History

• CAS HI 321: The American Revolution, 1750-1800
  The course examines the American Revolution and America's dramatic war for independence, situating these struggles within broader changes in the society and the Atlantic world. The course also shows how Americans struggled, often violently, to create a stable republic in the aftermath of these truly revolutionary upheavals. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Historical Consciousness.
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  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS HI 322: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire
  Examines early modern Britain's global expansion, with a focus on the British isles and the American colonies. Explains how economic growth and imperial warfare shaped Britain and her colonies, and probes the causes of the empire's collapse in 1776. This course cannot be taken for credit in addition to the course titled "Colonial British America from Settlement to Revolution" that was previously numbered CAS HI 322. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Critical Thinking
• CAS HI 328: The Civil War Era
  What led to the US Civil War and how did Americans, North and South, black and white, male and female, experience this central cataclysm? What were its consequences and what has been its legacy? Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Historical Consciousness.
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  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS HI 329: The Gilded Age, 1877-1914
  Examines the economic, social, cultural and political transformation from the end of the Reconstruction until 1914. Specific focus on the industrial revolution, foreign policy, the nation state, the metropolis, and conflicts that emerged in American society during the Gilded Age.
• CAS HI 331: Drugs and Security in the Americas
  (Meets with CAS IR 290). Drug trafficking is one of the greatest threats to security and stability in the Americas. In this class, we study how drug trafficking became such an immense problem and why it has been so difficult to solve. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Ethical Reasoning.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Ethical Reasoning
• CAS HI 335: Nuclear Governance
  Examines how states administer their nuclear weapons and energy programs at the domestic and international levels. Explores the bureaucracies, military services, and government officials responsible for creating and maintaining nuclear weapons and energy. Also offered as CAS IR 315 and CAS PO 358. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I, Writing- Intensive Course.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Social Inquiry I
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS HI 336: World War I
  Covers the causes, course, and consequences of the Great War. Topics include nationalism, imperial ideologies, propaganda, mass mobilization, genocide, grand strategy, operational history, and convergent construction of "war states" capable of waging total war. Also explores the rich literature of World War I.
• CAS HI 337: America in Depression and War, 1890 to 1945
  Examines how the modern United States was forged in the economic depressions of the 1890s and 1930s, and shaped by imperial and global ambitions beginning with the Spanish-American War and culminating with World War I and World War II.
• CAS HI 338: REPRESSION, REVOLUTION, ROCK N? ROLL: US in 1950s & 1960s
  Repression, Revolution, Rock n' Roll: few periods shaped American society, culture and politics as dramatically and enduringly as the 1950s and 1960s, transforming institutions, life experiences, the nation's rile in the world, and the ways Americans thought about social problems and political activism. Topics include: Cold War, McCarthyism, Civil Rights, Vietnam, Campus Protest, Counterculture Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry II, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Social Inquiry II
  • Research and Information Literacy
• CAS HI 339: A History of the Present: The United States since 1968
  Analyzing the recent experience of the United States and its people in historical perspective, the course allows students to explore important developments in US politics, race relations, economy, and popular culture, investigate diverse social science approaches to contemporary problems, and develop an independent research project. Topics include war, politics, religion, and popular culture as well as changing notions about race, gender, and selfhood. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry II, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Social Inquiry II
  • Research and Information Literacy
• CAS HI 343: Taste, Culture, and Power: The Global History of Food
  An exploration of the global history of food from prehistory to the present, considering the birth of agriculture, food in nations and empires, hunger and nutrition, and the future of eating, including examples from Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Digital/Multimedia Expression, Creativity/Innovation.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Digital/Multimedia Expression
  • Creativity/Innovation
• CAS HI 346: History of International Human Rights
  Meets with CAS IR 348. History of international human rights since the eighteenth century. Examines political, social, economic rights, the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and related international conventions, enforcement, regionalism, globalization, and NGOs. Analyzes tensions between national sovereignty and human rights.
• CAS HI 347: Bodies, Drugs, and Healing: A Global History of Medicine
  An introduction to the history of medicine in global contexts, offering a broad perspective on the ways that bodies, healers, drugs, and health have been conceptualized, from antiquity to the present day, in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Ethical Reasoning.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Ethical Reasoning
• CAS HI 348: Colonialism in Africa: Impact and Aftermath
  Uses case studies of particular African societies or nations to examine patterns of European conquest and African resistance; forms of colonial administration and socioeconomic consequences of colonial rule; decolonization and contemporary African liberation movements; economic and political developments since independence; and contemporary social and cultural change.
• CAS HI 349: History of Religion in Precolonial Africa
  The study of the development of religious traditions in Africa during the period prior to European colonialism. An emphasis on both indigenous religions and the growth and spread of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the continent as a whole. Also offered as CAS AA 382 and CAS RN 382. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Historical Consciousness.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
• CAS HI 350: Atlantic History
  Examines the various interactions that shaped the Atlantic World, connecting Europe, Africa, and the Americas between 1400 and 1820. Begins by defining the political interaction, then emphasizes cultural exchange, religious conversion, and the revolutionary era.
• CAS HI 351: Environmental History of Africa
  Focus on the African environment and ecological systems over the past 150 years. Topics include climate change, hydrography, agriculture, deforestation, soil erosion, disease, conservation, famine, and the role of colonialism and government policy in environmental change. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Scientific Inquiry II, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Scientific Inquiry II
  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • Research and Information Literacy
• CAS HI 352: Power, Leadership, and Governance in Africa and the Caribbean
  Haitian Revolution; British Caribbean, leadership, governance, and power in Africa during the period of legitimate trade; visionaries, dictators, and nationalist politics in the Caribbean; chiefs, western elites, and nationalism in colonial Africa; road to governance in post-colonial Caribbean and Africa. Also offered as CAS AA 395 and IR 394.
• CAS HI 358: Twentieth-Century European Thought and Culture
  This course treats artistic, musical, literary, political, and philosophical works historically. Among its large themes are modernism and the discovery of the unconscious, the cultural effects of both World Wars, democracy and its critics, totalitarian culture, existentialism, and postmodernism. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Historical Consciousness.
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  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS HI 360: European Dimensions of the Black Diaspora
  Explores writings about the Black experience in Europe since the 1800s through examinations of historical and literary works, artistic and folkloric depictions, as well as politics and sports in England, France, Germany, Russia, and the Netherlands. Also offered as CAS AA 380.

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