What social processes and institutions are necessary to bring an end to war? Do the efforts of citizens make a difference? What is the role of beliefs regarding identity? What about access to resources? What is the role of visible forms of restorative or retributive justice? This first year seminar focuses primarily on small, regional conflicts in Africa to explore the social processes and institutions which facilitate the resolution of conflict. We will begin in the late 19th century, but concentrate on more recent events.

This first year seminar explores the history of the country and the city in modern Britain and asks how the conceptualization of these places has shaped our understanding of what it means to be modern. We will address topics such as industrial transformation, the city and country in fiction, rural political radicalism, preservation and recreation in the countryside, organic and environmental movements, and the contemporary politics of rural life.

A comparative history of China, Japan, and Korea from the early seventeenth century to the present, with strong focus on regional interaction. After an introduction to early modern histories and cultures, we will examine the struggles of these countries to preserve or regain their independence and establish their national identities in a rapidly changing, often violent modern world order. While each of these countries has its own distinctive identity, their overlapping histories (and dilemmas) give the region a coherent shape.

Surveys the major movements and developments in Europe during the era of European expansion and dominance--from the devastations of the Thirty Years War to the Second World War--and up to the current era of European Union. Topics include: the French Revolution and the birth of nationalism; the scientific and industrial revolutions; the modern history of international relations; imperialism, fascism, the Holocaust, the two World Wars, and the present and potential roles of Europe at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

Britain has long been considered an exemplary modern nation, credited, for example, with the world's first industrial economy, modern institutions of representative politics, a vibrant public sphere, a powerful war and welfare state, and one of the largest empires in world history. Using a combination of primary and secondary source readings, classroom lectures and discussions, and various written assessments, this course will ask how modern imperial Britain was made and how this history relates to the broader currents of world history.

This course is an introduction to the expansion, consolidation, and eventual disintegration of the modern British Empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will examine this history with an eye to understanding the causes of empire, and its effects. Themes include formal and informal imperialism, the emergence of anti-colonial nationalism, the roles of gender and culture, and the legacies of British colonialism.

This course examines the diverse cultures and peoples--Indian, African, and European--that from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, through combat and cooperation, forged North American societies. Topics include the indigenous societies of the Americas; the age of colonialism; slavery; the American Revolution; the creation of the American political system; expansion and industrialization; and the coming of the Civil War.

This course is about writing history, commonly called historiography. It examines some of the most successful works of historical writing from the ancient world to the present day. It investigates strategies historians use in interpreting the past, secrets of their trade, and the awful price not a few have paid for challenging orthodox versions of the past. Students will also analyze works of contemporary authors and apply their own hand to the historian's craft.

Why are some nations so much richer and more powerful than others? This course demonstrates that global inequality is not natural; it has a history. Exploring patterns of exchange that developed among regions of the world over the past 600 years, we will ask about the role of power in the establishment of practices of production and exchange. We will explore how cross-regional productive systems benefited some participants at the expense of others.