A survey of social, cultural and political developments on the African continent from the era before European colonization to the present. 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 variety of specialized themes or eras in Non-Western history which are too unique or unusual to be integrated into the regular curriculum are selected for detailed analysis. A variety of historical themes dealing with long term developmental processes will be submitted to detailed analyses.
Subjects vary from semester to semester and are often team-taught.
Examples of the kinds of themes to be studied are the process of modernization, the development of national identitities, capitalism, and the sense of self. A survey of the history of scientific discoveries and their practical applications, from the early natural philosophers to the present, with emphasis on the scientific revolution of the 17th century, the Industrial Revolution and the information explosion of the 20th century. Examines the development of tactics, strategy and military organizations from the Greek hoplite armies through the advent of gunpowder in the West. Placesthese developments in their social and economic context. Examines the theory, practice, and nature of warfare on land and sea, both in Europe and European colonies, from about 1500 through the Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon.