Major developments in the political, social, and religious history of Western Europe from the accession of Diocletian to the feudal transformation. Topics include the conversion of Europe to Christianity, the fall of the Roman Empire, the rise of Islam and the Arabs, the "Dark Ages," Charlemagne and the Carolingian renaissance, and the Viking and Hungarian invasions.

This course examines European music from the early Middle Ages until the end of the Renaissance. It includes a chronological survey and intensive study of three topics: chant and its development, music in Italy 1340-1420, and music in Elizabethan England. Instruction focuses on methods and pitfalls in studying music of the distant past. Students' papers, problem sets, and presentations explore lives, genres, and works in depth. Works are studied in facsimile of original notation, and from original manuscripts at MIT, where possible.

Word Count: 190685

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

This subject examines the interactions of East Asia with the rest of the world and the relationships of each of the East Asian countries with each other, from ca. 1500 to 2000 A.D. Primary focus on China and Japan, with some reference to Korea, Vietnam, and Central Asia. Asks how international diplomatic, commercial, military, religious, and cultural relationships joined with internal processes to direct the development of East Asian societies. Subject addresses perceptions and misperceptions among East Asians and foreigners.

When John Locke declared (in the 1690 Essay Concerning Human Understanding) that knowledge was derived solely from experience, he raised the possibility that human understanding and identity were not the products of God's will or of immutable laws of nature so much as of one's personal history and background. If on the one hand Locke's theory led some to pronounce that individuals could determine the course of their own lives, however, the idea that we are the products of our experience just as readily supported the conviction that we are nothing more than machines acting out lives whose destinies we do not control. This course will track the formulation of that problem, and a variety of responses to it, in the literature of the "long eighteenth century." Readings will range widely across genre, from lyric poetry and the novel to diary entries, philosophical prose, and political essays, including texts by Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Mary Astell, David Hume, Laurence Sterne, Olaudah Equiano, Mary Hays, and Mary Shelley. Topics to be discussed include the construction of gender identities; the individual in society; imagination and the poet's work. There will be two essays, one 5-6 pages and one 8-10 pages in length, and required presentations.

This course surveys the social, cultural, and political development of western Europe between 500 and 1350. A number of topics are incorporated into the broad chronological sweep of the course, including: the Germanic conquest of the ancient Mediterranean world; the rise of a distinct northern culture and the Carolingian Renaissance; the emergence of feudalism and the breakdown of political order; contact with the Byzantine and Islamic East and the Crusading movement; the quality of religious life; the vitality of the high medieval economy and culture; and the catastrophes of the fourteenth century.

This course is an investigation of the Roman empire of Augustus, the Frankish empire of Charlemagne, and the English empire in the age of the Hundred Years War. Students examine different types of evidence, read across a variety of disciplines, and develop skills to identify continuities and changes in ancient and medieval societies. Each term this course is different, looking at different materials from a variety of domains to explore ancient and mideveal studies. This version is a capture of the course as it was taught in 2012, and does not reflect how it is taught currently.

The purpose of this course is to familiarize undergraduate students with environmental history as a discipline, as well as introduce them to the Atlantic World as a region of study by focusing on the late fifteenth through mid-nineteenth centuries. This course does not assume previous experience with history courses and is intended to be a broad survey that encompasses several global regions. The course is arranged both thematically and geographically and emphasizes environmental change in the context of the eastern and southern coasts of the United States, the Caribbean, central and southeastern Mexico, Brazil, West Africa, and the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of Europe throughout the early modern period. 

This video offers a summary and analysis of the main themes in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The world’s first recorded epic poem, from Mesopotamia, explores important questions: can humans defy aging and conquer death?

This project discovers the history of Modern Europe, starting at the Hundred Years War and ending at the present time.
A chronological perspective of history is attempted within this text. Although this is the case, it is also important to understand patterns within European History, therefore chapters will attempt to cover a breadth of material even though their titles might be that of a specific pattern in history rather than a time period.

From pineapples grown in Hawaii to English-speaking call centers outsourced to India, the legacy of the "Age of Imperialism" appears everywhere in our modern world. This class explores the history of European imperialism in its political, economic, and cultural dimensions from the 1840s through the 1960s.

This subject surveys main currents of European cultural and intellectual history in the modern period. Such a foundation course is central to the humanities in Europe. The curriculum introduces a set of ideas and arguments that have played a formative role in European cultural history, and acquaints them with some exemplars of critical thought. Among the topics to be considered: the critique of religion, the promise of independence, the advance of capitalism, the temptations of Marxism, the origins of totalitarianism, and the dialects of enlightenment. In addition to texts, we will also discuss pieces of art, incl. paintings and film.

This collection uses primary sources to explore early exploration of the Americas. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

Short Description:
A Few Words that Changed the World brings together short texts - many less than one page long - that profoundly changed the world in which we live. In its initial form, the book's focus is on the growth and development of European empires, and the ways in which peoples responded to that expansion. Over time, we hope that this resource will grow to include other sources, such as songs, poems, and perhaps pieces of art.

Long Description:
A word is dead When it is said, Some say.

I say it just Begins to live That day.

Emily Dickinson, A Word is Dead (1862)

Word Count: 41764

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Short Description:
A Few Words that Changed the World brings together short texts - many less than one page long - that profoundly changed the world in which we live. In its initial form, the book's focus is on the growth and development of European empires, and the ways in which peoples responded to that expansion. Over time, we hope that this resource will grow to include other sources, such as songs, poems, and perhaps pieces of art.

Long Description:
A word is dead When it is said, Some say.

I say it just Begins to live That day.

Emily Dickinson, A Word is Dead (1862)

Word Count: 33169

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

This course provides students with a broad historical and social-scientific introduction to a central aspect of modern economic life: Finance. By drawing upon a variety of disciplinary perspectives from the humanities and social sciences, the course offers a multi-dimentional picture of finance, not only as an economic phenomenon, but as a political, cultural, intellectual, material, and technological one. The course offers an introduction to foundational financial concepts and technologies, and will help students understand finance as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. This course also provides students with the opportunity to improve skills in written communication, and to learn tools for historical analysis and textual interpretation.

This course covers French politics, culture, and society from Louis XIV to Napoleon Bonaparte. Attention is given to the growth of the central state, the beginnings of a modern consumer society, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, including its origins, and the rise and fall of Napoleon.

Generation ID Index

Short Description:
An index of people in the Clounch/Claunch and Girlington families. Supports genealogical study of family groups.

Long Description:
A generational index of Claunch,Clounch, Girlington and related families. The Tapestry: Castles to Cactus describes the journey of one family from the European middle ages to the new world of the modern American west. Volume 8 indexes all the family members in the study, assigning a unique identifier to each person.

Word Count: 16895

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

This subject examines interactions across the Eurasian continent between Russians, Chinese, Mongolian nomads, and Turkic oasis dwellers during the last millennium and a half. As empires rose and fell, religions, trade, and war flowed back and forth continuously across this vast space. Today, the fall of the Soviet Union and China's reforms have opened up new opportunities for cultural interaction.

This course examines the definition of gender in scientific, societal, and historical contexts. It explores how gender influences state formation and the work of the state, what role gender plays in imperialism and in the welfare state, the ever-present relationship between gender and war, and different states' regulation of the body in gendered ways at different times. It also investigates new directions in the study of gender as historians, anthropologists and others have taken on this fascinating set of problems. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments.