Deals with the opening of the trans-Mississippi frontier. Topics emphasized include land policy, railroads, Indian wars and water policy. Tracks the development of distinctive regional subcultures within the American experience and focuses on unique regional contributions to the nation. An analysis of contemporary Asian problems which considers their cultural and institutional origins, their 19th-century development under the impact of Western influence and their culmination in contemporary Asian nationalism. A long-range historical approach to the Middle East's role in world affairs and the development of its cultural, political and military institutions.
Emphasis is placed on strategic and diplomatic considerations.
Pre-Columbian empires like the Olmec, Maya, Aztec, and Inca are studied through examinations of their cosmologies, styles of warfare, expansion, imperial consolidation, and collapse. Spanish and Portugese conquests in America will also be studied by focusing on military campaigns, imperial policies, race, ethnicity, slavery, and church-state relations through the Independence Era. A survey of social, cultural and political developments on the African continent from the era before European colonization to the present. The evolution of Latin American societies from independence to the present will be studied. Analyses of social and political issues like slavery, race, immigration, popular religion, militarism, dictatorship, and revolution will be the focus of the course.