History Undergraduate Courses and Descriptions - Fall 2026
HST 101 American History to 1865
This introductory course will survey American history from the pre-colonial era to the Civil War. We will approach this period of history through a discussion of three themes. The first covers the period from the founding down to the middle of the eighteenth century and focuses on how Europeans from a medieval culture became Americans. The second theme explores the political, social and economic impact the Revolution had upon American society. And finally, we will focus on the modernization of American society in the nineteenth century and how that modernization was a major factor in causing the sectional crisis.
In addition to the two lecture classes a week, you will attend a small discussion class taught by one of the teaching assistants once each week.
Concentration: U.S. / Period: Pre-Modern
HST 111 Early Modern Europe: 1350 to 1815
This course covers the history of Europe from the Black Death, which marked the end of the Middle Ages, to the French Revolution – the beginning of the modern world. While it will cover the major events of the period – the Renaissance, the Reformation, the English, French and scientific revolutions, the rise and fall of Napoleon, the growth of the modern state – the emphasis will be on changes in the lives of ordinary men and women. There will be a midsemester, a final, and two short (c. 5 page) papers.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-modern
HST 121 Global History to 1750
This course introduces students to global history from the thirteenth century through 1750 by focusing on social, economic, political, intellectual, and religious developments in major regions of the world: Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas. Beginning with the Mongol’s Eurasian empire, their transformation of the continent, and the spread of Islamic empires from Central Asia to the Atlantic, it traces the historical patterns of different world regions in the fifteenth century through the trans-Atlantic slave trade and European imperialism. What types of exchanges were facilitated by maritime trade and trade diasporas? How were human interactions with their environment circumscribed by climate change and disease? The latter part of the course looks at global connections and local particularities facilitated by the spread of Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. Course themes include empire, disease, environment, slavery, religion, state-formation, and the rise of global trade. Topics will be covered thematically in general chronological order. Lectures will be supplemented by maps, visual materials, music, documentaries and films. All students are required to attend lectures and one discussion a week.
Concentration: Global / Period: Pre-modern
HST/MES 208 Middle East Since the Rise of Islam
This course is an introductory survey of Middle East history from the rise of Islam in the seventh century to 1900. There are no pre-requisites, and no prior knowledge of the Middle East is expected. We will discuss the origins of Islam, and aspects of major Islamic empires such as the Umayyads (7th-8th centuries), the Abbasids (8th-13th centuries), the Fatimids (10th-12th centuries) with greater focus on the Ottomans (14th-20th centuries). In approaching this long history, which unfolded over a vast geography from the Iberian Peninsula and West Africa to Central and South Asia, we will not confine our study to high politics but will also explore intellectual, cultural and social issues such as gender relations, sectarianism, consumerism (coffee, tulips!), gossip and disease. We will also learn how to critically read documentary and material historical traces in order to understand how historical knowledge is constructed as well as the tensions between popular memory and written history.
Concentration: Global / Period: Pre-modern
HST 213 Africa: Ancient Times to 1800
This course is a survey of pre-modern African history, presenting an overview of the main themes and chronology of the development of African culture and society. It provides an exposition of the regional and continental diversity and unity in African political, economic, social and cultural histories with special emphasis on major African civilizations, processes of state formation, encounters with the Euro-Asia world, Africa’s role in the international Trans-Saharan, Indian Ocean and Atlantic trades, ecology, and urbanization.
Concentration: Global / Period: Pre-modern
HST 300 The Cold War in Latin America
This course explores the history of revolutions and counterrevolutions in twentieth century Latin America, an epoch that witnessed unprecedented levels of social uprisings followed by political violence. We examine the ways in which class, gender, race, and ethnicity shape revolutionary actors and movements. As we consider the local, country-specific dimensions of the Cold War, we will also explore the impact of regional and global dynamics. We will examine diverse revolutionary experiences, from Mexico to Central America and the Southern Cone, as we analyze how the state and transnational actors responded to such momentous changes. Countries such as Chile and Argentina experienced significant upheavals during the 1960s and 1970s, but also disturbing levels of state violence and repression made more deadly by the use of new technologies. Some of the central questions that motivate this course include: how do we understand the complex dynamics of revolution and counterrevolution in Latin America? What has been the role of local, regional, and transnational actors in fomenting both? How has the Latin American left transformed throughout the century? What are the legacies of the Cold War in Latin America? To understand the lived experiences of the Cold War, we will work with declassified CIA documents, translated primary sources, murals, posters, music, and more.
Concentration: Global / Period: Modern
HST 300 Football, Fußball, Fútbol: Modern European History Through Soccer
Today, European soccer represents a €38 billion industry. Major tournaments draw staggering audiences: Euro 2024 reached over 5 billion viewers globally. These numbers underscore how deeply embedded the sport is in European economic life and collective identity. This course explores modern European history through the lens of the continent's most popular sport. We'll examine how the sport intersected with industrialization, nationalism, fascism, Cold War divisions, migration, and European integration. Topics will include the English Premier League, German Bundesliga and Spanish La Liga as economic and cultural powerhouses of their nations; football under totalitarian regimes; hooliganism and class identity; the Bosman ruling and EU labor law; and the globalization of European clubs. Through match reports, memoirs, films, and historical analysis, students will discover how a simple game became intertwined with questions of identity, power, and belonging. No prior knowledge of football required: just curiosity about European history.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern
HST 300 Antisemitism in US History
What is antisemitism? How and in what contexts has it appeared in the United States? How, if at all, does it resemble other forms of white nationalism? How, if at all, does it resemble antisemitism elsewhere? This course addresses these questions through analysis of anti-Jewish discrimination in the United States between the colonial period and the present, exploring different thematic dimensions of anti-Jewish bigotry, discrimination, and violence. Probing anti-Jewish practices and discourses, you will learn to identify representations of Jews as “others;” determine the origins and sources of anti-Jewish sentiments and policies; analyze similarities and differences between anti-Jewish bigotry and racism and xenophobia; and consider how, if at all, expressions of antisemitism have changed over time in the United States.
Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern
HST 300 Economic History of Africa Since 1500
This course analyzes economic trends in Africa from circa 1500 to today. The focus is on the qualitative development of various African sectors such as trade, agriculture, mining, tax regimes, labor regimes, development, oil economies, to mention just a few. It includes an analysis of economic frameworks within which these sectors have evolved, as well as understanding the roles of certain historical agencies in shaping these sectors, notably African peoples/communities, African states—precolonial, colonial, and post-colonial—as well as international/external factors such as Western imperialism and capitalism, global markets/demands, global conflicts, Global Financial Institutions, and international aid.
Concentration: Global / Period: Modern
HST 300 Fascist Axis: Mussolini and Hitler
This course examines the political relationship between Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. For over two decades, these two dictators influenced each other profoundly, such that their formal political alliance, the Rome–Berlin Axis, contributed to the outbreak of the Second World War. Rather than focusing primarily on the dictators’ personalities, the course explores how the Fascist and Nazi regimes managed the political, public, and ideological dimensions of the Mussolini–Hitler relationship. The course also uses fascism—a term invented by Mussolini but used to describe both regimes—as an analytical framework. Although most scholars classify the two dictatorships as "fascist," the Italian Fascists and German National Socialists themselves did not always agree with this characterization. To understand these tensions, students will learn about contemporary and scholarly definitions of fascism, and the ways that Mussolini and Hitler responded to comparisons between their regimes. Grades will be based on class discussions, in-class exams and quizzes, and several papers, including a research paper.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern
HST 300 / LIT 346 – Mystics, Knights, and Drunks: Introduction to Medieval Literatures
This course introduces students to the surprising width and depth of medieval literature from the Mediterranean and Western Europe, debunking a great deal of commonly held assumptions, such as that these times were ’dark ages’, obsessed with life-denying religiosity, and full of valiant crusaders. Instead, we will discover the cosmopolitan nature of many texts and authors, we will engage with the political and social – at times remarkably advanced - aspects of medieval literatures and indulge in some really great humor.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-Modern
HST 301 Practicum in the Study of History
What is History? How do scholars “do” history? This seminar introduces history majors to the methods and goals of historical study, and to the skills needed to conduct independent historical research. The first part of the course will be spent discussing what exactly history is and has been. We will then move on to discussing the kinds of history that have developed across the century in the American Historical profession. Finally, students will spend a large portion of the course familiarizing themselves with the analytical and practical skills needed to develop their own research projects.
HST 303 The Age of American Revolution
The anti-colonial movement that birthed the United States of America is often referred to as ‘the’ American Revolution. Yet in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, republican, anti-colonial, and anti-slavery movements animated and divided colonial subjects in British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies throughout the Americas. What are some of the factors that gave rise to these movements, and what were their consequences? Why did some people choose not to participate in revolution, and what became of them? How did republican and loyalist actors and ideologies circulate throughout the Americas, and how did they affect the recently-founded United States of America? Why have some movements been termed ‘revolutions’ while others are labelled ‘rebellions’ or ‘insurgencies?’ What constitutes a revolution? How were eighteenth- and nineteenth-century revolutionary movements portrayed as they occurred, and how and why have they been remembered? By focusing on the circulations of and responses to both revolutionary and loyalist ideologies and actors, this course highlights connections that transcended the borders of empire during what historians often refer to as ‘the age of revolutions.’
Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern
HST 304 The Age of Jefferson and Jackson
This course examines the period between 1787 and 1848 as a distinctive era in United States history. From the adoption of the Federal constitution to the Mexican war and the Gold Rush, the early American republic offers a vivid case study in historical irony: how a revolutionary republic inched towards nationalism and imperialism; how declared principles of liberty and equality could coexist with (and occasionally create new modes of) racial, gendered, and economic oppression and inequality; how a people who praised the virtues of rural life became progressively urban and industrial. Readings and lectures will juxtapose the traditional scholarly focus on statecraft, presidential politics, and diplomacy with more recent research in social, cultural, and economic history.
Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern
HST 311 Medieval Civilization
This course explores European civilization from about 800 to about 1200. We will study kings, saints, and villains; faith and violence, love and hatred; ideas and beliefs. Our questions include: how did these people make sense of their world? How did they respond to crisis and opportunity? How did their civilization work? What was lifelike in medieval Europe? To answer these questions, we will mainly read primary sources that show us what medieval people themselves had to say about their world. Our goal will be to understand the past on its own terms. We will also emphasize the skills of close reading, strong argumentation, and clear expression of ideas.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-modern
HST 315 Europe in the Age of Hitler and Stalin
This course covers the major political, social, and cultural developments in Europe during the period of the two world wars. During this era, liberal democracy and capitalism failed, authoritarian and totalitarian dictatorships proliferated, and, ultimately, political violence and warfare obliterated European civilization. In order to understand these developments, we will focus on themes such as political ideology, class conflict, racism, gender, the persecution of “internal enemies” and social outsiders, violence, and Europe’s general “crisis of modernity.”
Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern
HST 320 Traditional China
In this course we will survey Chinese history from earliest times to the end of the Ming dynasty in 1644. This seemingly remote time witnessed the formation of a complex government and society whose influence extended to much of East Asia. Ranging over the centuries, the class will explore some of the main currents in Chinese political, cultural, social, and intellectual history. These include: Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, and Legalism as competing and sometimes intersecting philosophies; the imperial system and major changes in its form over time; the changing roles of women in society; popular rebellion and heterodox religion; and the place of science and technology in the Chinese past.
Concentration: Global / Period: Pre-modern
HST 322 Colonial Latin America
Latin America had the world’s longest experience with colonialism, which in some areas lasted from 1500 almost to 1900. It was the first place where Native Americans met Europeans, and their often violent and exploitative but also creative contact helped shape distinct multi-ethnic and multi-cultural societies. Latin America had both the earliest and most prolonged experience with African slavery. This course will examine the period from pre-Columbian times to 1825. We will concentrate on six main themes. First, we examine Europeans’ violent conquest of indigenous societies and subsequent efforts to impose Christianity and other cultural values on the conquered even as they exploited them economically. Second, the course highlights the continuing and partially successful efforts of Native Americans to resist or modify European cultural and economic impositions. Third, we explore the introduction and expansion of African labor, the experiences and resistance of African Americans, and the eventual end of African slavery in Latin America. Fourth, we trace Spanish and Portuguese colonial institutions. Fifth, we analyze gender in colonial Latin American societies, and finally, we will cover the efforts of diverse Latin Americans to build independent nations. This course requires no prior knowledge of Latin America. We will work with primary sources such as Spanish and Indigenous accounts of conquest, maps, court records, and more.
Concentration: Global / Period: Modern
HST 332 African American History: Through the 19th Century
This course will chart and examine the political, economic, cultural, and social history of African Americans from pre-colonial Africa to their involvement in the U.S. Civil War. The course focuses particular attention on the interracial significance of gender, class and skin color in the Black experience, as well as the pervasive impact of individual and institutional racism. Through class readings, lecture-discussions, films, and a three-phase essay project, students will gain a broader understanding of the persons, places and events that comprise African American history prior to Reconstruction. Furthermore, students will be able to better analyze and interpret those events in an effort to seek an understanding of their larger significance. Students will also work directly with both primary and secondary sources as they take part in the process of writing African American history.
Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern
HST 341/PSC 329 Modern American Presidency
This course analyzes the evolution of the modern presidency and its present operation. The focus of our attention will be on the years since 1960. The decision-making process and operation of presidential administrations from Nixon to Trump will be studied in particular detail. We shall consider the various roles that the president plays in government, politics, and society. We will examine the presidency as an institution and as an individual office to identify factors that have contributed to the successes and failures of particular administrations. This course also shall examine the roles and influence of unelected officials (especially senior White House staff), and popular attitudes toward both the symbolic and the practical presidency—particularly as they have been shaped by the traditional and “new” media. We will consider what lasting effects, if any, events during the past quarter century have had on the presidency as an institution. Finally, we will leave plenty of space for discussion of breaking news and unexpected developments, especially those related to the 2024 election.
Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern
HST 347 Modern American Politics Through Film
In this course we will examine major themes in the political consciousness and popular culture of modern America, as they are reflected in contemporary films. The focus will be both on particular events and movements and on more generalized and persistent concerns (discrimination, alienation and depersonalization, authoritarianism, violence, gender, sexuality, bureaucratization, corruption). We shall be examining “politics” broadly understood, through the lens of popular culture. The goal is to explore a range of movies as ways of interrogating how Americans understand themes of power, intersectionality, conflict and consensus. This class differs from most at SU in that it is intergenerational. In addition to those enrolled for credit , participants will include approximately ten people from Oasis, a program for “mature learners” (generally, retired professionals and businesspeople) in the Syracuse community. Their lived experiences and perspectives on both the movies and the themes the y illuminate will be a major component of what this course is all about. HONORS ONLY
Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern
HST 352 History of Ancient Greece
Students in this course will examine the intellectual, social, military, economic, and political history of Greece from the origin of Greek-speaking peoples to the creation, evolution, and downfall of the Greek City-State.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-Modern
HST 354 / LIT 300 – Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
At its height in the second century CE, Rome was one of the most powerful states the world had ever seen. By the sixth century, however, the Western part of the Roman world had fractured into a number of smaller kingdoms and the Empire’s Eastern half was forced to reinvent itself, away from the West. The question of how to interpret these dramatic changes and the literary products generated in this time has occupied ancient historians and literary scholars alike. This class will examine the political, social, reli-gious, and literary transformations of the Roman world, west and east. We will not only focus upon the political, military, and social changes that accompanied Rome’s decline, but also devote attention to the impact that these developments had on the lives of individual Romans. We will discuss such themes as the relationship between paganism and Christianity, the impact of social and political change on daily life, and role of violence in the lives of Romans. Students will come to appreciate both the variety of source materials that historians and literary scholars use to analyze details of ancient life and thought, and the challenges that these materials can present.
Concentration: Europe / Pre-Modern
HST 358 Democracy Ancient and Modern
Let’s go on an exciting intellectual adventure! We will study what is probably the most important, and elusive, political idea in human history: democracy. We will see that it began life in ancient Greece (in Athens, to be precise), but that both the idea and the practice of democracy have changed radically over the centuries leading up to our own times.
Concentration: Global / Period: Pre-Modern/Modern
HST 360 Modern France from Napoleon
This class examines France from the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century to the historically recent revolution of 1968. It explores the multiple paths that the French took to work out the problems and contradictions of their revolutionary heritage. What kind of republicanism and democracy did the French Revolution of 1789 establish? How was Napoleon a child of the Revolution? How did the French understand equality, liberty, civilization, and the nation through the nineteenth century, and what were the implications of these definitions for people of different races, classes, and sexes in France, its colonies, the Mediterranean and Atlantic worlds? What were the relationships between republicanism, monarchy and imperialism in 19th century France? What were the effects of World Wars One and Two on French democracy? Why did the French opt out of republicanism, and how were communism, socialism, and fascism seen and adopted as viable alternatives? What anxieties did the world wars and decolonization prompt, and how did the French redefine themselves in the latter half of the 20th century? This class will study how French republican ideals of equality, liberty, and civilized virtues co-existed with, enhanced, and challenged movements like imperialism, fascism, terror, colonization, de-colonization, and revolution. It will examine the intersection of political, intellectual, philosophical and cultural movements. Texts include political treatises, documents on foreign policies, novels, films, music, and secondary sources.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern
HST 364 The Origins of Modern Russia
The Russian Empire emerged relatively late in the modern era, but it quickly rose to dizzying heights of military power, cultural prestige, and influence on international politics. Powerful rulers like Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great, literary giants like Alexander Pushkin and Fyodor Dostoevsky, radical socialists like Alexander Herzen and Vladimir Lenin – these figures placed Russia at the center of trends that transformed European society for five hundred years. Yet by the end of the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire was in the midst of a period of precipitous decline, which led to the collapse of the 300-year-old Romanov dynasty during the First World War. This course examines the history of Russia from the emergence of the Tsarist autocratic system in the 1400s to the revolutions of 1917, focusing on the Russian state, serfdom, the Russian intellectual tradition, Russia’s imperial policies, and nineteenth-century working-class activism. We will also examine the lived experiences of various social groups within the Empire, including peasants, urban women, ethnic minorities, factory workers, and the intelligentsia.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern
HST 370 American Military History
Is there, as some historians have claimed, a distinctive ‘American way of war’ traceable over the four centuries since the beginning of the European colonization of North America? If so, what are its characteristics, how has it changed over time, and what does it reveal about a peculiar American attitude to state violence and the relationship between military and civilian society? In this course, we will examine the ‘small’ and ‘big’ wars of the United States from the colonial period to the ongoing campaigns in Afghanistan and Syria. Class meetings will be a mixture of lectures and discussion. Students will complete primary and secondary source readings. Assessment will be based on class discussion and several reading and writing assignments.
Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern
HST 379 Race, Gender and Colonialism
This course explores the centrality of gender (ideas about what it means to be a man or woman, understandings of masculinity and femininity) and race (whether biological, cultural, or otherwise) in France, England, and their colonial empires. The focus is the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will examine the hierarchies and presumptions that justified colonial occupation, domination, and exploitation, and the ways they infused politics, science, literature, and the arts in shaping world systems that endure to this day.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern
HST 386 Crime and Society in US History
This course focuses on the history of crime and criminal justice in the United States from the colonial period to the present. We will consider the ways in which the state encouraged order among its constituents, as well as the ways that people defied the norms established by law. Students will examine how industrialization, immigration, urbanization, emancipation, and war transformed American society, causing the breakdown of older forms of social control, such as religion, while producing significant discontented and dispossessed populations.
Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern
HST 393 East Asia and the Socialist Experience
Examines the adoption of socialism in East Asia. Historical account of how socialist China, Mongolia, North Korea and Vietnam arose, developed, “failed” and responded to globalization in the 20th century.
Concentration: Global / Period: Modern
HST 401 Research Seminar in Civil War History
Research techniques in the use of source material and historical evidence and preparation of original research paper related to the Civil War.
Concentration: U.S. Period: Modern
HST 401 China in Western Minds
This course examines the history of Western attitudes towards China. In particular, we will focus on experts: the relatively small group of individuals we have relied upon for our knowledge of China. Among their numbers have been journalists, historians, missionaries, fiction writers, poets, and philosophers. Some have been famous, such as Pearl Buck and Marco Polo; and some infamous, such as the forger Sir Edmund Backhouse. One famous expert even boasted he’d never been to China. Why, he asked, should he permit the real China to interfere with the more glorious China of his mind? How experts have seen China has been determined in some sense by how they wanted to see it, and by how they wanted to convey it to the people back home. Students choose a China expert to research in depth, and prepare a substantial research paper based on original sources.
Concentration: Global / Period: Modern
400-level History classes are the same as our 300-level classes. Please do not be deterred from registering for HST 400’s just because the numbers are new!
HST 427 Native America and the World: The Haudenosaunee
Native Americans occupy a very romanticized and nostalgic space in the American imagination. For centuries, American popular culture has written Native peoples out of existence, painting them as people of the past, who either could not or would not adapt to the changing world around them. Envisioned in such a static manner, Native peoples are seldom if ever thought of in an international context. This course seeks to recenter the Native American experience in United States history by focusing on the numerous ways that the Haudenosaunee have interacted with the world outside of North America from the era of early colonialism to the present day. We will explore the long history of the Haudenosaunee from the creation story and the forming of the League of Six Nations to the present day. This course will focus primarily on the issue of Haudenosaunee sovereignty and the effects of the Doctrine of Discovery, especially in connection to countries outside of North America. We will cover such topics as colonialism, inter-imperial wars, Haudenosaunee diplomacy with imperial metropoles, international 2 commerce, Haudenosaunee interactions with the United Nations, the sport of Lacrosse, Haudenosaunee representation in film and television, Haudenosaunee contributions to foreign wars, and the problems with Haudenosaunee nations and the US-Canada border.
Concentration: US/Europe / Period: Pre-Modern/Modern
HST 428 Native America from Pre-Colonialism to 1830
This course is part one of the Native North American Survey. Spanning from the pre-colonial era to the Indian Removal Act of 1830, this course will take a chronological approach to Native North America to understand how major historical events and themes connect the past to the present. This is mostly a discussion-based course with major topics including Native sovereignty and self-determination, cultural conflict, the Doctrine of Discovery, international/inter-imperial warfare, settler colonialism, Native survivance, and other forms of Native resistance and cultural perseverance.
Concentration: US / Period: Pre-Modern/Modern
HST 431: Absent Presence: History of Palestine
A history of Palestine and Palestinians from the nineteenth century to the present. It begins with Palestinian urban experiences, village histories, and family life in the late Ottoman era. We will then turn to nationalist movements, and anti-colonial resistance under the British Mandate before covering Palestinian histories over the remainder of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. This will include the experiences of Palestinians with occupation whether in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Palestinian refugees, Palestinians living inside the Green Line, and in the diaspora. Topics also include women and gender, human rights and international law, poetry, fiction, and film.
Concentration: Global / Period: Modern