About HST 4690 A
Topics examining the interconnected history of Europe and the Americas. Representative topic: World's Fairs. May repeat for credit with different content. Topics vary by offering; periodic offering at intervals that may exceed four years. Credit not awarded for both HST 4690 and HST 5500 or HST 5700. Prerequisite: Twelve hours of History; minimum Junior standing.
Notes
Prerequisite: 12 hours History; Minimum Junior standing; Co-located with Hst 5100 A; Total combined enrollment = 18; Graduate students register for Hst 5100 A PACE students by permission and override Course meets in Wheeler 202
Section Description
This seminar has an unusual organizing principle. Most History seminars focus on a relatively narrow issue or event or time period. This one, however, is characterized not by its concentration on a small matter but by its concentration on big matters. It is built, in one sense, not around no theme at all but rather around books and articles and think-tank reports that I have encountered over the last several years by thinkers who are shaping contemporary debates on the state of the nation and the world. Some are more explicitly historical than others: Niall Ferguson’s The Ascent of Money looks at the history of capitalism; Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels takes up the question of violence as part of the human condition; Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan calls our attention to randomness in history and the importance of unlikely events with immense consequences. Other reading will address the science and politics of climate change, the effect of family structure on socio-economic outcomes. The Idealist investigates the knotty problem of international development, while Acemoglu and Robinson, nobel laureates, lay out a model of Why Nations Fail. Etc. Reading, thinking, writing, discussing. That is the plan.
Prerequisites: Twelve credits History, Junior Standing; Grad Students Register for HST 5100A
Important Dates
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Resources
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