Course Offerings by term

This course surveys the history of Europe from the era of New World "discovery" to the beginnings of the First World War. Students will consider the meaning of Europe as a geographical, political, religious, economic, and cultural space. They will examine how conquest and commerce on a global scale shaped the internal history of Europe . They will learn how Asia, Africa, and the Americas helped to remake the demography, epidemiology, landscape, technology, and consumer culture of European countries.

Students will learn how new technologies revolutionised European weaponry, transportation, and industrial production, with effects that reverberated abroad and helped to make European war into a global phenomenon. They will learn about internecine European religious conflicts and grapple with the rise of centralised states under divine-right monarchs. They will consider the meaning and moral limits of the Enlightenment as a European-wide development, at the apex of the slave trade.

The course draws to a close with the rise of scientific racism, the carving up of Africa and Asia by European powers, and ends as imperial rivalry, brinksmanship, nationalism, and the modernisation of war—all semester-long themes—trigger the Great War of 1914.

Beginning with the bipolar world of the Cold War, focuses on ideological struggles of the West, East, and Third World and the reactions of nations to the politics of the superpowers. Topics range from decolonization to the rise of the new Asia, African independence, the reemergence of the Muslim world, the collapse of communism, globalization and clash of world cultures.

This course surveys major themes in the ancient (pre-Islamic) and medieval history of the Middle East. It is organized around two parts. The first surveys successive civilizations and empires that rose in the region or invaded and dominated it, from the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Hittites, the Phoenicians, the Persians, to the Greeks and the Romans/Byzantines. The birth of Judaism and Christianity is presented in this part. The Second covers the rise of Islam, its expansion and the Caliphate it established from the 7th to the late 13th century, when the Mongol seized Bagdad.

Firstbridge courses are offered to degree seeking freshmen and registration is done via webform in pre-arrival checklist.