rise of wage labor, the development of a market society, the emergence of corporations, the constructi...

This course examines the history of race and race-making in a global context. We begin by framing theories of race, examining race as a social construct and understanding how race intersects with other structures of social difference such as gender and class. We then examine histories of race-making at several sites: race and the body (scientific racism, reproduction, and slavery), race and “civil...

This course provides an introduction to the history of the premodern Middle East and Islamic civilization. Rather than putting religion at the center, however, we will examine evidence for a variety of interacting forces that played a role in long-term historical change, including the region's physical environment, human ecology, politics, economics, technology, and social and cultural practi...

In this course, we will follow the development and transformation of the Chinese economy from the early nineteenth century to the present day. We will first explore the basic characteristics of the premodern Chinese economy before moving on the question of the "Great Divergence" and the reasons why China fell behind the West in terms of economic development. We will then discuss the economic depre...

The introduction of the ‘rule of law’ provided perhaps the most widely referenced justification for the forcible imposition of imperial power around the globe in early modern and modern history. However, discourse around British justice cannot be simply understood as an alibi propagated to consolidate imperial legitimacy. Legal structures provided a ruling frame to organize, discipline and police...