Its primary focus is on the inter-war movements and regimes. Treats select themes and developments in American law from the colonial period to the present. The seminar emphasizes c urrent scholarship and relevant historical documents. Class discussion, several short papers and a take home final examination. In at least one topic area there will be substantial attention to primary sources.
Assignments emphasize careful reading and analysis, and short written exercises.
This course will examine the interaction between the rapid social and economic changes of this period with politics and culture. There will be extensive reading in the historiographical literature and a thematic approach to issues such as Republican ideology, the market revolution, early indus trialization, religious reform and social movements. Students will also be required to do limited research projects, make presentations in class, submit several short papers and a longer term paper. An examination of the philosophies of history with special emphasis on theories of progress, crisis and decline. Among the historians and theorists of history who will be read are Thucydides, Gibbon, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche and Freud.