Course Catalog

Studies France's development from a provincial peasant society, hampered by weak governments and enduring colonial wars, to a technologically sophisticated industrial democracy and a major international power. Studies France's cultural, social, and economic contexts, evolving party system, and institutions and policy-making processes to better understand this phenomenal change and its consequences for France's role in the world. The ability to read in French will facilitate research, but is not required.

Focuses on causes and consequences of European military conflicts and the historical transformations resulting from peace settlements. Examines the European Wars of Religion, the Napoleonic wars, the Franco-Prussian War, the Treaty of Portsmouth, the Paris Peace Conference and the Versailles Treaty as well as World War Two and the Yalta Conference. The approach is interdisciplinary, combining history and political science.

The rise of the Atlantic world after 1500 generated cities of unrivaled cultural, economic and political power. Replacing the previously dominant form of the Mediterranean city-state, London, Paris and Madrid became the centers of an Atlantic world which formed the core of the first world system. This course will examine the rise of these cities from the perspective of state building, urban culture, urban revolt, the growth of the Atlantic economy and the responses to these processes through urban planning and city government.

Democracy has been spreading around the globe - but not everywhere. When and why do stable democracies emerge? Taking a comparative perspective with an emphasis on Europe and the Americas, this course examines the links between Democracy and Social Change. It analyzes how democracy is related to socioeconomic development and shifting class structures, whether it is associated with cultural change, and how globalization affects the future of democracy.