History

The History Department introduces students to the serious study of the world's civilizations, and cultivates a perspective through which students begin to see themselves as individuals with opportunities and responsibilities in a modern, post-industrial world. With a focus on primary documents, our aim is for students to gain a particular knowledge of their own immediate culture through the study of United States history, as well as to initiate a study of the human condition in the broadest sense of the term.
By learning to evaluate and use evidence to make qualified generalizations, our students develop analytical skills that will serve them in college and beyond. All history courses require short, carefully structured papers that demand close analysis of primary sources, and longer term papers that require extensive research on a particular topic or issue.
Ultimately, we are committed to the notion that the study of history is an integral component in the general humanizing process of a liberal education. We encourage our students, as they study specific periods, cultures, and historical themes, to develop the intellectual skepticism and analytical rigor to identify demagoguery, hagiography, and the parochialisms of ethnicity and gender.
History Courses
Yearlong Courses
Semester-long Electives
- U.S. History: Interpretations of the Past
- Advanced Study in History: American Social Reform Movements
- Advanced Study in History: Coming of Age: America in the Early Atomic Era
- Advanced Study in History: Democracy, Power and Empire—Athens in the 5th Century BC
- Advanced Study in History: Empire of Liberty?—The United States in the World
- Advanced Study in History: Histories of Hate: American Racism and German Anti-Semitism
- Advanced Study in History: Latin American History
- Advanced Study in History: Modern European History, 1789 - 1991
- Advanced Study in History: The Modern Middle East
- Advanced Study in Public History
- Advanced Study in History: A World at War
- Advanced Study in History: Research Seminar
- Global Studies: Current Issues in American & International Policies (not offered in 2022-2023)
- Advanced Study in History: Foundations of the Early Modern World (not offered in 2022-2023)
- Advanced Study in History: The Mediterranean World 500-1500 (not offered in 2022-2023)
- Advanced Study in History: Victorious Rome—The Creation of a National Identity through Conflict (not offered in 2022-2023)