Terror has proved a fixation for the last decade in American politics. We will delve beneath the contemporary media glare to unearth the origins of global terrorism as a political tool and an ideological representation. This course will explore a slippery concept that has no fixed definition and appears as everything from a mechanism of state power during the French Revolution to the desperate last resort of isolated radicals in Tsarist Russia and Meiji Japan.  We will also consider the degree with which terrorism and the media are interdependent, opening up to the broader question of whether terrorism is a specifically modern phenomenon. 

The aim of the seminar is to develop critical reading and writing skills. The class will be writing intensive and satisfies the second half of Berkeley's Reading and Composition requirement. In the first half of the semester, students will undertake short writing assignments – responding to the readings or analyzing particular archival sources - to develop their expository and analytic writing skills. In the second half of the semester, students will produce an 8 and a 10 page research paper using several sources and we will critique each others work in class. By the end of the course, students will have learned how to assess source material and use it to construct historical arguments. Through the development of critical reading skills and writing techniques, students will learn to take positions on the broad historical issues addressed in the class.

This course offers a broad introduction to the European Middle Ages through both textual and material sources. Change - as an individual experience and as a social phenomenon - is a central theme. Why did medieval people make radical changes in their lives? Why did European political systems, cultural expressions, and religious ideals change so dramatically over the course of the Middle Ages? The course charts the emergence of a distinctively "medieval" civilization after the demise in the west of the late Roman state and then the transformation of this early medieval civilization after the millennium. The roles of demographic and economic expansion are explored as motors for the radical political, religious, and cultural transformation of medieval society from 1000 to 1500.

This course is an introduction to the history of the United States from the Civil War to the present. It is also an introduction to the ways historians look at the past and think about evidence. Rather than a matter of memorizing names and dates, history is about framing the truest and most complete stories we can to explain wide ranges of human experience. Although this course will touch on many subjects, it will track three main narrative lines. One, from the abolition of slavery to the election of Obama, will trace changing regulations of and ideas about race, ethnicity, gender, religion, and other cultural and political markers of identity. The second, the rise and fall of industrial society, will examine major economic transitions, as the fulcrum of U.S. economic life shifted from agriculture to industry and then to services. The third, from Sand Creek and Little Bighorn to 9-11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, will focus on the rise and uses of American power in the world. Lectures, readings, discussions, films, and writing assignments (and, yes, midterm and final exams) will stress various parts of these stories and also sharpen critical reading, interpretation, research, and writing skills.

The current popular uprisings in the Middle East underscore the dynamism and vitality of a region that has played a central role in human history since ancient times. This course introduces students to the major historical developments in this region from the rise of Islam to the present. It is designed to help you contextualize current developments and to give you the tools to educate yourself on your own. It also prepares you for more advanced courses in the Dept. of History (such as 109C) or courses in other departments that require some background in the history of the Middle East. There are two other benefits to this course. First, it explores what it means to do history by explicitly referring to various approaches and methodologies used to construct narratives about change over time. Second, the cultivation of a historical sensibility is backed up by training in critical thinking, writing, and thematic synthesis -skills that you will need regardless of career path. 

Themes: The diverse peoples of Southwest Asia/North Africa (a region recently labeled "The Middle East") have a rich and remarkable history. They established some of the earliest centers of agriculture-based civilizations and urban life, carried the messages of the world's three monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), and served as the economic and cultural middlemen of the world system during the medieval and early modern periods. The first part of this course provides a brief outline of these and other themes up to the Seventeenth Century. The second part focuses on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, an era of intense social, economic and cultural transformation that led to the demise of the Ottoman and other empires and the emergence of a new state system, most of it under the colonial domination of Britain and France. The remainder of the course (Parts III, IV) is devoted to an exploration of the forces that have shaped the Middle East during the Twentieth Century such as the colonial encounter and rise of nationalist movements, the discovery of oil, regional conflicts and the Cold War, the rise of political Islam, and U.S. military intervention. Throughout, the major themes will be illustrated through case studies of specific countries as well as through the study of the causes and consequences of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Iranian Revolution, and the Gulf Wars.

 Requirements: Mid-term and final exams, brief writing assignment, attending lectures, and participation in discussion sections.

The Middle Ages ended, according to common wisdom, in the "calamitous fourteenth century." It is true that the period from 1250 to 1450 saw warfare, social tensions and peasant revolts, papal schism and disillusionment with the church, not to mention the Black Death. However, these two centuries also saw the strengthening of national monarchies, an outpouring of artistic innovation and the rise of vernacular literatures, new forms of piety and worship, as well as exploration and economic innovation. This course examines a period of mixed creativity and destruction, seeking the forces of change and continuity at work in a period of profound transition.

The classical Greek polis was accustomed to violent confrontation to an extent that is difficult to comprehend today. The Greeks not only had to live with conflict, they had to come to terms with its consequences and legacies. This course will familiarize students with various responses to conflict in classical Greece, whether in war, civil strife, or fierce individual competition. We will focus on the cultural and institutional means by which the various members of the polis – men, women, children, and slaves – managed to persevere in the aftermath of conflict: practices of burial, mourning, and commemoration; treatment of survivors and victims; peace treaties; collective rituals of reconciliation; and political amnesty. Readings will come from ancient sources in translation and will include poetry, tragedy and comedy, inscriptions, public orations, historiography, and lesser-known texts such as a manual for surviving siege warfare. 
 

This course is crosslisted with Slavic 157.001 and German 179.001.

The course looks at Galicia as the homeland of Ukrainians, Poles, Austrians, and Jews, tracing its development from the late eighteenth century, when it was a province on the map, throughout the post-communist period, when Galicia has become a site of memory for all the communities that once were neighbors there. Texts include historiography (Larry Wolff, Timothy Snyder), literature (Joseph Roth, Leopold von Sacher Masoch, Karl Emil Franzos, Stanislaw Wyspianski, Bruno Schulz, Gregor von Rezzori, Pawel Huelle, Yuri Andrukhovych), and film (István Szabó's Colonel Redl) chosen to represent the various ethnicities that have called themselves Galician and cover the period from ca. 1795 to the present.

This course offers an introduction to the history of the Roman empire, from the advent of monarchy in Rome in the first century BC to the breakdown of central state authority in the fifth century AD.  Major themes include the overlapping networks of social power in the Roman empire (institutional and personal); the unity and diversity of Roman imperial culture; the changing relationship between state and society; the political economy of the Roman empire; and the geography and ecology of the Mediterranean world.  Lectures will provide an essential historical narrative and interpretations of central problems in Roman imperial history, and discussion sections will give students an opportunity to engage with key texts from or about the Roman empire, from Tacitus to Gibbon.  There are no prerequisites for this course. 

This course will examine three centuries of South African history that account for the origin and development of the recently dismantled apartheid regime. Our aim is to understand the major historical forces that progressively shaped what became a turbulent socio-cultural, economic, political, and racial frontier. We will look at the nature of indigenous African societies in South Africa on the eve of European arrival; initial European settlements and the origins of competition for resources; expansionist trends among Dutch settlers and the responses of African societies; mfecane/difacane and its aftermath; the role of the frontier in shaping race relations; emergence of Afrikanerdom and the creation of Afrikaner republics; competing African/Boer/British nationalisms; corporate mining and its impact on labour migrancy; the Anglo-Boer war and the creation of the Union. The 20th century witnessed the formulation, articulation, and racialization of trade unions, the emergence of increased political mobilization among African, Afrikaner, and Indian populations. The course will examine the complex relationship between key protagonists, and the creation and dismantling of the apartheid apparatus. Course requirements will include a midterm exam (40%), one review paper (20%), and a final exam (40%). 

This course explores Chinese history and culture in the period from the 7th to the 13th centuries, when China achieved unprecedented military, political, and cultural power in East Asia. It concentrates on the fundamental transformation of state and society that took place between the 8th and 12th centuries, and on the nature of the new "early modern" order that had come into existence by the end of the Southern Song. Topics of special concern are economic and political power, technology, religion and  are economic and political power, technology, religion and philosophy, and poetry and painting.

The general theme of this course is Japan's emergence as a world power in its two phases, military and economic. Our chief concern will be with the experience within Japan of that emergence and its consequences: the impact on farming villages (including colonial villages sending labor migrants to Japan) of "late" industrialization; the emergence of a conflict, played out in actual lives, between notions of individuality vs. collective identity (based on class, nationality, and gender) and between different collective identities; the horror of total war; the transformation of values that came with defeat and occupation; the nature of postwar democracy and relation of society to state; the changing way(s) in which Japanese view and participate in the world outside Japan.

After explaining how people have viewed California throughout its history, this course explores the unique environmental diversity of the region. Then, we examine the settlement of distinct regions of California and the particular indigenous communities that emerged in these places. Students will also explore the motives for and consequences of Spanish exploration, colonization, and the establishment of missions. From the arrival of the Spanish through the end of the nineteenth century, changes in the treatment and demography of the California Indians figure prominently. From the hide and tallow trade and the Mexican-American War to the Gold Rush, this course explores the expansive influence of Americans and how they conquered, dispossessed, exploited, and persecuted the region's old and new inhabitants. We will study the ways that the Gold Rush transformed, and students then learn how railroads, agriculture, immigration, and populist and progressive political movements continued to shape California and the nation. This course also examines the growth of San Francisco and Los Angeles in the first half of the twentieth century with special emphasis on the importance of water and the rise of Hollywood. The Great Depression and World War II also reflected periods of rapid change with the ";Okie"; migration, the Bracero Agreement, the Zoot Suit Riots, and the explosion of war industries jobs and urban populations. After World War II, we will turn our attention to the tensions between opportunity and exclusion, as demonstrated by the Watts Riots, the rise of the Chicano movement and the UFW, the impact of propositions on politics, and the causes and consequences of the Los Angeles Riots of 1992. Assigned readings include selections by Stephen Hackel, Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe, Lawson Fusao Inada, Judy Yung, Elizabeth Armstrong, and D.J. Waldie.

This course will examine the diverse movements for equality that have transformed the political, legal, social, and cultural landscape of the United States from approximately 1940 to the present. Unlike many standard textbooks that portray a single coherent "Civil Rights Movement" aimed at eliminating race-based discrimination against African Americans, we will begin with the premise that there have been, indeed still are, multiple overlapping movements striving to attain equal rights for citizens irrespective of such real or perceived characteristics as race, ethnicity, gender, class, and sexual identity. During the early portion of the semester we will look closely at the arguably archetypal struggle for civil rights undertaken on behalf of Americans of African descent, taking a backward glance at its antebellum origins and early twentieth-century manifestations before delving into the postwar decades, when the scope of the movement expanded dramatically and some of its most enduring achievements were realized. Next we will turn our attention to some of the other landmark civil rights movements of the mid-to-late twentieth century, notably those seeking to advance the causes of women's, GLBT, Native American, Asian American, and Chicano rights, which will be assessed in conjunction with the roughly contemporaneous student, communitarian, and antiwar movements. Towards the end of the semester we will broaden our discussion to include the equality strivings of economically oppressed and disabled citizens, as well as emergent demands for the elimination of discriminatory treatment of individuals on the basis of appearance, be it the "correction"of congenitally intersexed bodies or the similarly subjective attributions of ugliness and beauty that are often silently determinative of relative status. We will conclude with a retrospective and prospective assessment of what has been and remains to be accomplished in the name of equality across all of these domains. Our inquiry throughout will be both comparative and interdisciplinary, drawing on a range of historical writings complemented by illustrative primary sources meant to convey the richness and intricacy of the sociocultural and politicolegal contexts  in which these events unfolded.

This course provides undergraduates with an introduction to modern Brazilian history from the arrival of the Portuguese court in 1808 through the triumph of the Workers Party in 2003. Two centuries after João VI elevated his colony to a kingdom, Brazil continues to straddle the first and third worlds. The course traces the historic contradictions characterizing the nation’s economic, political and social development. Drawing on sources such as contemporary accounts, government documents, novels, films and music helps students understand how Brazil currently accounts for the region’s largest economy and one of the world’s worst distributions of wealth. Topics include the enduring importance of Brazil’s agricultural economies, slavery and abolition, transition from Empire to Republic, industrialization and urbanization, paternalism and patriarchy, immigration, ethnicity and a national culture, the economic miracle, and populism, authoritarianism, and the return to democratic rule.

Europe changed more rapidly and more dramatically during the nineteenth century than during any other period in recorded history. This course focuses on the forces that produced that change or were inextricably connected with it--industrialism, liberalism, nationalism, urbanization, the revolution in the technology of warfare, the unprecedented increase in population, and the spectacular expansion of Europe to the four corners of the earth. At the same time it addresses the landmark events that took place in the countries of themselves—the downfall of Napoleon, the Paris Commune, and the Dreyfus affair in France; the constitutional conflict of 1861, the war with the Catholic church (Kulterkampf), and the rise of socialism in Prussia/Germany; the revolutions of 1848, the struggle with the Hungarians, and the riveting series of family scandals that nearly brought the the Habsburg monarchy of Austria-Hungary to the ground and drove the crown prince to suicide in 1889; the rise of Pan Slavism, the murder of the tsar Alexander II, and the revolution of 1905 in Russia. These events shaped the history of the countries in which they occurred.  This course deals with them in the last age when Europe was the center of the world.    

This upper division course analyzes the turbulent transitions from the classical European balance of power to today's global multipolar system. The class focuses on the history of international relations and Europe's changing role within the international system. We will be examining individual personalities, including Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Churchill, de Gaulle, Thatcher and Gorbachev; ideologies, such as fascism, communism, and socialism; and institutional structures, including the League of Nations, the United Nations, and the European Union. Though Europe will feature in a starring role, we will also pay full attention to developments in parts of the world outside Europe--including but not limited to, imperialism and decolonization in Africa and Latin America, wars in the Middle East, the rise of Asia, and the post-1990 international order.

The European Reformations splintered Christianity, and fundamentally altered the political and cultural landscape of Europe. This course will focus on the long history of these Reformations, from their beginnings in the sixteenth centuries, to their aftereffects in the Enlightenment. In particular, it will investigate the connection between the religious events of the early modern period, and the formation of modern political society. Internal conflicts between Catholics and Protestants, attempts to suppress and repress religious heresy, efforts to impose Christianity on New World peoples: these bloody battles--we will discover--were key to the development of the economic, military, and political institutions of modern governments. By understanding them, we will seek to understand the complexities of our modern world

This course will focus on the history of Italy during a period when it was the leading center of European artistic production and the driving force in the revival of classical learning,  cultural ideals, and political thought. This was the Italy of Raphael, Donatello, Michelangelo, Alberti and Boticelli. At the same time, Italy was also a political battleground through much of the period in the realm of ideas and theory but also in the literal sense. It was in Italy that "The Art of War," as Machiavelli called it, took center stage as the new princes of Italy and Europe fought for dominance. This course will subsequently focus on the artistic, intellectual, religious and political history of Italy both as it developed internally and as it was related to the broader European and Mediterranean world. Requirements will include a midterm, final, and optional final paper.

This course will survey the historical events and intellectual developments leading up to and surrounding the destruction of European Jewry during World War II. By reading a mixture of primary and secondary sources we will examine the Shoah (the Hebrew word for the Holocaust) against the backdrop of modern Jewish and modern German history. The course is divided into two main parts: (1) the historical background up to 1939; and (2) the destruction of European Jewry, 1939-1945.

How do technology and society interact? What drives technological change? How does technology transfer across different cultures? These and other related questions are examined using historical case studies of productive, military, domestic, information, and biomedical technologies from 1700 to the present. We shall discuss the evolution of artifacts and technological systems such as industrial machinery, weapons, microwaves, computers, and contraceptives. The aim of the course is for you to learn about how technology affects social change and, especially, how technological change is invariably shaped by historical and social circumstances. At the end of the course you will be able to think historically about technology, and thus engage effectively with questions of technological change -- or lack thereof. The course draws approaches and materials from both history and science. Throughout, however, we emphasize historical development. The ideas and artifacts of technology are not timeless, and they did not drop from the sky. A main course goal is to practice thinking historically; assignments and examinations call on those skills. The course is aimed at students of all majors; no scientific knowledge is presupposed. Running parallel to Hist 182 is Hist 182T, intended for students interested in teaching elementary or secondary school science and math. Students in the "T" course will attend the regular 182 lectures and a special section; this section will focus on techniques, skills, and perspectives necessary to apply the history of science in the juvenile and adolescent science classroom, including pedagogy, devising lesson plans for their classrooms, finding reliable historical information, and writing. If you are interested in Hist 182T, come speak to me during the first week of class.

This course introduces major themes in the history of medicine through the lens of disease. It focuses on two questions: How have people defined well-being? How have they responded to illness? The course considers major diseases to understand their multiple meanings across time and space including: plague, cholera, influenza, sleeping sickness, PTSD, AIDS and malaria. Themes to be considered include changing theories of disease causality, the development of international public health policy, social understandings of the body, and the growth of the pharmaceutical industry.  The course emphasizes the roles governments, medical practitioners, and patients play in the social construction of disease and health. Case studies from India, Brazil, South Africa and the United States will be analyzed through readings, lectures and films. For more information and to view the course video trailer, visit http://osseo.berkeley.edu/health.html

This seminar will explore the “autobiography of Japanese society” in modern times: its documented experience or testimony of itself.  Readings will be drawn from literature, journalism and ethnography, complemented by key scholarly works and organized around a number of interlocking spheres: family/locality, self, city and country, state, and empire.  The period covered is roughly the seven decades from the Sino-Japanese War through to the early post-WWII era.  The writers to be read include Natsume Sōseki, Higuchi Ichiyō, Yokoyama Gennosuke, Nagatsuka Takashi, Ishikawa Tatsuzō, Yokomitsu Riichi, and Miyamoto Tsuneichi; the scholars include Ann Waswo, Maruyama Masao, Miriam Silverberg, Mark Driscoll, Sheldon Garon, Nimura Kazuo, and yours truly.

Students interested in enrolling are asked to contact Andrew Barshay (abars@berkeley.edu) prior to the beginning of the spring semester.

Traditionally, the French Revolution has been studied as the last chapter in the history of the "Old Regime." Since 1989 all this has changed. Revisionist historiography has given shape to a new unit of French history, "revolutionary France," spanning roughly from the Enlightenment through the Revolution of 1848. The purpose of this course is to give students an opportunity to develop foundational knowledge of this most turbulent of periods in French history. It will introduce participants to the major areas of research in this field--political history, social history, economic history, military history, race and colonialism, women's history, the history of religion and, not least, intellectual and cultural history. The aim is to achieve a solid understanding of the causes, course and consequences of the Revolution of 1789-99 and the successive regimes that followed: the Napoleonic empire, the Bourbon Restoration, and the Revolutions of 1830 and 1848. Not least, students will have an opportunity to engage with the major traditions of interpretation of the revolutionary era, both classical and contemporary. Reading knowledge of French is preferred, but not required.

• 280A.001 CCN: 39804
• 285A.001 CCN 39912

Modern scholarship on the city of Rome has tended to divorce its architectural and topographical history from the study of its political institutions and the social and economic history of the city's populace.  A central goal of this seminar is to combine analysis of these aspects of the city in a coherent and meaningful way.  To that end, we will approach the city of Rome from two different but interrelated perspectives.  First, we will consider the physical topography of the city.  Through close analysis of individual structures and monumental complexes we will consider the articulation of public space and the changing shape of Rome's cityscape and urban image.  Then we will examine a number of topics in the urban history of Rome, with a view to understanding the various processes that governed life in this ancient megalopolis, including the organization and practice of municipal government; the enforcing of public order; the provision and consumption of food, water, fuel, and craft goods; domestic life; labor, employment, and production; construction and demolition; immigration and emigration; health and mortality; religious practice; relations with the city’s proximate and extended hinterlands; the movement into and out of the city of people, animals, and things; the generation and flow of information; social ritual and public entertainment.  Theoretical and comparative readings will help to set our discussions in a broad interpretive context.