History

The American Civil War took hundreds of thousands of lives and destroyed southern chattel slavery. Students will examine why the war happened, and how the North and the South conducted their military campaigns. The class will explore social conditions in the antebellum South and how that influenced the decision to secede and go to war. The roles of Southern male and female identity, and the era’s complicated racial politics, combined with “state” nationalism to foment a terrible conflict. The political influence of the Civil War veterans after the war, and the creation of battlefield monuments and cemeteries will conclude our studies. Special topics include the Civil War in ongoing American political debates and how African-American slaves transitioned from slavery to freedom after the war. Students will be expected to complete a five-minute research documentary and complete reading and critiquing of sophisticated academic texts. The course includes an overnight trip to the Gettysburg battlefield paid for by the Grace Church School Annual Fund.

This course presents students with the opportunity to study the history of the world from the perspective of Islam. We will begin with the rise of Islam against the background of the Byzantine and Sasanian empires. We will proceed to study the Islamic Empire at its height under the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties. We will devote special attention to the study of Al-Andalus, focusing on the relations between Jewish, Christian, and Islamic cultures in the Iberian peninsula. We will finish our course with a study of the Ottoman Empire by focusing on the biography of Sultan Selim I.

This course explores the modern histories of the Caribbean and Latin America, focusing on the political and cultural movements that have emerged in the region in the late 20th to 21st centuries. We will examine regional differences and continuities, from the Commonwealth Caribbean to the Southern Cone of South America, with a focus on efforts to build societies that are more just, equal, and democratic in a region historically defined by colonialism and authoritarianism. Our course studies the circumstances leading to an outburst of revolutionary politics that sought to redress persistent economic and social inequalities strengthened by an incomplete decolonization in the previous century. In many cases, the revolutionary moment was overwhelmed by a conservative authoritarian reaction in the 1970s and 1980s. Our class will examine the rise of repressive regimes driven by both left- and right-wing politics and the enduring issue of human rights and reconciliation in a region that experienced extreme political violence in the context of the wider Cold War. Students will examine contemporary politics and economics in the region in the light of this history through a study of the recent authoritarian populist turn in countries like El Salvador and Argentina, the hardening leftist regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua, and the prospects for democracy in the 21st century.

Historians have argued that World Wars I and II are actually the same conflict, with a twenty-year pause in between. We will analyze how nationalism, technology, male identity, honor and pride combined to produce the worst warfare humanity has ever experienced. Focus will be on how marginalized groups, such as Jews, women, and homosexuals, maintained their identity in the face of extermination during the Holocaust. Students will explore the role of totalitarian regimes and practices in the war, both Allied and Axis. How did Germany transform from a colonial power to occupy most of Europe? How did African Americans fight in World War I and World War II and how does Jim Crow relate to the Nuremberg Laws? Students will be expected to write a short staged skit based on research and participate in a public performance. Each class, students read and critique sophisticated academic texts. There will be a field trip on a weekend to the Museum of Jewish Heritage. This course focuses on Europe; Making of Modern Japan focuses on the Pacific.

International Relations is about how countries interact. The first part of the course will explore the world’s most powerful states—the US, Russia, and China—and how they compete, or ally with, other states in their global neighborhoods. We’ll ask how each country’s foreign-policy “behavior” is influenced by its geographical situation and look at both military and non-military ways that each projects its power. The next part of the course will explore inequality between states on the global level. It will examine the origins and nature of the perceived division between the global North and the global South and explore whether the relationships between them have moved on from colonial-era relationships of exploitation.  While the first two parts of the course focus on division, the third focuses on cooperation: how do states try to maintain global peace, facilitate trade, prevent financial lurches, and head off the looming climate catastrophe? We’ll look at what helps and hinders these efforts, as well as critique the US role in them.

This course will help students understand the issues facing the Middle East today through a deep exploration of the region and its peoples in the 20th and 21st centuries This course will begin in the present, examining the dynamics of the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict, and use this study to build an agenda for historical inquiry into the origins and broader regional dimensions of that issue. Students will examine the religious and ethnic dynamics of the region and how these have shaped recent conflicts and contests, from Gaza to the Syrian Civil War and back to the fragmentation of the Ottoman Empire in World War I. Students will consider how nations and states have formed, the rise of nationalist movements around ethnic, religious, and ideological lines, from Pan-Arab Ba’athism to Islamist movements like Hamas and ISIS, with a careful eye on the role of the United States and other global powers in shaping the region. Students will immerse themselves in the ongoing conflict over the futures of Palestine and Israel, examining the internal politics of the issue for these nations and the international dimensions of the conflict.

This is a course on the China of Xi Jinping. Starting with the reforms of Deng Xiaoping, students will examine the development of China's unique brand of state or managed capitalism and examine major social and economic reforms that have occurred from 1978 to the present. The approach will be a balanced one, examining China's astonishing economic development and rise as a world power directly in competition with the United States, as well as its major challenges including its dealings with ethnic minorities, a catastrophic demography, the monopolist role of the Communist Party, censorship and human rights, as well as environmental and resource issues. Does China offer a viable alternative model for other authoritarian, single-party states to follow or will the dam break sooner or later, as China's Dynastic Cycle repeats itself?

This course will examine the US Constitution as it pertains to issues of race, gender equality, speech and enfranchisement. The course will begin with a study of the American Supreme Court as it stands right now, and a summary of the cases coming up before the court in the Spring of 2025. From there, we will examine Incorporation and the 14th Amendment, which made the Bill of Rights the law of the land. We will continue with a deep dive into key Supreme Court cases throughout the history of the court as a whole, focusing on how the fight for Civil Rights and equality before the law have shaped the legal interpretations of the Bill of Rights. In the process, students will learn about the structure of the court, how arguments are made, the purpose of assenting and dissenting opinions and the importance of precedence in the realm of constitutional law. Students will write opinions, form arguments, and make arguments in front of a “Supreme Court.” As a culminating assignment students will watch the play “What the Constitution Means to Me” and write their own monologue based on their experiences of the course material.

This course is designed to examine American Foreign policy, and the ways in which the goals and policies have changed over time. Students will examine the origins of American involvement overseas, internal controversies regarding isolationism, and our current political situation. We will begin with the struggles of a new, weak state, and move to the 19th Century, in which the US started to take more aggressive positions overseas. We will investigate the policy decisions around American involvement in the Second World War. Much of the course will be spent on the architecture of the Cold War, with the eventual American victory as a culminating point. From there we will turn to September 11th, and complete the course with an investigation of the War in Terror.  We will produce a lively series of debates and discussions, as well as a policy debate drawn from material provided by the Council on Foreign Relations, where students will debate the decision to intervene in a hypothetical situation as representatives of different constituencies within the American government. American interventions have shaped much of the 20th century, as well as the 21st, and an assessment of these actions is necessary to understand the current global situation.

America's national motto is pluribus unum (out of many, one), but how many are we, and are we one? A lot of talk about America being divided seems to assume that our divisions are recent. In fact, for our country's entire history, it has been a site not only of different cultures and identities, but of profound contestation over its culture and norms. Moreover, America's past culture wars' ' may help us understand the current one. The course will ask, how did indigenous people of America and the European colonists differ in their cultural assumptions and relationship to the environment? How did settlers from different parts of Europe differ from each other over the meaning of freedom, community, and religious piety? What is the historical relationship between race conceptions and slavery in America, and how has each served to reinforce the other? How have Black, indigenous, Latino, and other movements framed their efforts at uplift? What does whiteness mean in America, and how have different immigrant groups been excluded from, or allowed into, that conception? How do these past conflicts relate to our country's current intense political divide? As part of the analysis, we will read the controversial book American Nations by Colin Woodard, but the hard, critical look we take at the book will help students recognize bias and purpose in historical writing and better equip them both to read history and to write their own.

This course focuses generally on the ancient worlds of Greece and Persia (6th–3rd centuries BCE) and specifically on politics in the ancient world.  Students will learn about the rise of the Achaemenid Empire, the rise of democracies in Greece, and the conflicts which occurred between these two ancient civilizations, culminating in Alexander the Great's defeat of Darius III and the establishment of the “Hellenistic” kingdoms. Students will study primary sources such as Herodotus, Thucydides, Arrian, and the Behistun inscription. Thematically, they will learn to critically examine the veracity of historical accounts and to recognize the ways in which elements of these ancient civilizations still have a presence in the modern world.

Is the era of democracy coming to an end? Is this the century of authoritarian, populist leaders who will suppress our individualism and rights? Will racial and ethnic conflict worsen? Is nationalism (we are not alike) more powerful than globalism (we are all alike)? Will competition between peoples replace cooperation? Is the world reverting to a primitive tribalism? All over the world, in every continent, people are taking to the streets to protest inequality and corruption, and to demand more freedoms – yet, ironically, the result is often that they turn to authoritarian leaders. Why? This course will analyze the ideas of nationalism and populism. We will examine the pattern by which economic and social tensions cause people to reject democratic government and gravitate towards more authoritarian, populist leaders, many of whom are legitimately elected. Why are people so willing to give up their rights in favor of stability and order? Case studies will include leaders such as Xi Jinping (China), Vladimir Putin (Russia), Narendra Modi (India), Cesar Chavez and Nicolas Maduro (Venezuela), and Recep Erdogan (Turkey).

Is the era of democracy coming to an end? Is this the century of authoritarian, populist leaders who will suppress our individualism and rights? Will racial and ethnic conflict worsen? Is nationalism (we are not alike) more powerful than globalism (we are all alike)? Will competition between peoples replace cooperation? Is the world reverting to a primitive tribalism? All over the world, in every continent, people are taking to the streets to protest inequality and corruption, and to demand more freedoms—yet, ironically, the result is often that they turn to authoritarian leaders. Why? This course will analyze the ideas of nationalism and populism. We will examine the pattern by which economic and social tensions cause people to reject democratic government and gravitate towards more authoritarian, populist leaders, many of whom are legitimately elected. Why are people so willing to give up their rights in favor of stability and order? Case studies will include leaders such as Xi Jinping (China), Vladimir Putin (Russia), Narendra Modi (India), Cesar Chavez and Nicolas Maduro (Venezuela), and Recep Erdogan (Turkey).

When Americans talk about democracy, we often assume that well-functioning democratic states look and function the way ours does. But countries around the world “do democracy” in many ways, and our system is just one of many. This course will introduce students to the range of political systems used in the world today, including presidential, parliamentary, and hybrid systems. We’ll also study how different ways of electing leaders vary significantly, from our own single-member-district system (which results in our combative, two-party politics), to proportional-representation systems that create complex, coalition-based, multi-party landscapes. Since billions of people live under political systems that are not democratic, we’ll study those, too, such as the dual party-state hierarchies of communist states, and the many “managed democracies” that use democratic institutional forms, but restrict the voice and choice of their citizens by other means, demonstrating that democracy is as much a matter of upholding unwritten norms as of obeying laws. We will look at political-institutional forms in postcolonial environments and explore why Western political structures sometimes falter when imposed on colonized peoples with interrupted histories. This course will give students an understanding of the many forms political systems take throughout the world and the diverse outcomes to which political systems and practices can lead.

When Americans talk about democracy, we often assume that well-functioning democratic states look and function the way ours does. But countries around the world “do democracy” in many ways, and our system is just one of many. This course will introduce students to the range of political systems used in the world today, including presidential, parliamentary, and hybrid systems. We’ll also study how different ways of electing leaders vary significantly, from our own single-member-district system (which results in our combative, two-party politics), to proportional-representation systems that create complex, coalition-based, multi-party landscapes. Since billions of people live under political systems that are not democratic, we’ll study those, too, such as the dual party-state hierarchies of communist states, and the many “managed democracies” that use democratic institutional forms, but restrict the voice and choice of their citizens by other means, demonstrating that democracy is as much a matter of upholding unwritten norms as of obeying laws. We will look at political-institutional forms in postcolonial environments and explore why Western political structures sometimes falter when imposed on colonized peoples with interrupted histories. This course will give students an understanding of the many forms political systems take throughout the world and the diverse outcomes to which political systems and practices can lead.

History of the Americas gives students a broad overview of North American, South American, and Caribbean history, from early human settlement to the modern era. Topics in the first part of the course include the indigenous cultures of various regions; the pre-Columbian civilizations of Mesoamerica and South America; the process and effects of European colonization; the advent of the slave trade and the practice of slavery; and independence movements during the Age of Atlantic Revolutions. Topics in the second half include national identity formation; US expansion and industrialization; the problem of "uneven development" throughout the Americas; capitalism and socialism as competing ideologies and economic strategies; and the role of the United States in the Pan-American world and on the global stage. Students in this course continue to hone their skills in historical interpretation, oral presentation, and analytical writing.

For generations, Americans have styled themselves a “nation of immigrants.” For just as long, however, Americans have been hostile to recent migrants, and have fashioned immigration policies that centered on race, religion, and ideas about national culture. This course will explore the recent histories of migration and immigration both through the perspectives of those migrating to the United States and the evolution of U.S. policies that have shaped those experiences. The course will focus on the modern era of immigration that followed the overhaul of U.S. immigration law in the mid-1960s, but will also examine the foundational histories of mass migration and the first federal policies in the late 19th century. Among other issues, we will examine: the evolution of the Mexico-U.S. border; experiences of Latin American immigrants and Latinx Americans; the post-1965 rise in East and South Asian immigration to the United States and the origins and impacts of the “model minority” myth; U.S. responses to refugee crises; anti-immigrant panics and nativism; citizenship and representation; and the relationship between immigration policy and evolving definitions of whiteness in the United States. Throughout the semester, we will continue to interrogate the changing ideas of identity, assimilation, and shifting ideas of what it means to be American.

With a specific focus on the Pacific War, this course covers Japan in the early twentieth century. Japan has become a staunch ally of the United States, but only after the devastation of World War II. From the unification of Japan in 1600 to the rebuilding of firebombed Tokyo in the 1950s, Japan has sought to project itself as a peer to western powers. The social and political conditions that emerged from the Meiji Restoration of the Emperor in 1868 directly led Japan to conceive of an empire in Asia. With training and guidance from Britain, Germany, and the United States, Japan engaged and defeated Russia in 1904 and Germany in World War I. The gains from those wars were later destroyed by the United States during the Pacific War of 1941–1945. How did Japan's devotion to Shintoism and Bushido form a totalitarian culture that sought to dominate her closest neighbors? How did Japan hope to defeat the United States, which massed previously inconceivable firepower to destroy most of Japan? How did women enable and contribute to the war effort? Was the Pacific War a "race war" as historian John Dower claims? This course is reading and writing intensive and students will be asked to participate in a number of field trips, including a weekend trip to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Space Museum. Students create a shared research journal throughout the semester. This class focuses on World War II in the Pacific; the World Wars course (2024–25) focuses on Europe.

What is “Europe” and does “Europe” exist? Tony Judt's book on Postwar Europe offers some perspectives. After World War II, Europe became a battleground between competing economic and political systems. A new supranational model was developed with the European Union (EU). When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and the Soviet Union disintegrated, many Eastern and Central European countries rushed to join the EU. Now in the midst of the dashed expectations, the Brexit wreckage, the revival of nationalist populism, and the rise of authoritarian leaders, the model is under attack. A polarized citizenry confronts weak economic growth in the aftermath of the Coronavirus pandemic and a surge of immigration. More importantly, the whole union idea is under question - can the EU replace the nation state? Is nationalism dead? Are EU nations willing to give up financial and economic control to the EU? The importance of this model can be seen in the development of the analogous African Union which will also be examined.

This course provides a general overview of Roman history, from the regal period of the 8th century BCE to the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 CE, with additional coverage of the aftershocks of Roman Empire which still reverberate in the modern world. Themes and topics of special emphasis may include rhetoric and the fall of the Roman Republic, theories of empire and autocracy, religious conflict and the rise of Christianity, issues of immigration and citizenship, the Jewish Revolt against Rome, and modern fascism and the modern political appropriation of Roman symbolism.

Students admitted to the Senior Seminar in History will have the opportunity to craft and carry out an independent research project on a topic of their choice, which they will research and write in the fall and share with the community in the spring. The course will prepare students for advanced, inquiry-driven research through a careful study of research methods, process, and presentation, as students consider both the content and form of historical writing. Students will work closely with one another, with the faculty, and with outside experts to build a bibliography, develop a question, and construct an analysis, culminating in the completion of a major research paper of approximately 25 pages by the end of the first semester. In the second semester, senior seminar students take a history elective course of their choice, while attending a weekly colloquium on Lab Day, which will prepare them to share their findings at a public presentation and formal discussion of their independent research in May. Students interested in this opportunity must submit an application, including a statement of purpose and project proposal in the spring of their junior year. Each student's application will be reviewed by the department, with admission to the program determined on the basis of a student's application, their proven ability to carry out independent work and meet deadlines, and their past performance in history courses. Enrollment is by permission of the department.

This course examines the trajectories of Black American political organizing in the latter half of the 20th century, with an eye toward making sense of the ongoing Movement for Black Lives in the 21st. Students will consider philosophical, political, and organizational foundations of modern Black American political activism and examine how these long campaigns grew into a mass movement in the 1950s and beyond, evaluating the impacts of gender, religion, region, in shaping the campaign against Jim Crow across the United States. As we consider the aims of the Civil Rights Movement, we will explore the deep origins of Black nationalist thinking and the growth of new movements, from the Nation of Islam in the urban north, the Black Power movement of the rural south, and the Black Panther Party on the west coast. The class will compare the political and social aims of these movements and their different strategies, and how these set the stage for a new phase of mass movement in our present. 

This course examines the trajectories of Black American political organizing in the latter half of the 20th century, with an eye toward making sense of the ongoing Movement for Black Lives in the 21st. Students will consider philosophical, political, and organizational foundations of modern Black American political activism and examine how these long campaigns grew into a mass movement in the 1950s and beyond, evaluating the impacts of gender, religion, region, in shaping the campaign against Jim Crow across the United States. As we consider the aims of the Civil Rights Movement, we will explore the deep origins of Black nationalist thinking and the growth of new movements, from the Nation of Islam in the urban north, the Black Power movement of the rural south, and the Black Panther Party on the west coast. The class will compare the political and social aims of these movements and their different strategies, and how these set the stage for a new phase of mass movement in our present.

The name “Putin” is derived from the Russian word for “the way.” But what is the way and where does it lead to? As Russia moves in an increasingly authoritarian direction, and cavalierly discards the trappings of democracy which it had claimed before, analyzing the evolution of President Putin and the ideology he believes in becomes all the more important. The war in Ukraine has brought conflict to NATO's borders and has made it imperative to understand the new Czar and his actions. Who are the key players with Putin in Russia now, and how might Russia evolve in the future? Is there an opposition? Will Putin's rule ever end? This course will briefly cover the final Gorbachev years and the rule of Boris Yeltsin before focusing on the Putin era starting in 2000 to the present. Kremlinology—the study of the Kremlin and its ruler—is back with a vengeance...

World History gives students a broad conceptual and chronological foundation for understanding the historical development of Africa, Asia, and Europe. Starting with the Neolithic Revolution, the course examines the transition to agriculture as a major transition in human society and the foundation for the development of civilization. Students study the history of human civilization as a series of phases, including river-valley civilizations, classical civilizations, faith-based civilizations, the development of modern statehood, and the ages of industrialization, revolution, imperialism and decolonization. In each course unit, students study a sample civilization or society together as a group, and pursue independent research on a society from the same period. Throughout the course, students develop awareness of the role of government, religion, social class, gender roles and other constitutive factors in human societies; as well as how to use these categories to make meaningful comparisons. Students develop and hone their skills in historical interpretation, independent research, oral presentation, and analytical writing.

This class is designed to approach the field of economics from an historical perspective. The course will begin with an investigation into the major online platforms that control so much world commerce at the moment, investigating the functions and roles of Amazon, Meta, Twitter and the other major platforms we all use every day. We will also investigate economics in the news, and talk about the current big trends in the field, behavioral economics, cryptocurrencies and the current state of organized labor in America today. From our first unit on the modern day, we will continue with a history of the major economic ideas that have shaped the systems in which we live, delve into the conflict between communism and capitalism that characterized the 20th century and the economic crises that have shaped the last 20 years. From there, we will continue with an in depth study of globalization, culminating with individual, argumentative projects on the pros and cons of globalization.

This course will examine the history of American women in a chronological order, starting with the experience of Native American women and moving into the history of women in the colonial period, using the book A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 and Book of Ages, the Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin. From there we will move into the 19th century and the experiences of women in industry, the domestic sphere, enslavement, western expansion and politics.  We will also look at the origins and failures of the American Women's Movement from Seneca Falls to push for intersectional feminism that has characterized the last few years. We will examine the experiences of different communities of women throughout American history and provide students with an opportunity to pursue their own research into areas of their own personal interest or choice